POLL: Should Sayreville HS football players have attended a Pop Warner game?

“Guilt by association” and “innocent until proven guilty” were just some of the phrases thrown out to substitute host Eric Scott this morning when he brought up the story of one or more senior members of the Sayreville football team at Sunday’s Pop Warner Sayreville Leprechauns games – either watching the game or actually assisting Pop Warner players.

The question: was it appropriate for them to have been there?

Obviously this did not go unnoticed by the parents of the younger players who questioned why they were there in the first place. One high school student was told by several parents that "perhaps he should not be there."

Apparently, according to Bob Larson, president of the Central Jersey Pop Warner, it is not uncommon for students who are no longer in the Pop Warner program to continue as junior or demo coaches.

According to this from mycentraljersey.com:

"This is a coachable moment," Larson said. "The president of the Leprechauns did ask the young man in question to leave. I have been told that he was there with his parents and he was involved with the team since August."

Larson went on to say, "It would not be appropriate for them to be there in this case."

Was this young man charged with a crime? From what we can gather, the answer would be no. Is the young man, “guilty by association?”

Yes, there’s no doubt – and they’re being treated like pariahs for some of the actions their teammates allegedly committed.

However, given all that, if the parents of the Pop Warner players weren’t comfortable with the high school students being at the game – and the coaches realizing this - then they shouldn’t have been there.

Guilty by association is what these players are being charged with.

And unfortunately they're the collateral damage coming out of this scandal.

As much as I think the community is wrong in lumping in all the students as perpetrators - until all the facts are in – the students who either attended the Pop Warner game or were acting as coaches would have been wise to just not have gone.

It's really messed up, but unfortunately true!