From time to time the CCA Steering Committee sends an informational e-mail to the list of over 1000 local addresses. Many of the readers of the list respond and we often compile those responses into another e-mail to the list. Although we don’t publish the names of responders, we do have names and e-mail addresses so the resulting posts are not anonymous to the Steering Committee. You also have the option to respond directly at the end of individual posts. In this case your name and e-mail address are required. Your name will automatically be published with your comment, but your e-mail address is never revealed.
Below you will find an archive of CCA emails and your responses. The responses from e-mail list members do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the CCA Steering Committee.
Let me begin by saying that in Virginia I coached girls’ softball, trained the same girls who won the 12-15 year old national championship a few years ago, coached boys 12-14 soccer, referreed all age groups in soccer, and umpired adult softball. Since moving to RI, I have played softball on a National Championship team in 2006 and continue to travel the country playing softball. I continue to play golf on a regular basis. That being said, naturally I am not against sports for any age group. However, I question the need to play or practice night youth football or softball. To put a night facility in the same area that requires dark skies is unacceptable. Sports lighting, no matter how well designed, cannot help but denigrate the evening sky. My home softball field is on Atwood Avenue in Cranston which has state -of-the-art lighting and the ambient light escaping skyward is easily measurable. It is a rule of youth softball in that Virginia national championship league that school- and homework comes first and sports second. I subscribe to that philosophy now and when my own children-student-athletes were playing in Virginia.