TimesLeader.com

September 23, 2009

Time’s up for rifle team

Off the Bench with Adam Roberts

Things with the Abington Heights High School rifle team happen like clockwork.

During the season, the team members board the bus daily and travel to North Pocono for 5 p.m. practice.

This is the way it has been since the late 1990s when the decision was made to discontinue the use of the district’s range at Clarks Summit Elementary School.

Just like the steady hands of a clock, the team returns back to Abington Heights High School in school-funded transportation after a three-hour combination of travel and practice.

For the last three years, the time for the school board to discuss the elimination of the team rang like an unwelcome Monday morning alarm for head coach Dane Bower and his team.

For the past two years, Bower, along with parents and team members, stood before the board and answered questions, challenged evidence and won the majority vote to keep the team.

This year, Bower received no phone call, no e-mail, not even a text message notifying him that his team would be on the chopping block at the Wednesday, Sept. 16 meeting.

At the meeting, Superintendent Michael Mahon mentioned that the agenda was posted online and some students inquiring about the team’s standing were referred to the site. Bower said he received no information about the potential cut.

With no public comment, the team which Bower shot for as a student and was around for 40 years, was no more.

The vote of 4 to 3 marked the final tick of the team’s clock and none of its members were there to stop the hands of time.

“I wasn’t happy with the way I found out after all those years,” said Bower, who read about the decision the next day.

The board’s brief discussion of the team at the meeting centered on money. The team takes it and doesn’t make it.

The cost to pay Bower and bus the kids to practice in North Pocono and meets as far away as Allentown is loftier than other sports. There were also concerns about the number of students on the team: fewer than ten by season’s end last year.

Rifle teams also don’t make money because the ranges don’t cater to more than a few spectators.

All of the concerns go back to a decision that was made by a previous school board, over a decade ago, to close the district’s range.

If the AH rifle team had a range, there would be no travel costs to practice and no rental cost for the North Pocono range.

Bower also argues that if the range were in town, the participant numbers would be much higher.

Last year, Bower said he had 20 students join the team, but after they realized the time commitment, the numbers dwindled. The board cited a beginning number of 13 at the meeting.

During the discussion, the location of the team was summed up by board member Robert Small.

“The location…I don’t understand because we have a perfectly functional rifle range in the school district that we have chosen not to utilize,” said Small.

Bringing the range back to the Abingtons would be bringing a political tug-of-war over gun control and gun safety directly into the school district’s lap and into one of its elementary school’s basements.

Unfortunately, the issue of funding the team has the potential of becoming a constitutional battle over gun rights.

Bower doesn’t subscribe to that defense; in fact he doesn’t own a gun or hunt. He just believes the students deserve a team.

The Abington Heights rifle team has been forced to fight against circumstances its members can’t control. For the final time, the school board has stopped the team’s clock, ending over a half-century of tradition as well as the battle that the team fought so vigorously.

Adam Roberts is a staff writer for the Abington Journal. He can be contacted at aroberts@theabingtonjouranl.com.