Before school let out for summer vacation last June, optimism ran high at Weehawken High School that the school was going to add girls’ soccer as a varsity sport. A coach was hired. More than 30 young ladies expressed interest. There were pre-season workout sessions and a summer camp. A schedule of varsity games in the fall was secured and established.
It seemed perfect. Everything looked to be in proper order. A Group I school was adding a varsity sport, another positive extracurricular activity – and had the participation numbers in place to back it up. The sport, which is gaining in popularity, is also relatively inexpensive to run on the high school level – a dozen or so uniforms, a bag of balls and a coach. Perhaps cross country and track and field are the only cheaper sports to offer on the high school level.
But something happened on the way to soccer bliss – and no one seems to have the answers why. Weehawken will not offer girls’ varsity soccer this fall. Despite having a strong interest from students who wanted to play, and despite the sport’s inexpensive roots, school officials have decided against fielding a team this season and the schedule has been scrapped.
According to Weehawken athletic director Richard Terpak, the reason that the season has been canceled and the program has been scrapped is that Terpak didn’t officially make a presentation to the Board of Education, and the applications to seek permission to field a team this season were never submitted to the board in time to begin this season.
Terpak wouldn’t comment on the board’s decision to scrap the soccer idea. He only admitted that he made a mistake by not submitting the paperwork in time.
However, if that is the true reason, then it’s a pretty lame excuse.
It’s not every day that a school of Weehawken’s size can find participation numbers as high as 30 for any sport, even football. This was a golden opportunity for the school to offer its students another excellent and healthy extracurricular activity, and it was all tossed aside for some petty technicality? That doesn’t make sense in this corner’s opinion.
And if the rumors about the real reason why the school decided to drop the proposed program, political reasons, then that’s even more petty and childish.
Politics and sports never should intertwine, but sometimes, especially in Hudson County, they most certainly do. If this rumor is true, then this whole situation is even more bizarre, and the powers-that-be in Weehawken should be ashamed of themselves.
Because, in the long run, it’s not the coach who’s being spited or the politician’s ego that’s being ruffled and fluffed; it’s the girls who lose out of a healthy and fun experience, one that more than 30 girls were looking forward to…
Opened up last week’s editions of Sports Illustrated to read the article about Rutgers football, and halfway through the piece, look who’s being quoted by author Michael Farber? None other than Hoboken coach Ed Stinson, who said that former Rutgers coach Terry Shea didn’t know where Hoboken was, even if Shea was given directions, and that Shea’s staff didn’t know where the New Jersey Turnpike was.
Talk about making the big time. This isn’t some Hudson County weekly that Stinson is being quoted in. This is the immortal SI, the magazine with bikini-clad babes and national exposure – well, the girls don’t get exposed, er, fully.
But what Stinson said is true about Shea. The day he was hired at Rutgers, which was in the middle of the recruiting period, Shea had a chance to recruit the best high school football player in New Jersey at the time, namely Hoboken’s Rashard Casey, who still had not officially declared his intentions to go anywhere.
However, instead of making the journey to the Mile Square City to see if Casey might be interested in attending Rutgers, Shea got back on the plane and headed to California, where he was from, never even making the attempt to see Casey, who, as we all know, went on to Penn State. That was the first mistake Shea made in a series of mistakes at RU…
Speaking of Stinson, he was recently honored by the All-American Football Foundation as a recipient of the Gerald R. Ford All-American High School Coach Award, named in honor of the former President of the United States.
Stinson received his award at the foundation’s 52nd Banquet of Champions at the New York Hilton, where Stinson shared the dais with such luminaries as Hall of Fame football legend Frank Gifford, University of Miami coach Larry Coker, former Jet defensive tackle Marty Lyons, sports writer Mike Lupica and sports cartoonist Bill Gallo.
Stinson then went back to the rigors of getting his football team ready for the start of the upcoming season, which kicks off Sept. 11 against Ferris, headed by Stinson’s former player Wilbur Valdez… — Jim Hague