Calling Bullshit (or not)

Wholly unremarkable, she is a thin, blonde forty something woman. Well, wholly unremarkable except for the too bright blonde-from-a-box hair. And her trademark clingy leggings that are perhaps a bit too clingy for her middle-aged thighs. And that she heads both the town division of the kid's soccer league and the PTA. That's where the problem began.

In addition to heading the local division, she actually coaches one of the teams. Her team has perenially been the subject of speculation. It seems that it has almost always had a winning lineup of young players, often many of the same ones from prior years. As such, her team always placed at or near the top of the final standings at the end of the season.

Now, there was a time where I thought myself alone in believing that the random system of player selection had been manipulated. As head of the local division, she would be in a position to put together her own roster. Given the record of her team's successes, I felt that there was little doubt as to what had occurred. But my son, the 8 year old boran2 boy, a member of another team in our division, was having fun and that was paramount. I kept my thoughts to myself. However, as the season wore on I found that I not alone in my views. In fact, I found company in a small legion of other league parents. No one acted on these concerns.

The matter was subsequently brought into sharper focus when Madame boran had occasion to speak with the boran2 boy's coach at a birthday party for the coach's son. They chatted for some time and eventually came around to speaking about the soccer league. The subject of Ms.PTA's team came up. It seemed that he too believed Ms.PTA had manipulated the roster to include many of the best kids in the league. It was his suggestion that she write anonymously to the sanctioning body to state these concerns. He had no intention of doing anything himself.

Upon discussing this with Madame boran, I indicated that I would be more than happy to write and sign such a letter, no need for anonymity. She was not comfortable with this. Madame boran does some volunteer work on the PTA website and has occasion to need input from Ms.PTA. Madame boran wanted to think it over. Subsequently, she stated that she preferred that I not write the letter.

Why did I bore you with this tale? What I take away from this story is that getting people truly motivated to change the functioning of our government would be difficult indeed when they won't even call bullshit on a kids soccer league. Better just remain anonymous.