Dave Armet: Turf will Improve the Lives of Our Students

Selectwoman Anne O'Connor's passion for environmental issues certainly resonates. She paints quite an idealistic view of how she would like to see things evolve with regards to this turf field situation.

She takes a bold stance as she suggests curriculum be redone and questions the best way for Phys Ed classes to be carried out. Too bad she wasn’t at this year’s school open house where I truly left inspired after hearing the Phys-Ed department’s curriculum presentation. It wasn’t about sports and providing skills to help chase college scholarships or admission as Ms. O’Connor suggest is the motivation behind sports participation. It was about building confidence in young people, giving them a better sense of self-worth as they experience new physical skills, and providing them an opportunity to push themselves outside the ever shrinking comfort zone of today’s teenagers.

She also expresses concern about lying down or breathing while playing on a turf surface. This type of “citizen science” perpetuates the spread of misinformation that is unsubstantiated and untrue. I will limit my comments on this to offering up Brandolini’s Law which states “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to create it.” Enough said! . With regard to ingesting rubber pellets while playing on turf, where does this idea come from? Lunch is not being served on the surface. Crumb rubber is not part of the pre or post game snack. Personally I have been playing soccer on the local turf fields since they were first installed over 15 years ago. Over the years, I’ve certainly spit out a few bugs but NEVER once had a rubber pellet in my mouth. In your idealistic picture of the school choosing to not install this field you fail to consider the fact that we already play on turf. Members of your own opposition group watch their children play on turf fields. Two high schools in the county use a turf field for their home surface. Our school regularly reschedules games to local college turf fields. While I certainly commend you wanting to teach children to be more globally aware, I do not believe it should start with building a view based on a hypocritical message that says “we don’t want the turf on our campus, but are thankful it’s available on other campuses when we need it.”. With the growing number of games that get rescheduled off site in the spring, our children are continuously getting transported to home games on turf locations in a car full of teammates driven by a senior. We all know the parental anxiety associated with teen driving. I’m all in favor of limiting that exposure for the safety of our children. Your disapproval of our sports culture comes through loud and clear in your letter. There’s a tone to your letter that suggests athletes and parents with children involved in sports are somehow not concerned about the environmental issues that face our world. It just isn’t fair to use this turf field or those that support it as the villain in the environmental struggle. Where was this outcry when Solarize Williamstown was touting the benefits of solar energy? Did you look the other way or not even consider the huge waste and disposal issues facing the world when solar panels run their life span? More than likely you, like most of us, felt the pros outweighed the cons. With regards to this field there is a large contingent of this community with children at the school who feel the same way. I hope others can step back, take a good look at what having this turf field does to improve the lives of our students and not make the field out to be the villain in an effort to “make a difference.”

Dave Armet Parent of a MGRHS student