Who?
This kid gets my vote for Canadian Soccer Athlete of the Year.
Emil Cohen, a student at Northern Secondary School in Toronto, was suspended after standing up at an athletic ceremony and complaining about how his soccer team was getting the short end of the physical education department's stick.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Voicing his concerns got him a two day holiday and also a ban on playing for any school teams in the future.
"We now have it instilled in us that soccer (at Northern) is synonymous with the word unnecessary."
"We had this point made very clear to us during the season, when our last two home games ... were moved to Forest Hill to allow the football team more field time."
While many in the GTA media today are making this story about free speech and the right to say what you like, this, obviously, has touched a different tone with me."Nevertheless, we had a team this year, due to the tenacity and perseverance of several players, who took it upon themselves to do the phys-ed department's job and find a coach."
Having grown up in rural Southwestern Ontario I remember what it was like to have your sport marginalized in high school.
Basketball, volleyball and hockey got much of the funding - and attention - while the soccer teams were left playing on pitches that resembled those in third world countries.
If you wanted to play, the onus was basically on the players to come up with a team, uniforms and a coach. Never mind getting people out to your game to watch, just getting to the game was an actual concern.
It's frustrating for players like Emil, and often reflective of why our kids don't try to take their soccer further, when they're confronted with such inequalities.
Club teams across Canada have made big strides in the last ten years and when it comes to post-secondary educations soccer scholarships are plentiful south of the border - so it's strange to me to see the high schools here have not followed suit.
By the numbers, soccer stands alone as the highest participatory sport in the country - it's probably number three or four when it comes to funding.
Perhaps in the next ten years, with three first division clubs and a number of D2 and D3 teams sprinkled across the country we'll see some change in the high schools - but my guess is, with limited funds and even less resources, we'll still be hearing about how kids like Emil are putting the work on their backs to play the game they love.