Another side of the story

This letter is in response to the recently published article, “In a Rural Town, Even Basketball Suffers,” in the New York Times.

From 2003-2007, I served as principal at Medora Junior-Senior High School and was also the varsity boys basketball coach. I was made aware of the article by colleagues who saw it. The more I reflect on this article, the more disappointed I am and frustrated for the Medora School system and community by the one-sided negativity that dominates this article. I feel compelled to tell another side to this story that the author chose not to share.

It is true that Medora works with many families and students for which social issues are a real problem. I dealt with this every day of my four years at Medora. However, I can tell you that I have dealt with these social problems in every community in which I have taught or been an administrator.

After working at Medora, I spent two years as a middle school administrator in Bloomington. I can tell you that the social problems I worked with there were as bad, maybe at times worse, than what I saw in Medora. And Bloomington is an affluent college town.

More importantly, the author failed to share the many positive aspects of the Medora community and, yes, even its basketball program.

First, there are many wonderful, caring people that live in Medora who would literally do anything to help and support you. Many people in Medora treated my wife, our three children and me like family. We were invited into homes for dinner, our children were treated great and people treated my wife positively at basketball games, even when I made coaching mistakes or lost close games.

There are a lot of good people in Medora who do many positive things both professionally and in the community. Whenever I asked for help with school programming or initiatives, many people in the community gave of their time, money and talents.

The school board in Medora was a wonderful group to work for and with. They are truly committed to their school and community.

The article failed to mention the commitment of this community to completely renovate a beautiful K-12 school building, despite the burden it placed on local property taxes. Also, the school system has many dedicated teachers who work very hard to make a difference with students, despite the issues mentioned in the article and limited resources available.

Finally, there are many dedicated churches in Medora that make a real difference in people’s lives.

As for the basketball program, for which I served as coach for four years, it is true that it has been many seasons since the team finished with a winning record. However, I think it is unacceptable that the author left it at that.

Despite the school size and challenges for Medora, it has had competitive years also. Jim Stewart had many competitive teams in the mid-1990s, and one of those teams nearly won a sectional, even before class basketball.

We had two seasons more recently in which our teams contended for winning records before falling just short of this goal.

I am very proud of those players who played for us. They gave us everything they had. I think this article completely disrespects this reality. Many of these players took great pride in playing for Medora, and the community was very supportive of our teams.

In closing, an author for the New York Times probably could care less about this letter; he is trying to sell papers. But I hope this letter means something to some people in Medora and Jackson County.

This article could have focused on the respect we should have that Medora can provide a positive school experience for its students, despite its size and challenges. I for one am grateful to the Medora community for the opportunity I had to work for them and am proud to say I started my administrative career there.

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Paul White is principal at Washington High School in Daviess County.