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Left out of the league
Charter school wants to compete in the DCIAA
(Published October 3, 2005)

By LAURA PETERSEN
Staff Writer

It doesn't matter how well they've played -- when the regular season ends for the Friendship-Edison Knights, it's over.

The public charter school football team adheres to D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association guidelines and is playing against five DCIAA teams this season. But when it comes time for selecting teams to play in the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl, which determines the D.C. Public Schools varsity football champion, their scores don't count.

Charter schools, although officially "public" schools, are not allowed to compete in the DCIAA league.

"I feel a little left out," said Head Coach Aazaar Adbul-Rahim. "These are D.C. residents, D.C. kids, D.C. citizens – they should be able to play for something."

Charter schools are not allowed to play in the league because they are not under the same supervision, according to Allen Chin, director of athletics for D.C. Public Schools. Charter schools receive public funding through per-pupil allocations of tax dollars, but they are operated as nonprofit organizations by independent boards of trustees under charters issued by either the D.C. Board of Education or the D.C. Public Charter School Board.

"How can you want to be independent of our ‘bureaucracy' and take part of some of our privileges and programs?" he said.

Another issue is lack of funding, Chin said. The city school system's newest public high school, McKinley Technology High School, is currently being phased into the DCIAA and will compete in varsity football next year. Despite the addition, funding has not been increased for athletics, according to Chin.

"If Friendship-Edison comes to the table with funding, we could handle it, because we are all serving D.C. students," Chin said.

The Knights are struggling to finance their football program, because they receive no budget from their school, according to assistant coach Douglas Roeser. To refurbish equipment and pay for renting other high schools' fields for home games, the team raises money by selling T-shirts and doughnuts. They also save as much as they can from the money out-of-town teams pay them as a share of gate proceeds.

But the coaches say this is not enough to pay for maintaining the field the team practices on – a portion of Watts Branch Park immediately adjacent to Friendship-Edison Collegiate Academy on Minnesota Avenue NE. There is no grass and it's so dusty that players have to huddle in a different location after each play to keep the dust out of their eyes and noses, said quarterback/wide receiver Adam Madden.

Their funding woes would likely be eliminated if Friendship-Edison had a home field where they could host games, Abdul-Rahim said. The profits from ticket sales and concessions could finance not only football, but the school's soccer program as well, he said.

The space the team uses now – the ideal location for a home stadium, behind the school – is public land managed by the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation under an agreement with the National Park Service, according to Stephen Syphax of the park service's National Capital Parks East division. To sell or donate the land to the school would "require an act of Congress," Syphax said.

The D.C. government would not want the field to be sold or donated to the school, which is allowed to use the area with a permit, because city officials want the land to be as "inclusive" as possible for all D.C. residents, said Neil Rogers, the recreation department's chief interim human resources director and former chief of staff.

One option that remains available to Friendship-Edison is raising the funds to refurbish the field, which Roeser estimated at $25,000, while keeping the land available for public use.

"On behalf of the citizens of the District of Columbia, we would be more than welcoming to accept a donation," Rogers said.

Head Coach Adbul-Rahim has already paid more than $2,000 of his own money to seed and water the field this summer, Roeser said. And despite the city's pledge to cut the grass, Roeser said the city follows through only when someone calls about it.

The coaches said that city officials worked with Friendship-Edison to install bollards along the far side of the field to prevent stolen cars from being burned on the field or the grass being ripped up by vehicles driving on it – both frequent occurrences in the past.

"We would have to push stolen cars to the side of the field so we could practice," Abdul-Rahim said.

With no home field and no league, Abdul-Rahim relies on relationships built with other coaches from his days at Dunbar Senior High School to schedule his team's games. Home games remain difficult to arrange. Besides paying about $1,500 to rent Spingarn Senior High's football field for their Oct. 1 game against Riverdale Baptist, Abdul-Rahim said the Knights also had to pay to paint the lines on the field because Spingarn had not yet played a home game this season.

Some DCIAA coaches do not want to play charter schools. Others, like Daryl Tilghman, don't view the charter teams differently from DCIAA teams.

"It's just about playing against the competition," the Roosevelt Senior High athletic director and head football coach said.

Roeser said he believes that some coaches are fearful that Friendship-Edison's strong academic programs would lure away their best players if the charter school were allowed to join the league. Tilghman said that situation wouldn't be any different than losing players to Dunbar or Coolidge, existing DCIAA schools with good reputations.

No postseason means that, in effect, the Knights are playing just for fun.

Sure, they play for the love of the game, but "we have the ability to beat these teams," said strong safety Sean Roeser, the assistant coach's son who last year played at Woodson Senior High.

Only three years old, the Friendship-Edison football program is showing its muscle. The team held a 2-2 record going into the Oct. 1 game and finished last season 4-5. But even if a championship is a long way off, Abdul-Rahim is building a program that emphasizes academics.

"What I try to get in their heads is that a college scholarship is worth more than a Turkey Bowl … but we would like a Turkey Bowl," Abdul-Rahim said.