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Letter to the Editor: Allow Pennsylvania farmers to grow industrial hemp

Would it be a good idea to &#8230;&#8230; tinker with the area&#8217;s high school sports divisions to provide more parity among teams, lessening the likelihood of continual blowouts?The question takes center court again this winter each time a team such as Holy Redeemer&#8217;s girls basketball squad, which routinely dominates its Division 3 competitors, records another lopsided victory. During one recent &#8220;contest,&#8221; and we use the word loosely, a single Redeemer player amassed 40 points. Final score: 81-19.Holy Redeemer coach Chris Parker defended his decision to allow the star player to stay in the game through all four quarters. &#8220;It&#8217;s important for me to take care of my kids as a coach,&#8221; Parker told <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/sports/hsbasketball/508513/a-royal-dilemma-for-holy-redeemers-girls-basketball-team" target="_blank">the Times Leader</a>. &#8220;Stats mean a lot to these kids. Rebecca is going to have a chance to win the Wyoming Valley Conference scoring title. &#8230;&#8221;The problem isn&#8217;t unique to this Catholic school in Wilkes-Barre. For example, certain schools&#8217; soccer programs also routinely outshine the others, posting football-like scores while the opponent struggles to net a single goal.Holy Redeemer, however, became a lightning rod for the parity debate last year after a girls basketball game against MMI Prep near Hazleton. At the final buzzer, the scoreboard read: Redeemer 125, MMI 13. &#8220;This type of one-sided show,&#8221; we wrote in <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/archive/215907/news-editorial-ouropinion-151296110-our-view-blowout-game-signals-need-for-changes-2" target="_blank">an editorial</a> here in January 2015, &#8220;is usually reserved for contests between the Globetrotters and its feckless foe the Washington Generals.&#8221;Since then, we haven&#8217;t heard of any official action on the part of the school or the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to resolve the situation.The association, according to the <a href="https://www.piaa.org/" target="_blank">PIAA&#8217;s website</a>, was formed more than a century ago by &#8220;high school principals who desired to eliminate abuses, establish uniform rules and place interscholastic athletics in the overall context of secondary education.&#8220;PIAA believes,&#8221; according to its online history, &#8220;that the student-athlete is best served by a system which emphasizes the amateur, educational and character-building aspects of high school sports and which recognizes that athletics is not the driving force. The students are in school primarily to obtain an education.&#8221;Is the unlevel playing field that&#8217;s so glaringly apparent in some local sports the fault of the PIAA? Is overzealous coaching to blame?Or does a hard defeat at the hands of a superior foe just come with the territory in high school athletics?Give us your feedback by sending a letter to the editor or posting comments to this editorial at timesleader.com.Likewise, tell us your ideas for improving the community and making area residents&#8217; lives better. Maybe we&#8217;ll spotlight your suggestion in a future editorial and ask readers, &#8220;Would it be a good idea to &#8230;&#8221;

Our Opinion: Can Holy Redeemer girls basketball blowouts and other tilted contests be avoided?