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Not Losers : These Sidwell athletes of yesteryear were never taunted online.
The Fighting Quakers from Sidwell Friends aren’t putting up much of a fight lately.
If the school’s had a worse football season at any time in its 127-year history, nobody remembers it. The team is winless and has been outscored 373-43. Without the slaughter rule, intended to limit the humiliation suffered by somebody on the business end of a beating by directing the timekeeper to keep the game clock running once a team goes down by 35 points, the margins would have been a lot worse. It’s been invoked in every Sidwell game this year—not counting the one forfeit.
Sidwell went into Saturday’s game against Saint James, a boarding school outside Hagerstown, having lost the two previous weeks by a combined score of 95-0, and gave up a touchdown on Saint James’ first play from scrimmage. Coach John Simon tried to fire up his team by screaming “You gotta play football, not lacrosse!” at them. That didn’t work. Sidwell went down 38-0, thereby qualifying for slaughter-rule protections, when there were still about eight minutes left in the first half.
The final score was 51-12.
“It was really nice of [the Saint James coach] to take his players out at the half,” Simon said at game’s end. “Class act. We used to win here.”
Simon’s been with the football team since 1989, and is in his 14th season as head coach. His teams dominated Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference football a decade ago, as Sidwell won six straight league titles. He’s never gone through a season winless.
Times have changed. Some parents blame this season’s collapse on the administration for years of not paying attention to the football program; administrators attribute the downturn to students’ losing interest in Sidwell football last year while the home field was being rebuilt.
“The lack of home games meant football got no exposure on campus,” says first-year Head of School Tom Farquhar.
But to paraphrase the mother of one famous Sidwell alum, it takes a village to build a football program this horrible. The school was forced to do away with the junior varsity team for the 2010 season because only 30 kids went out for football this summer—nowhere near enough bodies to fill both JV and varsity rosters. The freshmen and sophomores who would have played JV went straight to varsity.
The team lost 10 players to injury, including all but two of the seniors, in the first two games of the season. And after taking a 61-6 pounding from some new Catholic outfit in Prince William County called Pope John Paul the Great, school officials ordered the forfeit of a game with Baltimore Lutheran, fearing the lack of upperclassmen could create dangerous mismatches against more mature opponents. There was some talk in Sidwell circles of cancelling the rest of the season after the forfeit. But Farquhar says he saw that sufficient safety precautions were in place—including post-game brain-function tests of all players to look for concussions—and decided that the hard times offered a season’s worth of teachable moments; the surviving players could learn valuable lessons “about perseverance” not available to kids on good or even mediocre squads.
Sidwell only brought 19 healthy players (including 9 freshmen), and about as many fans, to Saint James. No students showed up to cheer on the team. When an ambulance drove by the field during the game, some parents half-joked that they hoped the medics weren’t going too far away. (As it turned out, no Sidwell players had to visit Saint James’ infirmary.)
Sidwell’s never expected to be a football powerhouse. Its prestige comes from academics and from being the place where generations of D.C.’s most powerful people sent their spawn: Offspring of Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon and kin to the Clintons, Gores, Obamas, and Bidens.
The most talented sportsman to ever crack a book at Sidwell was basketballer Roger Mason. But the future University of Virginia star and NBA player left the school after his freshman year for the jockier pastures of Good Counsel High, now located in Olney.
Non-athletic pride used to be enough. One Sidwell alum remembers Fighting Quakers fans taunting visitors from less-bookwormy schools in the mid-1990s with chants of “Hooked on Phonics!” at sporting events. And at a basketball game in December 2008, students taunted fans from Maret in Woodley Park, a MAC rival and the runner-up to Sidwell in the competition for the Obama girls’ enrollment (and $32,000 tuition payments), with repeated calls of “Obama! Obama! Obama!”
But some segments of the Sidwell community are embarrassed with and peeved by the total collapse of the football program. In the Saint James visitors’ grandstand, fans talked among themselves about what can be done to make the team less slaughter-friendly. The football parents say they’ve been told by administrators that as many as 10 slots are open in this year’s sophomore class. They want athletic prowess to be given more weight during the admissions process, even if that means lessening academic and social requirements. That’s a change they could believe in.
“If they [make concessions] for a Supreme Court justice’s kid,” huffed one parent, “why not do it for football kids?”
The pounding the school has taken on the field this season has incited Sidwell haters with allegiance to other hoity-toity privates in the area to go semi-public with their beefs against what currently ranks as D.C.’s most elite institution. Ever since Sidwell administrators called for the injury-inspired forfeit, the website DCUrbanMom.com has hosted the prissiest flame war imaginable.
And those with Sidwell leanings have responded in kind. Or unkind.
A few samples from the 30-pages-and-counting of uncouthness:
Sidwell bashers: “Sidwell is a girls school that happens to have boys.’” “At other schools, excellence in the classroom and athletic fields are not mutually exclusive.” “Maybe Sidwell should consider a flag football league. Or just games where boys tickle each other with feathers.”
Sidwell sympathizers: “Come tell some of the real male athletes (yes, there are a few) at Sidwell that they’re ‘girls’ and they’ll sort you out.” “Sidwell just isn’t a meathead school. Hey, if you want a meathead school, head to Landon.” “Landon athletes will have plenty of time to lift weights in prison.”
“I think [the message board war] is more about politics than anything else,” says Chris Stern, who has two kids on the Sidwell team. “It’s people who want to say ‘Look at those liberals who think they can play football!’ If Sidwell has to take some lumps on dcurbanmoms, that’s alright. Yes, this is horrible. This is a systematic failure. But you know what? The kids are having fun.”
Farquhar wouldn’t predict a quick turnaround for the football team. He said conference rules prohibit Sidwell from making “first contact” with prospective athletes, meaning the athletes must initiate the recruiting process. But recent gridiron slaughters notwithstanding, he remains very satisfied with the overall state of the school; the school’s It’s Academic team is “in fine shape,” he says, referring to the WRC-TV Saturday morning quiz show.
Sidwell ends its season this weekend against Maret. Sure, Sidwell’s had an all-time horrendous year. But Maret is only 2-6 itself. It’s also an intradivision rival. So you can toss out the record book, right?
Heck, no. Sidwell’s gonna get slaughtered.
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Our Readers Say
Sidwell's conference, the Mid Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAC), awards a trophy for the athletic program with the best all around performance each year. Guess what school has won that trophy 8 of the last 9 years?
Yeah, you'd be surprised after reading this article to hear that it's Sidwell.
Go to Potomac or Maret or Flint Hill and pick on one of their worst sports. I'm sure it will produce another fascinating article.
What an outrageous article. Put simply, it is poorly written, does not accurately represent the football situation at Sidwell, and is a insensitive and heartless attack on hard-working and courageous players. Your sources only included selected parents and administrators, and the tone of your article reflected your obvious desire to be needlessly critical of the team and its players. This is not much of a "news" article -- you are completely biased and stunningly unaware of Sidwell football. As a student at Sidwell, I watch the football team practice hard and eagerly every single day. They are on the field long after any other sports team. Your article mentions the fact that freshmen are forced to play against faster, bigger, and stronger varsity players. But (somewhat amazingly) you did not stop and mention the courage, heart, and enthusiasm that these underclassmen exhibit every day on the field. This article showed absolutely no respect for any of the Sidwell football players. If you had taken the time to quote just one of the players, you would have realized how wrong and awful the things you have written are.
If you really mean the opinions you have conveyed in this article, I feel sorry for you. I hope you have gained satisfaction from inaccurately representing a situation about which you do not deserve to be reporting and know nothing.
To "Really?",Tom Farquhar is an extremely qualified head of school whose job is, hello, not to build Sidwell into some kind of Dematha-esque athletic powerhouse. That being said, your claim that he does not care about athletics is extremely false, he showed up last Saturday to support the cross-country team at the MAC/ISL championship. Sidwell football players and parents tend to blame everyone (be it Poff, Coach Simon, or now, Farquhar) except themselves for the embarrasing performance on the field.
"We have something called freedom of the press in this country, and, hello, the fact that you're playing your heart out doesn't make you exempt from negative commentary. " - Regardless of the fact that this is a snide article that essentially mocks a group of high school athletes, an "article" any real journalist should be embarrassed by, the existence of freedom of the press does not mean that "journalism" such as this should be condoned. Just because it isn't illegal to write an article such as this, it doesn't mean that slanderous mocking of a group of teenagers completely undeserving of such condemnation is anything short of atrocious conduct.
And the reference to our "its academic" team? Classy writing, to say the least.
I think my fellow students have made their points very clear. We might not be the best at football, but in almost every other sport, we are much better than the majority of schools in the area. As for the "Sidwell Bashers" that claim “Sidwell is a girls school that happens to have boys.’” “At other schools, excellence in the classroom and athletic fields are not mutually exclusive.” “Maybe Sidwell should consider a flag football league. Or just games where boys tickle each other with feathers.” I dare you to come and fight our wrestling team. Not only have they been incredible since nineteen NINETY (1990, twenty years, in case you can't calculate it yourself), but they have also won 57 MAC Championships and are looking for another one this year. In addition, this year will be the 7th consecutive MAC Championship (11th in the past 13 years). So for all those people out there saying Sidwell is a girls school, we'll force you to "tickle" each other with feathers. Oh and one more thing, within the next 6 years, I can guarantee another MAC football championship.
To #16: Your facts are pretty bad, Sidwell's teams, though good, are not the top teams in the area. Girls soccer and cross-country would come close but not be ranked within the top ten in the area. The MAC has not existed for 57 years. And, your guarantee of a MAC title within the next six years is false, come on.
what are you talking about? he doesn't have a dick
You say that girls soccer and cross country would come close, but that's it.
have you ever looked at rankings, say in the last year or two? no doubt if you had you would have seen that sidwell had a premier - sorry THE premier - boys soccer team in the metropolitan area according to the washington post last year. Not to mention wrestling program has also been nothing short of great recently, consistently beating schools like STA and Landon and dominating the MAC, as well as producing many DC champions - yes, Gonzaga is in DC - and sending wrestlers to Nationals.
not bad for a bunch of girls, eh?
Never forget the famous cheer for the hapless MIT football team, "Tangent, secant, cosine, sine! 3-point-14159! That's all right! That's okay! You're going to work for us some day!"
Get a grip and realize that this article is not a bashing of Sidwell, but a simple article describing Sidwell football (and athletics overall) today.
And to the person boasting about Sidwell soccer, it is not the premier program in the area. Episcopal has not lost a game since 2008 and has always been ranked higher in that timeframe.
from the 30 or so responses you received full of passion lets hope that passion transitions to student and parent support to get out and rally the team and school and help sidwell play their hearts out.
if sidwell gets the victory they should put an asterick by the lone win and give credit to mckenna for rallying the football club.
man up sidwell! and stop quaking.
that should have been examined in waiting for superman
Bears Eat it Raw
Was it not Landon that was faced with athletes on the famed lacrosse squad being caught for extensive cheating on the SAT examinations? Is it not Landon that seems to hold it kids up as athlete-students as opposed to student-athletes?
Thank you for your insights and your ability to show the level of education you've obtained at Landon.
Bears Eat It Raw
On another note, independent of the tone or type of comment made by students here, I believe these players have good reason to be upset. This article is simply unwarranted slander and tabloidesque journalism at its worst. If anyone puts themselves in these boys' shoes for a minute, they'll agree that they too would hate to fight through what sounds like an extremely trying season only to have someone attack their team just for the sake of creating controversy. I think any team from any school would try to defend themselves.
Knowing the sense of team pride I felt when I was an athlete in high school and remembering the kinds of things we did as teenagers, I would watch out if I were Mr. McKenna...
As stated in previous comments, the wrestling team is perennially strong. Look at the accolades from 2003.
The class at Sidwell is about ~110-120, so 50-60 men per class, who are being sent in a lot of different directions athletically. It's not surprising that there is going to be inconsistency
-from a 2002 All-MAC cross country runner.
The pursuit of sport is not something we put as much emphasis on here at Sidwell Friends - it's such a vulgar enterprise. My own father wasn't so enlightened - he loved baseball, hunting and other antiquated male pastimes, whereas I celebrate opera, gardening and appeasing my angry, Prius-driving wife.
While my passivity and latent homosexuality may negatively impact my son's performance on the football field, I am confident it will prepare him well for a life of NPR, canvas totes, and garden parties featuring locavore cuisine.
Best,
L.L.
Keep up the good work Dave
The Nobel Prize I'd undoubtably in your future!
And next time why don't you leave the Obama's out of the title? I do not think that his daughters are on the team.
"Sidwell hired Farquhar, so destroyed Bullis sports."
*Who
First, football is the only male sport in which we are not competitive. We have won the Director's Cup, given out to the best overall athletic program in the MAC, 8 of the past 9 years. Our soccer team was the best in the area and one of the best in the nation last year. Our wrestling team is consistently dominant in conference and very competitive out of it. Our cross country program has won back to back conference titles and has one of the best, if not the best runner in the area. Our basketball team is on the up and up, sharing the conference title last year and returning one of the bests recruits in the nation. Even sports such as baseball and lacrosse, where Sidwell is clearly not among the best in the area, are at times highly competitive. Sidwell baseball posted a 12-10 mark last year and lacrosse lost in the finals of the MAC tourney 5-4 in overtime. This article is flawed because it fails to put Sidwell football's failure in any sort of proper context considering the other successes its boys athletic program has had.
Second, strength and bitterness of the Sidwell football critics clearly stems, at least in part, from resentment of the quality of the academic experience that Sidwell students get. It appears that those whose children attend schools that don't prepare their students as well as Sidwell does are using the debacle of Sidwell football as consolation for their own school's failure. Call it intellectual arrogance, but Sidwell alums time and again find themselves first at the top universities in the world and next making decisions that influence how the world works. We don't publish our average SAT scores or college lists for one reason: it would make our competitors mad. The academic experience at Sidwell is rivaled by few and surpassed by none.
This article misrepresents the boys athletic culture at Sidwell Friends and Sidwell football's critics represent mere societal backlash at an institution that does its job of preparing young people to lead meaningful lives better than any other.
Secondly, I really don't understand why people can't simply understand that Sidwell is having a rough patch with its football program. A lot of students have changed their interests to sports such as soccer (hence the outstanding Sidwell soccer/wrestling teams). It seems that these sports highlight Sidwell's athletic program, while sports as football certainly shouldn't diminish it. Although the MAC is weaker in some respects, I wouldn't call it a "terrible" league. Again, its just a different emphasis on the athletic programs; everything is relative.
How about this http://i95ballerz.com/story%20-%20team%20workout%20series%202010%20sidwell.htm for your new article topic.
Put yourself in the shoes of the players, (which you obviously didn't think to do since you only interviewed one parent, one of the coaches, and one administrator), every weekend you go out on the field and you line up against kids twice your size and weight. I don't know about you, but i would quit then and there just at the thought of having to face them. Yet these kids go out there week after week in a season like this and continue to take the hits and fight. They know that everyone laughs at them, (not any of the other sidwell students, but other students and apparently grown men in the area), but they keep going out there and defending themselves and fighting. Even on their homecoming game, they had to forfeit because one of the seniors got critically injured. But they are STILL going back out there. So you should be completely ashamed of yourself that you wrote this completely demoralizing, unnecessary, and bitter article about this team. You should instead write an article commending these atheletes that they are this brave and this passionate, and that they fight against other teams, their own school administration, and jerks like you every day. They inspire me, and it makes me sick to think there are people out there like you that would write this kind of trash about them.
Also, really? all of you talking about sidwell students' grammar, will you please think for a second and realize that only two comments contained that poor grammar and that there are 500 kids in the high school? Oh wait no, you're right, clearly 2/500 represents the entire school population. My mistake. I'm sure at every private school in the country 100% of the students use correct grammar all of the time.
And honestly, shut up already about sidwell's $35,000 a year tuition. As someone already mentioned, 40% of sidwell students receive financial aid, and is the most diverse school in the area, so once again, there's no reason to criticize the school for something like this. I don't understand why everyone feels the need to hate on sidwell all of the time. So 60% of the students parents can afford the $35,000 a year tuition, since when does that qualify others to bash the school?
And to those of you who say that sidwell's pridefulness is shown in the comments above, why don't you consider if this type of article were written about one of your school's teams going through the same type of season, and think how you, and the other students in your school would react.
Also, the Sidwell fans and parents are the amongst the rudest I have every experienced. It is almost comical to me that this is getting so much attention for being rude to Sidwell, when the parents demean every team they oppose. I support this article and everything it has to say...I feel like it is just a little taste of their own medicine. (For example, the 178-0 shirts)
As a previous commentator pointed out, you are legally free to publish what you would like. However, you have abused this right to trash dedicated and hardworking high school athletes who have done nothing at all to deserve this. Ignoring your factual inaccuracy and selective editing, I still believe any self respecting journalist would recognize your blatant bias as unprofessional and shameful. I would hope that there would be something more productive and less repulsive you could find to do with your obviously flourishing career. I am nauseated by this article. Dave McKenna, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Farquhar is the bomb diggity. He clearly was simply asked a question by this dude and answered. I think the fact that he mentioned It's academic is super groovy, because it shows he has his priorities in order -- Sidwell is primarily a powerful ACADEMIC institution. I personally am way more proud of our intellectual progress than our athletic progress... also he in no way gave a full-out "interview", so calm down.
My question is, why do we (sidwell students) care? Brett - you just like a good fight.
This article was rude, but not totally unjustified. Just kinda stated the obvious. Sidwell football does suck. That doesn't mean we don't give it a good effort, or that the team's courage isn't respectable. Football just isn't our forte.
There are so many more important things going on in the world for half our student population to be in an uproar about one tiny article (by half i mean like 3 senior boys).
Can we move on with our lives?
It should be noted that schools in the MAC are all fine academic schools, with three (GDS, Sidwell, Maret) considered to be the top three academic high schools in the DC area. Sidwell is an excellent school academically--that's why parents send their children there, and that's why students attending love it.
Yes Indeed
Some more choice examples of Dave's stellar writing:
washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/35635/save-yourself
--His article on the riveting imported lifeguarding business where he uses the phrase
"imported Mexicans" to describe workers in Maryland's Crabmeat industry
washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/10/07/move-over-clinton-portis-groin-here-comes-brett-favres-alleged-cock/
--His article titled "Move over Clinton Portis' Groin, here comes Brett Favre's alleged Cock" where he of course shows his word choice is reminiscent of some of the high-schoolers he shamelessly mocks in this current article
Finally we have:
washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/08/19/ted-nugent-keeps-peeing-on-my-rock-and-roll-past/
--This article, titled "Ted Nugent Keeps Peeing On My Rock and Roll Past" begins with the very eloquent sentence, "I've had a hard spot in my pants for Ted Nugent for decades."
Dave Mckenna, while I understand that you need to take a break from writing senseless articles about football that nobody reads, you don't really need to pick on high school students to get your rocks off. If you have a hard-on for Ted Nugent, why don't you just go listen to him instead.
Thanks!
-MMN
Cheating on the SAT
Hiring one of the students who cheated on the Sat because his dad is the top lacrosse coach
Expelling the cheaters who were not on the lacrosse team but keeping those who were on it enrolled.
Getting drunk and taking pictures of naked Holton girls (the horror, the horror)
Getting drunk and smashing Georgetown Prep cars.
Getting protected for smashing cars by your dads who are on the board of trustees.
Fantasy Girls.
Treating faculty kids with less respect than paying kids.
Having a baseball coach that takes the players to Hooters, and shows pictures and tells stories about his wife in a less than respectable fashion.
Having a football coach that calls players "tits" and beans them will balls when not looking.
Keeping the horrible coaches on because they "apologized"
Nepotism
Oh and lets not forget murder at UVA
Nice record Landon, you are so much better and more noble than those "Sidwell pussies"
Wrong. Sidwell lost in the semifinals. Flint Hill defeated Potomac School in the championship game.
"Second, strength and bitterness of the Sidwell football critics clearly stems, at least in part, from resentment of the quality of the academic experience that Sidwell students get. It appears that those whose children attend schools that don't prepare their students as well as Sidwell does are using the debacle of Sidwell football as consolation for their own school's failure."
I don't know where to begin. How in the heck do you know that everyone who disagrees with your stance is doing so because they feel threatened by Sidwell? What an arrogant statement. Sidwell sports is horrible - everyone knows it. You imply that anyone in the other camp has a child that isn't getting as good of an education at a Sidwell student receives. What garbage. Look at STA - they have an excellent track record of educating students, teaching citizenship, getting kids into great colleges while also doing extremely well at sports.
LOL.
Wrong. Bordley's son was implicated in the cheating scandal. The Bordley who coaches the Landon JV lacrosse team is a DIFFERENT son. Oops - crack research by the Sidwell fact checking department.
I guess they teach Sidwell students that if you can't refute something, sling some mud and attack. Go after Landon, even though we're talking about Sidwell Friends.
Talking about Hughley's murder is about as relevant to this conversation as the pedophile who was teaching kids at Sidwell.
Thanks,
MNN
(Also, it's 'rebut' bud.)
Honestly, no one cares about your football team or athletic record. Please spare us. The story here is how you guys dealt with this situation. That's news. No one from Sidwell seems to get that.
Yeah, give these skinny, unathletic nerds another couple of years and they are going to DOMINATE the football scene in DC! Woo-hoo!
Also 3 years from now is a long way away, but Sidwell will probably be the only team in the Mac with 7 seniors who have been starting varsity for 4 years.
Keep your chin up. These things move in cycles. SFS has a long history of proving its doubters wrong, and out-performing its expectations.
Give Simon the internet's best.
1. Sidwell is not being attacked. The fact that you view this harmless article as an attack illustrates that your defensiveness is part of the problem; and
2. Sidwell is not like every other prep school in the country. Most prep schools have a decent sports program.
He be trollin. Don't feed.
Also, you are right, one of Bordley's sons who did not cheat does coach the JV lacrosse team. The one who did cheat however still does work at the school be it in the sports department or at school events.
Bears eat cock raw
However, I must say truly impressed by the spectacularly foul sputterings of Sidwell spawn. Hat tip to Gawker.com!
Hints: "Whose" does not equal "who is". "Your" does not equal "you are". Also, commas can be your friend. Try them sometime.
Snarky comments aside, bravo to those players who stuck it out through the season and those that will return next year. It takes strong character to be loyal to a losing team (especially during the flakiness of high school) and is very honorable.
football teams are expected to win games, i'm glad that the players are "playing their hearts out" but in the real world it's results that matter. "I did my best" doesn't cut it. not in the work place, not in politics and not on the football field.
Okay, you lost, so now you feel like less of a person? Because your side didn't get the orb past the chalk line on the grassy field and the other group did?
Forget it! It's putting yourself thorough emotional torture for very little gain.
QUIT. Sports are irrelevant.
Landon dominates on the field and off the field while these sadwell pussies are getting pounded in the ass by the maret and gds crew.
"its not football, its lacrosse". well, we would kick your ass in that too.
have fun at "its academic" while your girls try to crash our parties and hook up with us just because we are wearing a landon jacket.
This article wasn't insulting us, it was pointing out a fact, that our football team has an abysmal record this year, and tried to find some explanation for how it could possibly be so bad (and it really is far worse than anyone can remember).
What is insulting are your comments, to the rest of the Sidwell community. I'm fine with having a football team with a bad record, I'm embarrassed to have to admit that I go to school with the people making these comments. A lot of people secretly (or not so secretly) believe that all Sidwell students are stuck up, spoiled, rich kids, with no idea what the real world is like. That's certainly not true of all of us, but I can't help but admit that it's true of some of us, you're comments make it impossible to think otherwise.
Seriously, how could you think this was a good idea, how could you think he was insulting the school or us. You have just failed the "I'm a spoiled brat" test in the most obvious way possible.
Classic. Ah, I remember fondly the days when this sort of thing mattered... Go to college, Bears.
We took a crappy administrator from sidwell too. Guess what Bill Crittenberger is doing now? Jumping on his trampoline in a pink leotard because we canned his fat ass. I suggest you do the same to Farquar before your schools is ruined inevitably.
What matters is that sidwell students will forever be jealous of those who went to schools like landon and st albans. We are able to burn it on all ends of the candle. Sidwell alums, like you, Mr Punxx, will manifest this jealousy by attacking landon and acting as if you are a greater institution when the truth is just pure jealousy.
I know that is tough to swallow. Eat it.
Sidwell I think just became the joke of the day on the internet. Thanks for amusing me while I should be balancing books lol.
As to the article, thanks for an entertaining read which I thought was quite sympathetic to the students' situation.
http://gawker.com/5682548/rich-private-high-school-football-team-puts-uppity-reporter-in-his-place
It is really sad that talented, intelligent, well-resourced students get their panties in a such a crumpled up bunch when a local sports writer (a lowly-paid hack who has no future and a pathetic life!) (from a C-List paper that No One Reads!!!) reports about your challenging football season.
It is sad that you see this story as an unjustified attack on your characters, your athletic prowess and your school community. It looks like you all need to spend some time in class exploring the difference between the objective reporting of facts that you don't like and the demoralizing, tabloidesque mockery that insults and demeans high-school students (who are much brighter than the aforementioned unprofessional and hateful hack.)
Do you honestly think that it's the City Paper's job to write stories that proclaim "Sidwell Friends School is great at everything they attempt! Soccer! Cross Country! Wrestling!
It is a little bit funny (okay, hilarious) that young people who have probably been told every day of their lives that they are exceptional in every way from their parents, teachers or other supportive adults completely lose their shit when faced with a truthful (and empathetic) account of a really difficult challenge. The Outrage! The Histrionics! The Hyperbole!
Chins up, Siddies. Get it together.
P.S. People who correct other people's grammar and punctuation in a comment thread are really wasting their own time. I can't help but feel I just fell into the trap myself...
I feel like being football powerhouse shouldn't really have any bearing on how people judge your education, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case with some people.
Also there are a lot of tools on both sides of this dumb argument it seems.
"The Farquhar effect is alive and well. He has the abilty with his presence to be able to bring down an athletic program without even trying. Don't worry he will say half truths and straight lies to anyone who tries to improve the athletic situation "
Really? Really?? Are you some weird stalker that's been following Tom around to the schools he's worked at, tracking their progress in sports? You talk about this like he's some evil monster who hates sports. You've got some strange obsessions, friend, and you don't sound very Quakerly. Not that there's any sort of evidence to imply he's a cancer on sports programs anyway.
He really was a cancer on Bullis--the teacher retention rate drastically dropped while he was there and LITERALLY every sport's team lost a significant percentage of their season more than pre-Farquhar years. He truly does not believe in supporting athletics—just look at his past history.
Quite frankly he is inept at being a Headmaster, especially in terms of his approach to learning and his philosophy on the importance of sports in terms of school spirit--or lack there of. Ask anyone who has had the disservice of experiencing the ‘Farquhar effect.’
On another ‘How Incompetent is Farquhar’ note, he believes diversity= race only. Farquhar seeks to improve the status of ‘how diverse’ his school is over all other aspects---especially academically and athletically. I am black and felt offended by how ignorant this approach to diversity was in this day in age. He is a pathetic leader and headmaster. I genuinely feel sorry for the future of Sidwell Friends.
There also seems to be a lot of very bad grammar coming out of that school. These are the kids who are going to rule the world? They don't even know how to use "your" or "you're" properly.
While you're clutching at your pearls at such libel, you're sending City Paper's pageviews through the roof! I never would have given this article - or your school - a second thought had you all not taken to the comments section with your torches ablaze with entitlement. Thank you for a good Friday afternoon laugh!
Love,
Amy
This is hysterical! BTW, if 25% of the students receive full financial aid, then 75% of the students are rich, entitled snobs? I guess they don't teach humility and the responsibilities of privileged station at these second rate private schools as they did in mine. Dear fellow parents, you should be ashamed of yourself for your posts here. You will reap what you sow.
Try what the rest of the world cares about: Soccer, which Sidwell does quite well at.
Bears Eat it Raw
If you're all hellbent on being a somebody in this world, you gotta get used to harsh public criticism and observation.
Make friends with the Obama kids so you can ask their mom and dad how they deal with it.
The article had very little to do with the Sidwell football players. (I've read it twice.) The players actually come off looking quite valient, playing despite a terrible record and being so overly matched. Sports aren't about winning; they're about persisting in the face of adversity. That's the life lesson. The players should be quite proud that they've played hard.
I went to a college (University of Chicago) with a spectacularly bad football team. They abandoned the Big 10 after losing a game by something like 72-0. The president of the university said that Chicago wasn't a sports school. It was true then and it's still true. But they've had something like 90 nobel lauretes. There were a lot of athletes there, but everyone was there for the academics. No one cares whether Sidwell Friends has a good football team. Sidwell is not a scholarship factory, and that's okay.
I didn't see the article as an attack on the team at all. I actually missed all that and was surprised by all the overheated attacks. The article reports on the collapse of the program and some parents reactions. That's it. It's not unfair. It's true. The program collapsed. It'll probably revive. If it doesn't, no one will care.
For what it's worth, the Washington City Paper is a nice little paper. The articles are usually well written, as was this one, and they tend to poke fun at the rich and powerful, as this one did. There are papers like this in many cities, fortunately.
So, I enjoyed the article, because it was well written, but I must say I've especially liked the over reaction. Sidwell and the other private schools in this area are seen be many, including me, as exclusive reservations of the entitled. The posts from the Sidwell students, parents and alums seem to have proven that point.
To McKenna, Sidwell students, and Sidwell bashers alike: Get a bloody grip. We play other sports, too.
Also, to Mr (I assume) Football:
You may be shocked to hear this, but the United States actually exists *in* "the rest of the world."
Yeah, go figure.
All the folks claiming to care about the players: your, shall we say, sensitivity does not seem to be about them. In the grand scheme of things, this article is a tickle. Imagine if you had to really take a punch. Better learn how to roll with them; in college, we don't care where you went to high school, and you'll notice, and stop telling us, just in time for midterms of your first semester.
Oh, and to BEIR: cheating on the SATs IS failing at life. But you knew that already.
Sidwell is one of the finest Schools in America. I can only pray that the bulk of the childish, ill written vitriol was actually not Written by Students or Alumni. And indeed, the coarse and poorly Written Posts reflect unctuously upon SF.
With so many Children going to Schools bereft of Resources and quality Educators, to reinforce all of the worst stereotypes of the privileged over the Football Team is a pity.
Wait, let me rephrase that. You idiots are paying too much for a high school education.
Can't beat gawker making fun of spoiled DC high school students on the internet for sucking at sports.
Its too bad that all these kid's parents run the world and they will end up running the world too--not because they get "one of the finest edumacations" in the country--but because this country and the entire private school prep system is plain old nepotism. You might actually have "books", teachers with advanced "degrees", and fields with "grass", but, in the end, that isn't what makes you successful. The fact that your parents pay over 35k a year for high school (I assume, I'm too lazy to check and regardless I'm sure its insanely expensive--you know for us normal folk who have to apply for financial aid) doesn't make you successful. You could go to high school in a shack and still be fine.
It's the trust fund that matters. Man, I wish I had one of those...and not some stupid college degree.
Paying 35k per year for high school does not make you more successful. It's true, money cannot buy intelligence; however, Sidwell does have many very notable alumni who don't have rich and famous parents.
Ambassadors (most based upon merit), politicians, and even a Director of the CIA graduated from Sidwell. I just want to point out that Sidwell does produce a large number of notable alumni, not just children of notable parents.
That's like "jumbo shrimp."
What would Jessamyn West say?
Signed,
A Lawerenceville Grad.
I think you fail to realize that ALL kids write like this online. Evidence? It's called Facebook, go look it up.
Hmm, did anyone else see a slaughtering today because I didn't see one...
While the author could have been more respectful, the Sidwell community should be able to accept criticism - even tasteless criticism - gracefully, which in this case would probably have meant ignoring it. Mr. McKenna does seem to harbor some kind of personal vendetta against Sidwell, and his gleeful mockery of a bunch of teenagers who are just playing a game is morally dubious (most of these kids will go on to do much better things with their lives than cyber-bullying kids for a paycheck). Still, it does the school a disservice to match his immaturity by going online and leaving embarrassing and malicious comments that make it look like we can't accept being called less than perfect in any way.
And, let's face it, while a bunch of our sports teams are surprisingly good, athletic prowess isn't the central way the school identifies itself, and I'm glad for it, I'm amazed that even some parents are displaying a childishly competitive and nasty attitude over something that's just a game and an extracurricular activity for most of these kids. Sidwell is supposed to produce intelligent, open-minded and thoughtful young people, not mindless jocks - qualities sadly not reflected in these posts.
As an aside: While I don't think bragging about other sports is the best way to respond to this article, I do think the success of the soccer team reflects well upon the school. It shows that when our sports teams are good, it's not because we recruit a bunch of meatheads - admissions thankfully has other priorities. It's because the kids are inspired to represent the school and show they have the heart to win, the fans are supportive, and the coaches teach teamwork and good competitive values. The soccer team rarely has more than a handful of the sort of top-tier natural athletes that fill most powerhouse teams. I can say based on my experience as a goalie during the season Jorgen Kjaer arrived as coach that the success of the team, which plays way beyond its athletic ability, is due almost entirely to the tremendous atmosphere of camaraderie, smart play, and determination that Jorgen cultivates. I saw players who looked talentless in middle school and JV play at a very high level thanks to that atmosphere. I'm glad to see the school has made Jorgen the assistant athletic director. He's one of the many remarkable teachers and coaches that make Sidwell such a wonderful place.
I think Sidwell would benefit from a course on media literacy, where students would learn what an Alt Weekly is and how it differs from the Washington Post, and that David McKenna probably could care less about whether their football team is winning or losing and was much less attacking "a bunch of high schoolers" for being bad at football than he was joking about the fact that over-entitled (yeah even the ones on financial aid, because a school like Sidwell that touts its diversity and financial aid teaches all students that they are somehow more special than everyone who doesn't have access to their resources) Sidwell students have this one thing that they're not poised to rule the world with. Thanks David for giving the local prep students and their parents a chance to show regular DC residents, who aren't normally exposed to them, just how ready-to-react and overprivileged they actually are. Great Quaker values, Sidwell.
Guess what is gonna happen when there are no jobs.
Heck, no. Sidwell’s gonna get slaughtered."
Actually, Dave, Sidwell only lost 24-14 despite fielding a team with probably 75% underclassmen and we almost beat Maret. We essentially fielded a JV team and we almost beat a pretty good varsity team.
I was at the game and i have my utmost respect for the players who gave 110% and even if they didn't win, they should be proud to say they played in that game because it really was special.
Post 183, "Sidwell Alumn" - this post is comically, hilariously hypocritical.
Post 186, "wow" - THANK YOU. Mr. McKenna, please keep it coming until my school's students and parents take their heads out of their asses (the Sidwell bubble?) and say hello to the real world - where you may be the butt of a jokes good and bad, where you may have to manage mockery and "meanness," where one has to judge whether to truly consider, brush off, or god forbid, laugh off criticism on a daily basis. Regardless of whether you meant it to go this far, thanks for embarrassing our community, you're doing us a favor.
Sincerely, an '08 Sidwell alum
Sidwell parents should be ashamed of their childrens language on this blog. Cant want to see them littering Georgetown with their trash from house parties and raising hell in the bars in the near future. As a parent, I would monitor what my children post on websites.
2. As a former player I understand the struggle they go through playing with dwindling numbers so until you go out there and endure it then I suggest you shut up
3. That being said a change needs to be made. The Simon era, like that of most 'Skins coaches must be brought to an abrupt end.
Does anyone else see the irony and wry humor in calling your team the "Fighting Quakers"?
I just wish that we, the students, were given some slack. We ARE still kids, after all. I understand that this request probably won't be satisfied, but I feel as if there is ultimately NO point in 1. commenting on some kid's grammar on an online thread, 2. calling Sidwell students conceited, elitist, rich brats, or 3. saying that us Sidwell students could learn a thing or two from our "35k tuition". Yes, we attend a financially expensive institution, but that in no way determines our intelligence nor does it state that we're so much better than any other institution in the US.
The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, this is JUST a thread on a lesser-known online journal. So if you find satisfaction or entertainment in flaming the Sidwell community or defending it, go for it because really, this thread holds no true value in the world, whether it be the "Sidwell bubble" or the "real world." And to be honest, although this thread gets to riled up, I find it to be more a form of entertainment than anything. It IS keeping me away from my college essays though...
As to your assertion that no apparent arrogance is evident in the comments, please see #33.
Beyond that, there IS a point in commenting on some kid's grammar on an online thread, because those kids are proclaiming themselves future leader of the world in the most unjustified, cocky manner possible - if, by high school age, they can't even string together conventional punctuation, they're not going to get nearly as far as they believe they will. There IS a point in calling Sidwell students conceited, elitist, rich brats, because they have proven themselves such here and it's possible that they'll still turn their attitude around in college or later on, but nothing will change without them being called out on it. And there IS a point in saying that you Sidwell students could learn a thing or two from your 35k tuition, because it is exactly the exclusivity of Sidwell that has made you feel so entitled. Commenters have pointed out that Dave McKenna won't make in his life what their fathers make in a year - the pricetag of your tuition leads many of you to believe that's all you need in life, which is just patently not true. The responses here indicate that people agree with you that your "expensive institution in no way determines [your] intelligence nor does it state that [you're] so much better than any other institution in the US"; it's your classmates who seemed to have missed out on that message.
Leave the children alone. No one called them the future leaders of the world.
The fact that I have come across this sensationalistic article, is ridiculous and the only reason I commented on this was to put the people who have commented in there place.
FIRST: NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT SIDWELL'S ATROCIOUS FOOTBALL TEAM
As a graduate of an area high school and having played on a football team that played Sidwell, I was quick to learn that Sidwell students have a lot of pride in what they do. The fact of the matter is no one gives a shit about Sidwell or any other of the D.C. area private schools that pointlessly drain parents bank accounts and cater to students who have had everything handed to them their entire lives. As evidenced by the comments above these students are arrogant, self-satisfied and apparently unaware that $35,000 per year high school education doesn't grant them the ability to be America's future leaders. An etiquette side track here, when you have class you do not chant the presidents name as a taunt just because his daughters go to your school, and doing so just shows how sheltered and conceited Sidwell students are.
When coming in contact with Sidwell students in the past, I found the girls to be obsessed with attracting boys from more athletically minded schools (Landon, Prep, Gonzaga) and usually failing due to the fact that these boys sought girls who were actually pretty and not just smart. The boys to be quite frank were pussies, they were the least assertive human beings I have ever come across and as evidenced here have to resort to commenting on online newspaper articles to talk smack to Landon students. Also, they had there moms come on to this website to talk smack for them. I can't think of any way you could be more of a pussy than that. In reality, all of the short indian boys, fat asian boys, all the boys with numbers after their names and the non athletically inclined african american boys would get there heads beaten in by any 3rd grader at Landon. I didn't attend Landon but while they might not be the smartest kids around an all boys school breeds toughness just like Sidwell breeds pussies.
For all the bragging about Sidwell's intelligence their approximate SAT averages (as told to me by one of their students) are no where near as high as Thomas Jefferson High School in Virgina one of the leading Public schools in the area and also from personal experience I know a girl who went to Sidwell recently who is dumb as the desk I am writing this from.
Getting back to the parents who commented on this. Just 3 questions. Who are you? Are you serious? and How do you expect you George the III to ever wipe his own ass if you are always doing it for him.
Hopefully this is the end of comments.
P.S. Not to offend any Sidwell Alums by these comments the school was probably much better when you were there but all of the actually balanced high school students now attend STA or some all girls school with some sort of education. Sidwell, Maret, and GDS were left with a bunch of uppity nerds. I guess this is the time for their revenge.
HIT ME WITH WHATEVER YOU GOT
I found no disrespect for the football players. I was surprised by the amount of research done for a not-high-paying newspaper. About the only thing I thought the story lacked was a sentence or two to indicate that interest in Fall men's sports participation had shifted (or not) to sports.
My greatest disappointment has been in the low incidence of sparkling prose and wit in the comments. I do wonder, looking at the dates of most of the postings, what the roll of so-called social media was in turning out the huge volume of comments, including, presumably some from contagion to "friends" of students at Sidwell enrolled at other independent schools.
Thank-you Dave McKenna, for per usual from great sports writers, for writing great stuff about American society. This was better art than the encyclopedia of Dan Snyder's exploitation of the local market for football.
Thanks
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