To the Editor:

When I was young, we were taught manners, we were taught to respect our elders and treat everyone the same way we would want to be treated.  I would never have thought to lunge at a teacher or coach, nor would I have done anything as inappropriate as spy on the opposite sex as they changed in their locker room.

Had I done either of those things, I would have been severely punished by my parents.  I thank the good Lord every day that I was raised that way and that I have had mentors along my path to remind me to be respectful and responsible.

Somehow we have replaced manners with students’ rights. We have replaced responsibility and respect with teenager entitlement.

Finally, I was blessed with family and mentors that also reminded me that as humans we sometimes make mistakes or use poor judgment.  When that happens, we must pay the consequence, adjust our behavior, and try to be better social beings.

I am very glad that the mistakes that I may have made 35 and 40 years ago are not haunting me to this day.  I was reminded that to make mistakes is human and that to forgive is divine.  These are the life lessons that I live by and have passed on to my children.

When the football community requested to have the football field named for Harold “Bud Kenyon, it certainly seemed fitting and fair. He had dedicated his career to coaching winning teams and teaching life skills through football and sports.

We did not ask you to name the school, the nurse’s office, or a day-care center after him.  We asked you to honor his legacy that was created on that football field.

He was not a perfect man, but he was certainly a Guilderland football legend. He had made a profound difference in hundreds of young people’s lives.  If we only honored perfect human beings by naming fields and buildings after them, there would be many fields, camps, towers, and parks in Albany County standing nameless.

I have only met Coach Kenyon once, the night he was ecstatic to walk my son’s varsity team out onto the same field he coached my husband’s team to so many victories 39 years ago.  I could not wait to take pictures of my husband and his football mentor that had been so important in his life.

I could not wait for my sons to meet the legend that my husband talks about. It was a wonderful night, filled with good memories and excitement over the upcoming 60-year celebration planned for Homecoming.  How sad that the board of education has destroyed that excitement.

When I think of the Guilderland Board of Education looking an 87-year-old legend in the eye and confirming that they would be rescinding their decision to name the football field in his honor, my heart aches. I hope that no one on that board ever has to feel that sadness or witness that sadness thrust upon someone that they care deeply about.

I hope they or their loved ones are never placed under a microscope to see what mistakes they have made in the past.  Stay perfect, dear board members, because the rest of the world is now watching you under that same microscope.

Lianne M. Chase

Football Mom and Wife

of Guilderland Dutchmen