Quote:
Originally Posted by rockyroad
Since those of you who are bashing on Todd do not live in Washington State, let me take a moment here to tell some of you to lighten up. You heard/read one side of the issue - a very slanted side, I might add. One of the officials involved works for the tv station that ran the story - they taped almost 25 min. of interview with Todd, and then whacked it down to several short sound bites to make him look like the bad guy.
Short story - there is a process in place to apply for a waiver of the WOA policies. The PNFOA did not follow that process - and has violated many other policies of the WIAA/WOA over the last several years. This is not the first issue where they have done their own thing and told the WIAA and the WOA to stick it. If they lose playoff berths over this, they knew it beforehand and chose to forge ahead anyway.
It is not about the pink whistles or not supporting breast cancer. It is about one local association in the State trying to tell the State Association to take a hike, over and over. And now that it has come back to bite them in the butt, they run to the media...and people who know nothing about the situation inundate Todd Stordahl with e-mails and pink whistles because they believe what they see in the media without taking the time to get the whole story.
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That all may be true, but it doesn't change two important things: 1) Washington even cares in the first place what color whistle is used. 2) They chose to use this instance to finally do something.
The color of whistle used is a pretty insignificant thing. If their uniform rule really dictates this, they are being far too controlling in the first place.
If the association has been bucking the state's authority for some time, there was no particular reason to make this time the straw that broke the camel's back. As much as Todd may try to say it has nothing to do with breast cancer awareness, he can't get past the fact that he's suspending them for an act that was to promote breast cancer awareness when he (apparently) let other acts go unpunished. This is, at the very least, an unforced
PR error and one that was completely unnecessary.
Did the crew knowingly subvert the state's authority? Apparently yes.
However, what the rest of the world sees are bureaucrats that are so consumed with their own power that they can't make reasonable exceptions for charity. It's all about deciding to fight the battles you can win, and the state can't win this one.