I was injured on the job last month and as a result, missed several days with my kids. When I returned on Tuesday, I found out that they had made it to the semi-finals of the tournament. Unfortunately, due to several factors beyond their control, they had to forfeit the final game.
They didn't understand.
This program was created to give these kids a sense of accomplishment. Teamwork. Dedication. Goal-setting. They learned all of these life lessons well. They changed. They grew. Then, in one phone call, all of their hopes were dashed and they were let down. Not by fellow teammates, but by the bureaucracy of "the system".
I was heartbroken for them. They didn't show up to play ball on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. The coach told me that they all quit after this bad decision had been made and the trophies awarded to another team via their "forfeit". It just didn't make sense. I asked the director of the program what happened and even he couldn't give me a straight answer. I tried to contact several of the kids but they didn't answer the phone.
Leave it up to a bunch of upper-middle-class bean counters to screw up a fantastic program. 4 million dollars was funneled into it and really great progress was being made across the boards. Now, it's a consummate failure because of one horrible decision.
You can't expect children to readily accept disappointment when they have never known anything else. You can't expect them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no hope to begin with. The people that made this decision have no idea what they've done---and that's the worst part of it all.
I'll keep trying, but last I heard, they're closing the park down---essentially giving it back to the dope dealers and crack whores who infiltrated it to begin with.
Unbelievable.
