The Signal Mountain game is usually the third score I look for on Saturday morning. As a general rule, I hope to find that they lost. However, even from that perspective, it makes me sick to see what the TSSAA does to kids in the name of helping them. It seems that we adults, in this case with the TSSAA being our agent, seem to believe that we should help these kids by managing the outcomes of athletic programs to get the results that we want. We set up silly little rules that have nothing to do with what is best for the kids. Why would anyone care that a kid, even if he is a good athlete, transfers from LFO to Howard to Signal Mountain? For reasons that are really none of our business, the kid and his family have obviously decided that Signal is the right place for him. Apparently the TSSAA has decided that they are wrong. As a result, they have created a lie; Signal is 0-1. Of course we all know that with the exception of Blackman, where they got smoked, Signal has won every game, most of them handily. We all know they are 6-1 and so do their kids and the kids they played.
The Signal Mountain players, especially the seniors, have just had something they love, something for which they have worked very hard, both individually and as a team, ripped away from them for reasons that have nothing to do with them.
Let’s hear it for the TSSAA and their silly rules. After all, it is for the kids.