Failure comes in many forms.
Two weeks ago it landed with a thud, not far from my home in Festus, with the expulsion of St. Pius X High School from the Jefferson County Activities Association.
This move was a failure of two “ships” – leadership and sportsmanship.
Over lunch at the Pasta House, the superintendents of seven county school districts joined with the Perry County School District (representing Perryville High) to remove St. Pius from a conference it had joined as a charter member 53 years ago.
The Lancers, as St. Pius athletes are called, have played in thousands of competitions with JCAA opponents across 11 sports (most recently adding boys and girls wrestling three years ago). Many of those student-athletes, if not most, had relatives, friends and acquaintances on the opposing schools’ teams. The St. Pius coaches maintained friendships with their JCAA counterparts.
In my six years as Leader sports editor (2010-2016) I saw dozens of games between St. Pius and the other JCAA schools. The crowds cheered the athletes, school spirit was served and the competitions ended with handshakes, mutual respect and a small contribution, felt if not seen, to our local sense of community. Our current sports editor, Russell Korando, says he’s seen the same thing in his seven-plus years on the job.
Has there been poor sportsmanship at times? Of course. Sports stir emotions and sometimes people do stupid stuff. But it’s a two-way street. No school or fan base is immune. As the Bible says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Every time a JCAA game involving St. Pius was played (and watched) the right way, it helped bridge the natural divide between public and parochial schools. Sports have the power to unify, uplift and inspire at all levels. (Go watch a Special Olympics track meet.)
Unfortunately, the accumulated sportsmanship, respect and goodwill from those 53 years of competition went out the Pasta House back window. I believe those positives can be renewed and restored, but that may be overly optimistic.
I originally approached this topic by investigating how it happened – who did what to whom, and when and why. Korando jumped on this story like a bald eagle on fresh salmon. He has reported the basic facts and commented on the consequences, including the disruption to the current JCAA spring sports schedules. The activities directors are burning the late oil on that one.
Both sides in this divorce must share the blame. Latent but longstanding suspicion and mistrust rose to the surface as the school chiefs concluded St. Pius was “no longer a good fit” for the JCAA.
For many years the public schools, not just here but across high school sports everywhere, have complained that private schools have an unfair advantage in recruiting students. Public school districts have boundaries; private schools do not. So prep sports governing bodies like the Missouri State High School Activities Association have developed definitions of what constitutes “undue influence” in recruiting at all schools.
The public JCAA schools – notably excluding De Soto, which abstained in the expulsion vote – built a catalog of grievances over the years about undue-influence violations and poor sportsmanship. In their call to vote on ousting St. Pius, they also stated, “These (complaints)…appear to have been exacerbated by the close geographical proximity of St. Pius to other JCAA schools.”
St. Pius hasn’t moved an inch since its doors opened in 1959, and now it’s too close for comfort?
My guess is the adversarial attitudes have intensified in recent years with the amplifier of social media.
But was it too much to ask the leaders of these schools, when the pot was building to a full boil, to take a deep breath, call timeout and ask, “Do we really want to do this? Or does half a century of getting along reasonably well mean we can and should work this out?”
These are the highest school officials in the seventh-largest county (by population) in Missouri. They are charged with always respecting the big picture in their decisions and finding solutions that work for everyone, not taking the easy way out and removing “the problem” with a meat cleaver.
The kids will keep playing.
Local prep sports will go on.
“Once the shock subsides, the rest of the JCAA and St. Pius will find their footing and compete elsewhere,” said Clint Freeman, Dunklin R-5 superintendent and the head of the JCAA superintendents.
I hope and believe St. Pius will keep playing JCAA schools in multiple sports, just in non-conference mode.
But this will leave a scar. The real acid test will come when the public schools make out their fall athletic schedules; will they shun the Lancers? I’m looking especially at you, Crystal City, Jefferson and Herculaneum – the schools nearest St. Pius.
There will always be a natural tension between public and private schools competing for enrollment (read: finances) and athletic success. What matters is how you manage it. What happened two weeks ago is not management, it’s malpractice.
With time, the wounds may heal, the frayed feelings subside.
I asked St. Pius President Jim Lehn, “If the JCAA invited you back, would you go?”
“Probably,” he said. “But they’re not going to invite us back.”
The students, and not just the ones at St. Pius, are the real victims here. Somebody told them sportsmanship matters. Somebody told them sports are a vital component of their education. Somebody told them you lead by example.
Yes, yes and yes.
