For some local schools, prayer part of the tradition
In the wake of a July court decision that allowed Brunswick (N.J.) High football coach Marcus Borden to participate in student-initiated pregame prayers, the Globe asked five Eastern Mass. high school athletic directors or football coaches to share their thoughts on the issue.
Alex Campea, Catholic Memorial coach/AD: "It's a difficult topic. I believe all of us have to believe in a higher power of some kind. When you get in the public sector it's various faiths. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a knee before a game and asking for strength and good health and working together."
Are non-Catholics on the team alienated by pregame prayers?
"I don't believe so because it's part of our school and part of our tradition. We have school-wide Mass and all students go. That's understood. They have a decision to make. Maybe I don't want to go to a Catholic school. Any student that decides to go to CM and isn't comfortable with that isn't making the right choice. It's not something we spring on them."
On Borden's battle:
"I give him a lot of credit. Kids at the high school age need to have a belief in the higher power, whatever their higher power may be. It's not for me to tell other schools in other places what they should do. In the world today we all have to be so politically correct. It gets to the point of absurdity. Faith and prayer is the backbone of our community and we're proud of it. We don't hide from it. It's part of our makeup."
Peter Colombo, Brockton coach: "I don't know that I should reveal . . . I don't know if I should put myself in a situation where people are telling us what to do in our locker room. Yeah, we've always taken a knee and we pray -- not to any specific deity -- it's not named; it's each unto his own. Just like we have a moment of silence at school and this is really what that is. We do take a knee and it's more or less a meditation wherever a kid wants to go as far as I'm concerned. We don't specify. We're a public school. You have to keep it generic."
On criticism that Borden overstepped his boundaries as a football coach:
"He should be preaching certain values. Play by the rules, do the right thing. That's what football's about. Every great coach I know is honored at the end not for how many they win, but for how they coach and what they coach for. I coach to make them a better father, a better person. That's what it comes down to."
Tom Lamb, Natick coach/AD: "We respect all religions in our program, but we don't use any of it in our program. We don't do anything. I never used any of that. Church is a wonderful place for that. It's a private issue. To each his own, everyone's got their own style. There certainly has been a tradition of that in football. It's tough to break those traditions."
David Driscoll, Dighton-Rehoboth coach and president of the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association: "In the Association in the last 15 years, I cannot remember in all my years [prayer] ever being brought up. I don't have an official reason why it's never been discussed . . . It hasn't been a problem.
"As far as [our] football team there are no prayers. Occasionally someone will say, 'Think hard about what this means to you, what we need to do,' but there's no prayer. The law says we just don't pray in public school. But you get the opportunity to do what you want to do in the moment of silence. That satisfies everyone. Everyone takes a knee. Sometimes I take a knee. Do I bow my head when I think to myself? Absolutely. I don't necessarily take a knee as if I'm praying or meditating. Basically that's the opportunity that if anyone prays, that's the opportunity."
On Borden's battle in the courts:
"I'm sure that coach was doing that for a long, long time and not bothering anybody and the team enjoyed it. But the law is the law. And I think the moment of silence is the way to go. Tradition in this country dies very hard. If he's been doing that for 20 years, it's very hard for him to stop."
Charlie Stevenson, Xaverian coach/AD: "The kids take a knee and join hands and do a prayer led by the team. Our players say a team prayer on their own, a 'Hail Mary' or an 'Our Father.' It's not a secret; everyone knows it's a Catholic school. I have never heard anybody complain about it to me regarding athletics."
What do the non-Catholic kids on the team do?
"I'm assuming they're there with them. They can just stay there or if they wanted to, they could leave. No one's going to stop them. They never voiced any objection to me. I don't think I've had any experience of them coming to me and asking me to leave. No one has ever come to me and said, 'I'm offended by it and I don't want to do it.' And I wouldn't make them do that if somebody did."
