For regular readers of this section, you might remember a letter
that was sent recently accusing the San Juan School flag football
team of being sexist. In that letter, the writer accused our coach
of saying several sexist things to many of the girls. I will say
that those accusations were only partly true. I don’t deny that he
told some girls they were not allowed to come to our practices, but
that was only because he could get in trouble if he let them
stay.
For regular readers of this section, you might remember a letter that was sent recently accusing the San Juan School flag football team of being sexist. In that letter, the writer accused our coach of saying several sexist things to many of the girls. I will say that those accusations were only partly true. I don’t deny that he told some girls they were not allowed to come to our practices, but that was only because he could get in trouble if he let them stay.
I have never seen any evidence that the two girls who are the most worried about this issue even care about playing football. The eighth grade receives two breaks during the course of the day, a 15 minute break in the morning, and a 45 minute lunch break. The latter is the time we spend practicing each day. We are allowed to do what we want in the morning and the boys, of course, play football. The girls never play with us. It would seem that if the girls really cared about playing football, they would come and play in the morning. They seem more concerned about raising controversy than actually playing.
The letter writer claimed it would be a good idea to start a girls flag football league. Wouldn’t this take an enormous amount of time and energy by the schools of San Benito County? Other schools would have to create girls teams as well.
This issue did not arise until halfway through the season. If it had come up before the season had started, it might have been better addressed. There may not be girls football, but there are plenty of other opportunities for girls to play sports at San Juan School.
Zach Johnson,
San Juan Bautista
