Upon Further Review: Fewer jobs + less people = fewer athletes
Over the last few years, the athletic programs in Warren County have been scrutinized due to their lack of success.
The blame for the lack of victories has spread like a cancer, from coaches to players to administration. But anyone who has been involved with such programs understands it’s hard to compete when so few of our young boys and girls try out for a sport.
At the high school we may have 1,800 students, but when only a few have an interest in competing in a sport, it makes it very difficult to be competitive against schools who have twice as many kids coming out to participate in athletic programs.
Maybe some of you have figured out where I’m going with this, and some are still scratching their heads.
After Carrier announced on Monday that they would be closing the McMinnville plant, I started thinking how this was going to affect not only McMinnville’s economy, but also its athletic programs.
Yes, families losing their jobs is the biggest concern of all. It’s not just affecting the people who have worked there most of their life, but all the people of Warren County.
The truck drivers who deliver and haul Carrier’s products, companies who supply the plant and most of all the Morrison community which has meant so much to the plant’s operations over the last 36 years will all be affected.
Now you’re asking, how do I tie all this in with our athletic programs?
Warren County has lost its share of jobs over the last several years, and nothing has been done to replace those jobs. So people have had to move out of Warren County in order to provide for their families. Now the shutdown of Carrier is going to affect at least 2,000 homes, and I don’t see any companies beating down our doors to relocate here in McMinnville.
If something isn’t done, McMinnville will become a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Fewer people means less students and less students means the athletic programs are going to suffer even more.
With no jobs and taxes being increased on a daily basis, it seems people have no choice but to move down the road to Murfreesboro or Nashville in order to provide for their families.
Look at the job market in Murfreesboro, and then look at their high school athletic programs. New schools like Blackman and Seigel are already benefiting from the size of the talent pool in Rutherford County.
I don’t have all the answers, but some of our leaders in Warren County need to get up off the couch and get to work. These are the same folks who bellyache about our losing athletic programs, now it’s their turn to rise to the challenge by bringing in new jobs and helping keep our community from losing so many families to other towns.
Nobody has all the answers to the decline in our athletic programs. But let me say this, if our population in Warren County continues to shrink because of jobs and higher taxes, McMinnville will stay at the bottom as far as our sports programs go.
We need athletes to be competitive, and right now there’s no incentive for new families to move to this beautiful county.
We have to build our talent pool — and now it’s only going to shrink.