It’s a beautiful Autumn day here in the state of Massachusetts. The cool wind is blowing, shelves are stocked with fall beers, the birds in my backyard won’t shut the fuck up, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t peak in high school, I would probably be heading to my old high school’s stadium for their game tonight. High school football is in full swing at this point, and for many teams this is a big rivalry weekend. You would think most rivalry games would wait until Thanksgiving, but due to playoff scheduling and whatnot some teams do it earlier. For example, North Shore rivals Malden and Everett were scheduled to face off against eachother tonight, as they have since 1893. But the 125 year old tradition won’t be happening this year. The reason? Malden forfeited the game due to “safety concerns”, which really translates to “We are a bunch of quitting pussies who are scared of our opponents”.

Now for those not from around here, let me fill you in and say that Everett is probably the best high school team in the state. They consistently make it to the Super Bowl at Gillette every year, and the would be game against Malden tonight would have been a blowout for sure. That being said, Malden canceling the game because they knew they were going to lose is such a bad precedent to give these kids. Basically what they’re teaching these kids is that whenever you’re faced with a difficult challenge, just give up and don’t even bother trying. That’s not exactly the best example to pass onto young minds that are eventually going to have to compete in the unfair thing called life someday. But hey, this is 2018 we’re living in now, and apparently raising quitters is considered a good thing for some reason. What ever happened to pride? Remember that word? Who gives a shit if you lose. Just get out their and play for your city against your rival city like your dad did, his dad did, and so on.

Some of you might think I’ve never been in a spot like this but you’re wrong. I played soccer in high school because apparently I was gay from 9-12th grade, but enough about that. My school’s varsity team sucked ass, and we would get smoked by the rich kids from the suburbs like Hingham, Duxbury, Winchester etc. every single game. Did we ever forfeit games just because we knew we had no shot at winning? Fuck no. Instead of forfeiting we just smoked and drank before games, laced up our cleats, and tried to body as many kids as we could before their lawyer father’s threatened to press charges against us. When all was said and done the whistle would blow, the scoreboard would usually read something like 10-0, and we’d get back on the bus and head home. If we couldn’t be better than them we could atleast be tougher than them, and although we didn’t win a single game my senior year, I still had a blast. The only thing that builds more character than winning is losing, and sometimes you just have to get the skit kicked out of you to truly appreciate what sports are all about and the lessons that they teach.

At the risk of sounding like an abusive alcoholic father from the 1950’s, I think every kid needs a good ass kicking while growing up. Whether it come during an actual fight or from hard tackles on the football field, it’s a necessary part of developing and learning that not everything is gonna be a walk in the park. It’s easy to spot out the people that got coddled growing up because they’re the ones who can’t stand the slightest bit of adversity later on in life. Malden should be ashamed of themselves for not having a little pride in themselves and their city by not suiting up for tonight’s game to keep the tradition alive. Yeah, you’re gonna lose and you might get a concussion or 2, but atleast you’ll have some pride in knowing you didn’t take it lying down like the French did for Hitler. Do you wanna be French? The answer to that better be no. Croissant eating pussies. I don’t know how my blog about high school football turned into hating on French people, but here we are. People are getting softer by the day, end of story.

Full story: https://www.boston.com/sports/high-school-sports/2018/10/16/malden-high-school-forfeits-everett-game