Playing the blame game

JIM SACCO / News Virginian
Published: October 30, 2007

Slinging type-faced arrows at school officials, coaches and the community is usually easy.

When you do that in print, some of them really show off their malaise by not calling and saying, "What's the problem-" or "Why did you do that-" or "Hey, how can we make it better-"

They usually don't. Opting instead to take what is written with a grain of salt and what-the-heck-does-he-know smirk before they go on with their lives, putting down the paper and accusing the writer of just seeking to "rock the boat." (Which, sorry to tell them, is not true.)

In the end, however, they still treat your football games like they're some voluntary detention by making you sit in the bleachers (and really, who volunteers for detention-) or they just tell coaches not to talk to the media regarding a team's struggles. Forcing us out of the loop and, instead of painting some hunky-dory picture for all to read, forcing us to create on the blank canvas they leave us.

But there comes a time when the blame has to placed elsewhere, so let us forget about a community whose support for Waynesboro athletics is, at best, suspect and let's give the whole keep-your-fannies-in-the-bleachers thing the Rocky V treatment (you know, it never happened). It's time to put the bulls-eye on the Little Giants' football struggles squarely where it belongs.

It belongs on you, the real Little Giants. You, the students who trudge the hallways everyday and walk to Hardees and Subway for lunch.

Because, thankfully, football coach Steve Isaacs isn't under some front-office imposed media quarantine and has no problems when it comes to talking about why his team can't finish the job and why first-half leads are whittled away and turn into a second-half losses. The reason is simple - it's numbers.

It's not talent. Waynesboro has a Southern Valley District Player of the Year waiting to happen in Steven Brown and returns a laundry list of athletes next season. A team that needs more than just a handful of players around them.

And that's your fault, Little Giants.

Sure it is, fielding a competitive football team with 28 guys is a tall task for any coach. Stuarts Draft is the exception, Waynesboro's lack of wins is the rule.

Maybe it's time you change, how about that- Maybe it's time you — yes, you the students -- shut all these naysayers up and decide maybe you should give football a try.

Come on out, earn a varsity letter, have mom sew it on your jacket and wear that thing with a little pride. How about it-

Sure, some of the pressure is on Isaacs, much like it was Don Rice and Danny Dorton before him. Instead of numbers, however, people chose to blame the coach.

Don't think for a second Rice and Dorton weren't wearing the hallway floors thin walking up and down looking for bodies. They were. You just didn't come out.

Can we change that now, guys- (Just asking.)

Because, like it or not, they do talk about you. Ask some out-of-the-city coaches what the problem at Waynesboro is when it comes to athletics and they all sing the same refrain. They'll say you're a different brand of kid here in the River City.

When a coach like Isaacs, held in such high regard everywhere else he's been, came to Waynesboro, other coaches didn't laud his success. Instead, they said let's see how he does with "those Waynesboro kids."

Should they say that- They can say whatever they want. They do and they're not quite off base, are they-

At some point, people stopped giving high school kids credit, forgetting that back in the day they acted like a knucklehead too every now and again.

Heck, when we told you that forcing students to sit in the bleachers was absolutely absurd and begged the Waynesboro Student Council to approach the powers that be to get that changed, one former Waynesboro coach told us we were "inciting you to rebel." Really- Telling kids to try to change something that's stupid by sending student-body elected officers to the front office to ask for a change is rebellion- Oops, sorry, we thought that was very American of us. (We will burn all our old history and constitutional law books from college and call them lies.)

It should upset you when you're not given the credit you deserve or if a few of the proverbial bad apples spoil the whole bushel, giving this impression that you — yes, you the students -- don't care about your high school.

There's a way to take care of all that: rubbing their faces in the mud. Then they won't be talking about you anymore.

What better place to do that than on the football field, donned in a purple jersey with a proud coach standing on the sidelines-

And all it's going to take is 15 more guys at your side. Give or take.

Contact Jim Sacco at