MA track coaches piss of Jews in Newton, MA

That is a tough one. Every now and then something like this happens in the state basketball tournament. I cannot remember the state, but a Jewish school was playing in the state tournament. Their game was scheduled for after sundown on a high holiday. The HS Assoc refused to re-schedule it. All they had to do was either move it earlier in the day or the next day after sundown. Yes, it would have made for a few scheduling issues.

This one is tricky. If the facility is not available any other dates, what are they to do, cancel it for everyone? I bet with a little effort just about any date will be religious holiday for some group.

No rights have been violated, and there comes a time where every person (or team) has to make a decision about competing. If this were the state championship, then I would side with the rabbi. There is no right to compete in the state championship, but I think that is such a big deal you would not want to preclude anyone competing or create a situation of someone having to violate their beliefs. However, an invitational meet is not as significant.

My suggestion: book the facility for the next 10 years on a date that does not conflict.

There are 130 schools attending the meet, one school is pulling out because they have several jewish team members.

Should the rest of the schools suffer because of 1 school?

Whitinsville Christian can't run on Sunday's, they have to move from there division indoors every couple of years to avoid the Sunday conflict, they don't expect the MIAA to change the day of the meet to accomodate them.

The jewish population is not as big as they would like to think, there are other meets, find one.

apparently there isn't one jewish cross country or track coach in massachusetts?

no disrespect intended.

What happens in Saudi Arabia on Christmas Day? Just asking?

This country is well over 90% Christian, it's the lay of the land. Schools don't have to go.

Two things come to mind here.

1. The jews using the media to make a point.

2. Jews have a reputation for whinning.

Newton runner wrote:The Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association scheduled an invitational meet on Rosh Hashana...

So what? The possibility that any Jewish person would be upset by this is but one more endictment of organized religion in general. The man-made rituals and "holidays" carried out in all religions are simply ridiculous.

One would assume that a loving god would want the world's inhabitants to be happy. If running a cross country meet on ANY day of the week makes runners happy, does anyone seriously think that God (or a god or gods) really gives a rat's azz?

any event should automatically be canceled whenever there is any conflict with anything

There's a Jewish DIII cross-country coach of an above program who comes from a very strong Judaic family and is very active. You know what he told me? I made the decision to be a cross country coach, sometime there are going to be meets, and the needs of the team to have Saturday practices supersede my obligations.

it's only a big deal because it's Newton North. if it was some crappy team from sabbath country school, no one would even care.

This is not an issue.

This is an invitational, want to run, then enter and run, if there is a reason not to run, don't enter and don't run.

There are invitationals almost every weekend, go to one on a different weekend.

This should never have gotten this far, somebody thinks they are way to important here, the rest of us don't care.

Some Coach wrote:

What happens in Saudi Arabia on Christmas Day? Just asking?

This country is well over 90% Christian, it's the lay of the land.

Actually, 78.4% in 2007, according to Pew, but who's counting, right?

Another letsrun asshole stirring up trouble, this time more anti-semitism. Let's see how long this thread lasts.

i just had to...sorry wrote:

Are there really any good Jewish runners? Will the meet really be missing anything without them there?

Besides the fact that your comment is anti-semetic, you're also uninformed about the sport. There are plenty competitive Jewish runners. For example, Deena Kastor, who holds U.S. record in the marathon (2006 Flora London Marathon 2:19:36) among others.

Track meets aren't religious festivals. Mt Sac used to not hold the meet on an Easter Sunday. Now they just droped Sunday altogether. I think Mt Sac should hold meets on Sundays and Saturdays no matter if it conflicts with someone's religion. If people want to skip the meet that day that's their option, but still have the meet for the rest of us.

broadstreetbob wrote:

i just had to...sorry wrote:

Are there really any good Jewish runners? Will the meet really be missing anything without them there?

Besides the fact that your comment is anti-semetic, you're also uninformed about the sport. There are plenty competitive Jewish runners. For example, Deena Kastor, who holds U.S. record in the marathon (2006 Flora London Marathon 2:19:36) among others.

yeah, i mean, the maccabbe games are practically the olympics...

jk, jk. dustin emrani is jewish. he ran in the trials last year.

Mt Sac does that wrote:

Track meets aren't religious festivals. Mt Sac used to not hold the meet on an Easter Sunday. Now they just droped Sunday altogether. I think Mt Sac should hold meets on Sundays and Saturdays no matter if it conflicts with someone's religion. If people want to skip the meet that day that's their option, but still have the meet for the rest of us.

California Interscholastic Federation rules prohibit high school sporting events on Sunday. The only exception to a school/student representing their school on a Sunday event is if the school has a different designated off day (as in a Jewish school with Saturdays off).

This happened in Texas in the private school girls state playoffs for basketball. The opposing team even offered to change the date they played, but the state officials (a one-man crew who has told non-christian schools that they wouldn't fit into TAPPS) refused to budge. The girls forfeited if I remember correctly.

Some Coach wrote:

What happens in Saudi Arabia on Christmas Day? Just asking?

This country is well over 90% Christian, it's the lay of the land. Schools don't have to go.

Simply not true. It is over 16% atheist/agnostic. Political Correctness is in retreat everywhere except the exaggerated deference we must pay to religion and its associated victimologies.

Ok, Ok .... it's not 90% Christian .... my point is that the # of kids who actively practice judaism has to far fewer than 5%, so why would a meet cancel for that?

Now, maybe Newton has a higher percentage of Jews than other communities .... but deal with it on your own terms, don't bring down the rest of the State of MA.

Orthodox Jews aren't supposed to compete on Saturdays at all. We had guys on our team who couldn't run any of the invitationals or championship races because they were always on Saturdays. So they ran the Tuesday dual meets and that's it.

Also, in highschool we had our outdoor conference meet scheduled for the same day as an AP test, so every year we had guys miss the meet.

It happens.