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IN TWO LETTERS to the editor, now, support has been expressed for providing Rappahannock’s outstanding track teams—both boys and girls— with proper facilities. We’d like to add our support to this effort, and urge the county authorities to think in terms of adding this item to their capital expenditure priority list as soon as possible. We’d even suggest that the priority rating deserves to be a high one.
But at the same time we’d like to add a cautionary note in contradiction to a point made in the letter printed in this issue. We would definitely NOT want to advocate building a track as a first step in creating a sports complex, complete with grandstands and parking lots, fencing, night lighting, concession stands, and all of the rest of the hoopla (including, yes, “press boxes”) that go with such an enterprise.
Rappahannock County may never see the day when it will be able to afford a full-scale high school football program. If it tried to enter a program now—and a comparable situation that comes to mind is rural Brenstville High School, in Prince William County—the reverse economics of the situation would quickly become apparent. Brentsville is too small to play in the same league as the other high schools in the county where it is located, and the team must travel way down into the Northern Neck and into the outskirts of Richmond to find schools of comparable size. The transportation budget mounts up quickly, largely nullifying any financial bonanzas that other sports—such as track, cross-country and wrestling-might have expected.
So, let’s think about making things better for those terrific Panther track teams, by all means. But let’s don’t get carried away and start thinking in terms of pigskin palaces before we even take that first step.D
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