OPINION: Coverage of Marty was sensationalized

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• OPINION: Comments more damaging than game forfeiture
• OUR VIEW: Coverage not about race or creating any hype

As the varsity football coach of Marty Indian School, I can honestly say that the whole story about the Marty football team having to forfeit was really blown out of proportion.

In order to show how sensationalized it really was, let us look at the facts.

Fact 1: In the many years that I have dealt with Marty football, both the three years I have served as the Marty coach as well as my many years as an assistant coach with another team in the Great Plains Conference, the Marty Braves have never had to forfeit a football game, to my recollection.

Fact 2: Marty had to forfeit to Plankinton on Aug. 31 due to the fact that I felt that I did not have enough players with the proper amount of practices available for the game. This was due in large part to the fact that Marty did not start school until Sept. 4 of this year. Many of our athletes were not enrolled or were visiting people prior to the beginning of the school year.

Fact 3: While some people can point to the fact that Marty started school late the previous two years due to unforeseen circumstances and were still able to field a team for every game, my response is more local students comprised those teams than the team this year. This year, many of our students are dormitory students that were not scheduled to come to Marty until Sept. 4.

Fact 4: I currently have 25 athletes who wish to play for the Marty Braves football team. This number represents the most players for the Braves in the three years I have been involved with this program, and possibly longer. This number should tell all those who are scheduled for this season that we will not have to forfeit another game.

As for the Sept. 7 article by Mr. Luke Hagen, all it did was elicit ill will between the members of the Great Plains Conference. Although many quotations were stated in the article, based on my telephone interview with Mr. Hagen, I can tell that his line of questioning either intentionally or unintentionally was negative. Therefore, I do not hold any ill will toward the coaches of the Great Plains Conference. I think they just were caught in the line of questioning.

Jay Maynard is an intervention teacher and the varsity football coach at Marty Indian School.

Tags: sports, opinion, updates, marty, football