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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
After a little further research (which I should have done the first time I read the thread), I've started to wonder if this actually ever happened. First, it's odd that news of a scandal of this sort would reach Toronto before it made news in the US. First, Clarkston is a suburb of Atlanta that's close enough to almost be considered a part of the city (if it were in Fulton County).
Second, if you read the mayor's page on the city website:
http://www.cityofclarkston.com/Conte...entCT.asp?P=20
you'll see a specific mention of the soccer program, and he seems to take a small measure of pride in it. Granted, he does look like the type to yell at kids to get off his lawn, but I have a feeling that there's a lot more to this story than the Canadians reported (no offense to any Cannucks out there). There also doesn't seem to be any mention of it in the Atlanta press, and they'd usually jump all over something like this.
Just some food for thought. |
There was an article on it in the New York Times this last weekend.
The article is long, so I won't repost it here, but here is a permanent link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/us...prod=permalink
What is quoted above in italics in Charlatan's original post is the beginning of the article in the New York Times.
The article tells the whole story, of which only part is told above: the Fugees were eventually allowed to play soccer at Milam Park in Clarkston, but only given a period of six months to do so, and they had to make a deal with the city council to do so. Two months after being given six months, the team was informed that they would have to stop practice at Milam Park immediately as the field was being turned over to a youth sports coordinator for baseball and football programs. The mayor had evidently forgotten the deal; he now says they have until March at Milam Park. Their coach, meanwhile, is trying to find them a permanent home.
The claim is that the soccer cleats tear up the fields, and that adult teams will want to use the fields too. That argument seems rather dumb to me as football and baseball cleats tear up fields equally well, as I seem to recall from playing and watching those sports. Doesn't everyone in Clarkston pay for the fields one way or another, and shouldn't they all have equal access? Certainly, some activities tear up the field more than others, but it's rather idiotic to ban one sport that involves cleats versus all of them.