Worrying about youth football safety isn’t racism

It is absurd that the head of St. Frances Academy accuses local high schools that won’t schedule football games against them as racist (“Explaining the St. Frances-MIAA football situation so far,” June 5). Three of the schools, Loyola Blakefield, Calvert Hall and Mount Saint Joseph, are Catholic schools that teach equality, have been integrated for decades, and have black students playing on their athletic teams against other teams on which many, if not all, of the student athletes that are not white. That’s today’s world.

I attended Mount Saint Joe and graduated in 1959. Often, I would stay on Friday afternoons in the fall to watch our football team that won more than they lost but was seldom league champion. One game I recall was against Patterson, a perennial winner with bigger players then other teams. As usual, Patterson was smacking the Gaels all over the field that day. Seeing no hope of a win, I went home early. My father asked how the game went. I told him I left early since Patterson was pushing the St. Joe team around. My father’s response was “your boys cannot beat their men.”

I had to agree with him. Then and now. Losing a game against a bigger, better team is no disgrace. Neither is trying to prevent injuries to smaller athletes and medical bills to their parents.

What is that old expression that applies here? The more things change, the more they stay the same.