Turkey Day

This is not to diss Peter Capodilupo, the retiring varsity football coach for Newton North High School. But what's interesting is that The CHB today chose to fete a guy who had a career losing record instead of someone who, you know, actually accomplished something.

But wait! Per Shank, "It was never about winning state championships or creating a Bay State League dynasty. For Coach Cappy, it was about sculpting young souls, leaving a mark, and preparing them for life after high school, life after football."

OK fine. Then what about the coaches at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, where softball players practice while gunfire fills the air? Think they prepare their charges for a life after high school?

Heck, they're probably just happy to live through high school.

And while Coach Cappy plied his trade at a $197 million taxpayer-financed campus, other local athletes play on carcinogenic fields or without proper equipment. The rate of participation in sports at Boston public high schools is less than 30%, less than half that of the statewide total.

It's great Newton North had someone like Capodilupo. (No word on whether Shank's kid, a Newton North alum, played for him.) What's not great is that The CHB used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to celebrate someone who had all the breaks, rather than use the occasion to take notice of others whom, like the Pilgrims, faced down adversity daily as part of their hardscrabble yet mundane lives.