Cancellation attracts national coverage as controversy continues
In late October, the administration abruptly canceled the remainder of Peninsula’s varsity football season, citing dangers of potential catastrophic injuries to the team’s remaining 21 players. While many students support this decision, a large number of players are still strongly opposed to it.
“With numerous injuries, we no longer believe that we can safely field a team without putting the health of our remaining student athletes in jeopardy,” Principal Mitzi Cress said in a press release on Oct. 20.
Due to intense reactions to the cancellation of the season, several players did not come to practice the day of the press release. Though some players quit, the remaining team has now started offseason practice.
The major downside, as reported by most of the players, was receiving this information around the same time as the whole student body.
“It’s ridiculous that they had been considering shutting down our season all year and the first time we heard about it was the day it happened,” junior and football player Marco Merola said. “If there had been prior warning it would have been easier to deal with.”
The student body, however, has been supportive of the administration’s decision to protect player safety.“For the most part I’ve had a lot of support,” said Cress. “And I feel like it’s dying down a bit, and we’re moving forward onto how to improve.”
The cancellation of the varsity football team’s season gained both local and national coverage; ABC7, KTLA, Daily Breeze, CBS Los Angeles and USA Today ran articles on the season’s cancellation and student reactions. Over 30 other high schools across the country have also canceled football programs due to the dangers of decreased participation.
A petition created by junior Sarah Aoyagi on change.org calls for the school administration to reinstate the football team; the petition currently has 1,928 signatures.
“The football team is such a pertinent part of our school and it essentially defines us as who we are,” the petition reads. “The football team has shown us that they will fight and never give up and taking that quality away from Peninsula is just wrong.”
Although the decision was a shock to the football players as well as to the entire student body, Coach Michael Christensen, Athletic Director Wendell Yoshida and the Peninsula administrators have mapped the path to the reinstitution of the 2016-2017 football team, as well as incorporating a spring football league.
