Balls for the BoE

Sports as an organized activity is not highly emphasized at my school. Not out of a shortage of desire to engage in rigorous athletic activities, from the students or the teaching staff, I might add. On the contrary, at least, in the sixth grade level, students clamor for more organized physical education events. But the athletic equipment has seen better days, if they exist at all. As a general statement on the current state of affairs, one might accurately say that the public school system is short on balls!

Also, our trained resident Phys Ed expert has since become a generic homeroom teacher of the upper grades. Besides, some have argued that the current PSS priority is on training of cognitive faculties. One might make the case that physical education is just as good a portal for refining cognition, but our pedagogues have yet to reach that level of sophistication. For now, the prevailing image is that Phys Ed is for jocks, and save the warriors of the Little League diamond, t’aint that many of them at the Elementary School level.

I usually wait for the Dollar Day Sale at our local department stores to look for the cheap sports’ items from China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Unsold or overproduced equipment intended for specific tournaments often make their way to our shores. Precisely because they are cheap, they do not last long as well. Further, the incentive to keep purchasing them using teachers’ out-of-pocket funds is not supported by the Governor’s Education Initiative that reimburses expenditures on classroom supplies and materials.

Our vice principal recently managed to locate funds to get us new balls and other paraphernalia and, having kept the battered and tattered old ones, and the burst ones, too, I lined up quickly for replacements. Thus, my homeroom swiftly earned the reputation of having sports items for use, and are readily available to be borrowed if one is a wee bit gracious in the asking.

So it was on one of our recent Thursday afternoons, while walking to my designated station as the teacher monitor during the half-hour lunch break that I heard this young female voice holler across the basketball court: “Mr. V, can I borrow your balls?!?”

Now, my curmudgeon mind gets tame and dormant after sunrise and does not shift gears until after sunset, and only after a couple of frozen margaritas with tacos at the Oleai Bar and Grill. But the phrasing of the booming voice hit a tender prurient spot in the old goat so I shiftily looked at the young lady straight in the eye, and said: “Would you care to rephrase your request?” Bewildered at first, a girlfriend besides her elbowed her ribs and whispered something in her ear. That’s when she burst into laughter and, flustered, she apologetically uttered: “Mr. V, I didn’t mean that!”

For you worried mothers and fathers, inclined to suspect that a pedophile disguised as a teacher might be on the loose to prey on your innocent young ‘uns, let me remind you that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were about 11-13 years old when they started playing with daggers and vials of toxic fluid. Besides, I know enough about pediatric cases on island to know that some of our young ones are hardly innocent by any reckoning. And as our school’s precocious Jonathan Ewen recently commented on the music his peers listen to: “The music is great but I wonder if they understand the lyrics that goes along with them!” On cursory listening, the popular rap music they listen to indeed have the old “sex, drugs and rock ’n roll” themes. Jonathan need not ask. I think the listeners do cogitate on the lyrics they hear. If our PSS Language Coordinator has his way, I was told, we’d be holding bonfires of rap CDs in our schoolyards nightly!

The preceding reflection is a sort of a prelude to the real but delicate subject of this piece, i.e., the reality of having balls. Saipan Tribune editor Jayvee Vallejera opined not too long ago how Glen Manglona at Commerce was “ballsy, gutsy, and a whole lot more” for suggesting that permanent residency should be extended to qualified students, retirees and professionals residing in the Commonwealth. I say, ditto! But that is a separate conversation.

I add a second verse to the refrain. Rep. Justo Quitugua’s Education Committee and the Lower House of the Legislature unanimously passed H.B. 14-371 which allocates some $54+ million virtual green bucks to run our public schools this next fiscal year. What is gutsy about this decision is not the figure, nor the percentage of increase from the last approved budget, but the impression that perhaps, we can start budgeting from the perspective of need rather than projected flow of income.

Projected income is important and must relate to reliable figures and hard data. But making the primary decision of what one must do first renders the matter of financing a task to be striven for, rather than a condition to whine over about (with such lame excuses as the 10 percent allowable increase in line item budget figures!) If the picayune gray matter that passes for brains is too complacent and has become dependency-trained to utilize the survival and creative cerebral instincts that seek out solutions rather than formulate comfortable excuses, then we are just pumping and letting out hot air off our balls! Balls untethered produce no curd!

What I think is a despicable game of softball in our executive and legislative offices is the practice of falling into automatic pilot by default under the ‘continuing resolution’ umbrella. I am waiting and will welcome someone with sufficient official cajones to declare one of these days, “We are shutting down operations of government until we pass a budget.” We’ve grown weary over noisy display of ball tossing from one side to the other, especially if the rackety bucket is passed around underneath as well! Should there be a popular movement or civic referendum on this matter, I will be willing to revisit a previous social activist incarnation when, sans the fedora with the lone star, I answered to the name of Jaime Che Vergara!

As we all know, some with regret and others with admiration, Hillary Clinton of the U.S. Senate, Linda Lingle of the State of Hawaii, and Cinta Kaipat of the Department of Labor may not have orbs, but they need not have the actual testosterone holder to have the ballsy spirit! The matter of educating the population, especially the young, is everyone’s declared priority. The least those who are genetically equipped with the spheres could do to make this happen is to use them. Anyone for hardball? In the education court and field, let’s!

(Strictly a personal view. Vergara writes a weekly column for the Saipan Tribune.)