Out of Bounds: Let's stay together on this entire new high school issue By JAKE LINGER Sports editor
So there is this rumor of grandeur circulating throughout the city that there may finally be plans on planning the planning session for a new Bowie high school. Of course, the Blade-News plans on covering every step of the process.
As the sports editor of this fine publication, could the powers that be please find it within themselves to not give the new school the Bulldogs mascot? Let's change it up a little bit. In fact, let's be Sharks!
Why not? The Bowie Boys and Girls Club mascot is, in fact, the Bulldogs - as is the current Bowie High and Bowie State University. Writing stories for these sports pages can be tough sometimes. How the readers can keep it straight between the Bulldogs of BHS, BBGC and BSU is beyond me.
Therefore, the new G. Frederick Robinson High School (hopefully not "Memorial" for another 30 or 40 productive years!) should be nicknamed the Sharks. Fair is fair. Forgetting about Bowie State for just one second, the new high school would share the nickname of its territorial brethren at South Bowie Boys and Girls Club where, by the way, Mayor Robinson coached once upon a time.
There were plans to name a new facility after former Blade-News editor John Rouse, but plans for a detention center in Bowie fell by the wayside. Perhaps a Dairy Queen!
The winter and spring months of early 2008 brought about some issues between BBGC and SBBGC which broke some fences that may not ever be mended. Thanks to Massie and his Merry Men (Massie being county boys and girls club president Calvin Massie) there were battle lines drawn in the proverbial sand between the two city athletics organizations.
Essentially, Massie was upset that the Bulldogs of the BBGC variety were ditching gorgeous Prince George's here and there to participate in some athletics in neighboring jurisdictions. The big deal really is that the county club is mismanaged and in need of funds and the wayward teams playing in other counties are costing the county money.
Fair enough, but Massie decided that instead of taking a stance to solve the issue, he was going to pit BBGC against the one and only Sharks of south Bowie and force a power play between the two organizations. The result of the county's actions: County boys and girls club members voted in May in favor of an amendment to the county bylaws which require full participation in county athletics.
The county wishes to have its participating boys and girls clubs playing within the county and not, for example, playing lacrosse in Anne Arundel County or football in the Capital Beltway League. Despite the diplomatic efforts of Robinson and state Sen. Doug Peters, county boys and girls club executive director Massie garnered the necessary votes as he knew he would. The amendment will go into effect March 1, 2009.
I spoke with numerous representatives from each of the three factions involved, including Massie, south Bowie president Raina McLean and BBGC president-elect Lynn de Seve. Two of the three seemed genuinely concerned more for the kids involved in the boys and girls clubs of Bowie than the county as an entity.
And that is how it should be.
But getting back to the point, why not designate a Shark as the mascot for the new high school? It would even the playing field a bit and give an even advantage (which I think is actually no advantage) between the Bulldogs and Sharks - again, not including Bowie State.
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Speaking of a new high school, I have a solution to this issue.
From speaking to someone at Bowie High School a week ago, I learned that the school is overcrowded by about "a lot," - a bit under 400 students to be exact. Approximately 230 students registered late for classes, presumably because many families in this weak economy can no longer afford to send their kids to private high schools such as Archbishop Spalding, St. John's College or Bishop McNamara.
But all the overcrowding numbers do is further prove what everyone in the city knows: Bowie needs a new high school. And that matter will be dealt with by the people who matter most at the county level of government. Just from conversations I've enjoyed with Aunt Agatha, I wonder if County Councilwoman Ingrid Turner will be involved in any way with the planning for the planning session in regards to the new school.
"Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?" asked pop diva Avril Lavigne.
That's right, I quoted an Avril song. And I'd do it again!
Here is a suggestion for the new high school, far fetched as it may be. Bear with me and allow me to "stew in my own juice," as a reader once wrote me in regards to lack of coverage for a local team.
I believe the proposed site for a high school would be where Mitchellville fields now stand - or lay. But right next to Bowie High School is the Bowie Library. Instead of spending money on a brand new school, why not find a way to incorporate the already standing structure of the library into the current school to simply expand? Then maybe the land at Mitchellville fields could be used for a mixed-use upgraded field (once the economy recovers) and a new library.
There are also plans for an additional city gymnasium to be built in the coming years. There is so much land at Mitchellville fields (granted, it's owned by the county) and there may be a way to use it as a sports and education complex for Bowie, just like the one in Landover - or Raljohn, as a co-worker and devout Redskins fan recently reminded me is the name of the "city" that FedEx Field occupies.
If that county-owned Mitchellville property could be used in such a manner, with the county receiving fair compensation, of course, then the idea of connecting the current high school with the library-turned-high school may not be a bad idea.
Granted, the same reader who wrote and told me to stew in my own juices (I still really don't understand what that means) also said, "If you were in Minnesota and pulled this stuff, you'd be run out of town."
Not many sports and education complexes in Minnesota?
