Executive Board: McCabe makes mountain out of molehill

Dear Mick McCabe,

As the executive board of the North Pointe, the student-run newspaper of Grosse Pointe North High School, we are disappointed in what you wrote regarding the penalties Michigan High School Athletic Association issued after what occurred at girls soccer districts last year.

You answered the question as to why North played at Grosse Pointe South High School in Friday’s football game, citing the MHSAA penalty. However, you went on to target North’s administration.

Contrary to what you implied with your “Northgate,” this was not some sort of cover-up. Our administrators made no attempt to hide what happened.

Once they realized the soccer team had in fact violated the rules, they acknowledged the mistake and accepted the penalties from MHSAA without protest.

In your column, you attacked our administrators as if they knowingly tried to “circumvent the rules.” You claimed they called other schools and got them to comply with their plan to call the games scrimmages.

That is incorrect. In reality, those schools counted them as games, while North did not. That’s why MHSAA penalized us.

Our mistake was within our athletic administration, and we have realized that, and as a result North athletes are paying the price. However, you made it sound like we broke a law or committed a heinous crime. We did neither.

Additionally, you failed to mention why the MHSAA gave North such a wide-reaching punishment.

As we have already stated, the extra games were an accident. According to North’s athletic director, Brian Shelson, North administrators were under the impression that two of our 18 games were scrimmages. However, even though North did not recognize those meetings as formal games, the other schools did. And so, MHSAA deemed the games as official.

Also, contrary to your closing statement, administrators did not attempt to gloss over the incident. In fact, they openly spoke to the teams and parents about it.

Shelson detailed the circumstance from the school’s point of view, relaying the bilateral story.

“There was an anonymous letter written to the MHSAA saying we had played 20 games, and they approached me with that,” Shelson said. “At the time, we were still district champions, and we planned on playing the regional game Tuesday, but we were told that we weren’t allowed to play in that game because of this situation that happened, so we spent some time looking and went through the schedule and tried to figure out why we were thought to have played too many games when we scheduled 18, why would they think we played 20.”

Ultimately, this was a minor incident. And for some reason, you made a mountain out of a molehill. The administration has owned up to its mistake, and it’s wrong to claim they didn’t.

At North, we have always prided ourselves on candor and transparency. To paint us as otherwise is to disregard the many attempts our administration has made to be forthright not only with the students, but the community as well.

Sincerely,
Lindsey Ramsdell, Ritika Sanikommu, Mora Downs, Billy Moin
Executive Board, North Pointe