The Hound has heard some lame excuses over the years, but the reason Waukegan High School postponed its non-conference tilt Saturday with Maine East was the district didn't want to tear up Weiss Field. The district's groundskeeper must be The Turfinator to run that one by school officials and get it approved.
The reasoning, The Hound was told, is that playing in the drenching rain would devastate the field for the rest of the season. Twenty-two players would chew up the turf, leaving it a grassy, muddy mess. So. If it's that bad for the next game, just spray paint what's left. Start thinking out of the box. After all, you are educators.
The Hound didn't notice a whole lot of dry grass on Monday afternoon, when the rescheduled game was played. So instead of playing in the rain, the molly-coddling district turned tough high school footballers into a bunch of namby-pambies.
The Hound can hear future opponents: They were afraid to get wet! They're afraid of mud! They might have wrecked the field! And that's the clean ones.
Then again, this might have been a field of dreams. The last time The Hound checked, the Bulldogs were pummeling Maine East on Monday afternoon by a score of 41-7. Maybe two-and-half-days of rest was good for the players and for the sod, which wasn't busted.
Do some homework before writing a story. The reason for the cancellation was the fact that half of the Maine East team's houses were flooded. The Waukegan athletic department reacted with compassion to understand that there were more important things going on Saturday than a football game.
THE HOUND SAYS: OK, anonymous, if that's true, that is a compassionate gesture. Then the coaches should have shouted that news from the goalposts. What a great story! Blue-collar Waukegan lets ritzy Maine East players help their parents bail out their basements. It would have been even better if the Waukegan players and coaches went down there and helped them. It would have had all the fixings for a made-for-TV movie. Next time there's a similar act like this, coach, let us know.