Woodstock CT Café

from June 15th, 2008

A half century of football memories recalled in the context of Academy athletic expansionism.

“It’s the bad fans and booster mentality that destroys the football experience … (and the) exploitation of the athletes by the school leadership to make money and remind themselves of their glorious childhoods … GLORIOUS IN THEIR OWN MINDS ONLY.”

I started to enjoy the game of football in high school. I went to every home game at Norwalk High and the final showdown at Danbury High my senior year. We never had a great team and we were usually demolished by Danbury in the final game of the season. But the year was 1960, November 24th, and Jerry Fishman was the senior fullback at NHS. Norwalk had only one play, Fishman up the middle. He ran the ball 50 times behind the right and left guards and tackles for 342 yards and Danbury could do nothing to stop him. It was an heroic effort that is still mentioned on the Internet.

The next time I saw Fishman was in a game on nationwide TV between Maryland and Navy. Jerry would run the same play up the middle against Navy, get tackled, get up from the pile, and run back knocking down his own teammates on the way back to the huddle. No doubt he was hated by his own team. The other memorable event of that game was Fishman standing on the 30 yard line giving the finger to the midshipman section in the stands.

After high school I continued to go to my college football home games at Bethany College in West Virginia (the “Small College of Extinction“). I think we had one above average year while I was there, but the thing that stands out the most in my memory was when a senior halfback was tackled on the sideline after making a decent run down the field. I can still hear his screams as players huddled around. His knee was twisted and crushed by the tackle. He never completely recovered from this crippling injury and was force to wear a metal brace to walk, probably for the rest of his life.

I went on to the University of Pittsburgh to work toward my Ph.D. in Biochemistry. I made a point of attending nearly every home game at the stadium next to the medical school where I was working. Read the rest of this entry »

by Kevin,

I think you are both right to some extent (JK and nanny). The chair’s position isn’t that of a CEO or president talking to his EC. That’s more the roll of Dr. Baran and his senior staff. However, it does have some power. For example, it does take a super majority (2/3) vote to add an item to the agenda once in meeting. If Mr. Walker decided an agenda item wasn’t going to be brought up, he does have a fair amount of power to keep it off the agenda. Having said that, I have seen no indication Mr. Walker will do this.

The chair also gives committee assignments. This can be changed via the will of the board (voting) but you would then have to publicly fight the chair. The default position is that he assigns them. Once again, I don’t have any indication that Mr. Walker will unfairly dole out committee assignments.

The chair can also choose the order of who speaks on an issue. This can be major if the chair wants to make sure that someone who supports his beliefs gets to make a motion he believes in first. Then it must be shot down before a competing motion can be voted on. That is a pretty major way to control the direction of the discussion because then you are discussing the merits of a particular motion. I don’t know if this will be a problem.

In my research into the position I’ve found that the common recommendation is for the chair to present himself as impartial, particularly during debate and not debate from the position of chair. This is because the chair does do what I mentioned above as well as making rulings as to the disposition of procedural disputes (which can still be appealed to the full board). The membership should have faith that the chair is making impartial decisions which is difficult when the chair is simultaneously pushing a position. Ms. Paul wasn’t in complete agreement with this and from what I’ve seen Mr. Walker is much less so. That is, from what I saw in one meeting he will use the position of chair as a pulpit to push his agenda. This is truly unfortunate as it will not serve the board well. Mr. Walker stated that he didn’t really know Robert’s rules yet and I hope as he studies them he will come to the conclusion that there are good reasons for the chair to maintain the appearance of impartiality.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.