EDITORIAL: 'You're All Free to Go'

A Spotsylvania judge has had enough. Should we all?

by Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Perhaps something good can come from the fiasco that has consumed a subset of parents at Riverbend High School since December.

After more than five months of accusations, hurt feelings, threats, investigations, legal wrangling, and coaches at the school coming-and-going like so many COVID variants, someone has finally put the whole sordid swim-team mess in context.

“This whole thing is ridiculous.”

Thank you, Judge Richard McGrath.

To be fair, McGrath wasn’t talking yesterday about the whole convoluted controversy at Riverbend High School, which we have covered extensively - See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Rather, he was talking about one small part of the story - an accusation by former principal Xavier Downs (who was hired despite not having the necessary license - something the School Board from January 2022 - January 2024 had a penchant for doing) that he was “assaulted” by a parent at a meeting on December 20.

But in a sense, he was talking about the broader story.

It’s All About the Kids - Not

High school sports can be a beautiful thing.

One of my favorite pieces of writing involves the morning after a loss in the VHSL football playoffs. In that moment, everything that high school sports could be became clear to me.

A young player I’d occasionally coached on special teams was caught on camera with his head hung following his final game, thinking not about what he’d lost, but about all he had gained playing the game, and all the lessons he would take from those experiences intocom the days and years ahead.

No scholarships, no NIL agreements with big paydays, nothing but what he’d given his teammates, coaches, and school over the previous four years. Nothing but lessons he would carry with him into the future about sacrifice, teamwork, victory, and loss.

This is what high school sports should be.

But at Riverbend High School this year, it became about everything but …

… instead, this year’s seniors will depart a swim program they’ve worked hard to build with memories of:

• parents arguing in the school auditorium

• administrators having to be pulled apart from parents

• parents throwing temper-tantrums over who gets named captain

• School Board members sticking their noses into a fight they should have been mediating, not manipulating

• an endless stream of social media posts forcing people to take sides

And for what?

Please don’t say it’s “for the kids.” It’s not.

It hasn’t been about the kids in this county for more than a few years. Pick your favorite villain and blame them - this superintendent, that superintendent; this conservative Board member, that liberal Board member; this teacher, that administrator. No matter who you hate, it all comes back to the same thing.

Adults who are overinvolved and doing all they can to protect our young people from becoming who we all ultimately want them to become - responsible, productive citizens.

It’s Time to Learn to Forgive

For more than two years - first with the Free Lance-Star, and now with the FXBG Advance - I’ve covered Spotsylvania County Schools from a lot of different angles. From book bans and attacks on curricula and teachers, to elected officials failing to show up for meetings because they can’t get things their way and other officials who cut budgets with one hand and with the other waggle their fingers at a cash-strapped system and ask with a straight-face why they aren’t meeting their demands.

As a football coach and as a teacher, I’ve watched adults, including parents, overindulge, overprotect, and overreach to keep high school students from exploring new ideas and, yes, struggling with new concepts and occasionally failing.

And through it all, there’s one word I hear used infrequently of high-school students - “adults” or “young adults.”

Instead, we talk about protecting “children” from books in high school libraries. Advocating for our “children” by standing up for them when a coach makes a decision we don’t like. Ensuring our “children” aren’t exposed to this idea or that book in high school classes.

Folks, here’s the truth. At this point in their academic careers, high school students aren’t children.

They’re young adults, about to take on jobs big and small. In five years’ time, today’s seniors will be working in major corporations, writing code for challenging business problems, entering medical school or law school, making life-and-death decisions in the military, arriving at our homes when tragedy strikes as firefighters, police officers, or paramedics. And the list could go on.

And while these students will move on, where will today’s adult’s be?

Fighting the same tired, meaningless battles.

The kids will be ok. They’ve most likely already moved on - what choice do they have? Their futures lie ahead, not in the troubles of today.

If all the arguments and spats that have consumed this community were really about helping these teenagers as they prepare to take on very adult responsibilities, the problems that Riverbend has experienced this year would have been handled in a way that ensures those young student-athletes walked off the field of competition at the end of the season, or the end of their careers, with a head full of fond memories, and a spirit girded for the struggles ahead.

Judge McGrath certainly sees that.

“People ought to be able to forgive each other. Good gosh,” he said in court yesterday. “This case is dismissed. You’re all free to go.”

The kids are moving on.

It’s time the community to take the judge’s advice and move on, too.

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