Disappointed And Ashamed

To the Editor:

I was deeply disappointed to see in the Saturday News-Times that Newtown High School played a football game against Bethel on Friday, September 14, 2001. President Bush requested Friday, September 14 to be a day for National Mourning and Remembrance. The NFL and MLB cancelled games, colleges and universities around the country cancelled their games. Newtown played football.

One Newtown student was quoted saying, “People needed the game to get away from the misery served up this week.” Would he have felt that way if it were his father or mother, brother or sister on one of those airplanes that crashed into any one of those buildings and died with thousands of other innocent people? I’m sorry Mike Kelley, president of the Booster Club thought, “dwelling on the tragedy was tiring.”

Where was the leadership of our community and the members of the Board of Education who allowed this game to take priority over a nation’s mourning? Playing the game showed total disrespect to the victims, our president and our nation. Is this the example we should set for our young people? It’s too bad Newtown couldn’t sacrifice one football game when you consider what the passengers on Flight 93 sacrificed.

I am not only disappointed; I am ashamed of Newtown.

Barbara Krausz

9 Winding Brook Road, Newtown  September 18, 2001