In The Locker Room

Several parents and players have contacted me in regards to football gear being taken in the locker room. Players and parents have relayed to me that 'somebody' is opening the lockers and putting the gear into other players lockers or just plain taking the gear out of the locker.

I want to assure the players and the parents that we have taken steps to insure the locker room is a safe place for our players. When the Varsity or the JV are in the locker room, the Freshmen are not allowed in until they are all out of the locker room. Conversely, if the Freshmen are in the locker room, I do not allow the Varsity and JV in the locker room.

Second, we always have a coach in the locker room to monitor the safety of all the players. Mostly, it will be Coach Bushardt or myself monitoring the locker room for our players.

To give you folks some perspective, the locker room is 54 feet long and 12 feet wide. We have 75 players in 6th Period PE in an area (Length X Width for you math freaks like me) of 648 square feet. That is a tight squeeze and it is wall to wall players and gear and clothes in the locker room. There are times when a player inadvertently taken a black backpack and put in in their locker.

Players on the Freshman team have to share a locker to secure their own gear. So it is the responsibility of both players to ensure the locker is locked properly. Today, after our players suited up, I found 3 lockers left unlocked: Two had the unlocked locks in the latch and one did not have a lock at all.

I spoke to the players today and I left the responsibility to lock their lockers to them. As a police officer, I have worked in schools for many years. In all occasions where I had to investigate a locker theft, the suspect told me the reason the broke into the locker was because it was unlocked or unsecured. I have never arrested a suspect that "picked" the victim's lock to gain access into the locker.

We, as a staff, will continue to monitor this problem the best we can.