Thursday high school football unfair and stupid

WHAT PART OF “student” athlete does NMAA and APS athletics not understand (when) scheduling the “let’s flunk athletes” high school football schedule this fall? How can any school administration allow this schedule to stand as weeks of disrupted education directly conflict with the student learning process?

There are 19 Thursday night games. According to the NFL, Thursday games are more injury-prone because of less consistent practice time. As important is the classroom-difficult educational disruption of a Thursday game on the team, cheerleaders, drill team and the band, with increased Friday absences.

In addition, many football teams have a higher percentage of special education students, exacerbating the problem.

Yet, three high schools are playing four Thursday games and another five schools play three Thursdays this fall. Albuquerque HS, Eldorado HS, and La Cueva HS suffer through four weeks of educational disruption. Clearly Sandia HS, Volcano Vista HS, and Del Norte HS are being favored by APS athletics with only one Thursday game.

(And at Rio Rancho Public schools), poor Cleveland HS will be dealing with three Thursday games vs, Rio Rancho HS with only one. That is a grossly unfair disadvantage for Cleveland.

Is it really that hard to schedule an early and late SATURDAY game at the three APS stadiums to completely eliminate Thursday games, while increasing educational class time? APS athletics and the NMAA deserve a Thursday afternoon detention for flunking math if they do not revise this schedule.

RANDY ROGERS Albuquerque