Sports

By Ryan Harris 

Staff Writer

After a streak of getting second place in the playoffs, the SLA Rockets baseball team will not be making the playoffs this year.

The Rockets, a D-division team at the beginning of the season, had one of its most successful seasons with a record of 11-1. Their only loss going to University City High School.

Although the Rockets did not make it to the playoffs, due to budgets cuts and school closings, they will be moved up to C-division next season.

The winners of D-division, University City, is one of the schools slated to close as a result of district budget cuts.

“The only reason we’re going to get to move out, and go C, based on the way the system is structured is because University City will not actually be a school next year,” says Coach Douglas Herman.

Even though his baseball team was pushed up a division, Coach Herman expressed his feelings on how they got to C-division.

“Had University City been in operation next year, we would not make the playoffs and we would still be D because we had one loss. That’s ridiculous.”

Coach Herman also expressed the pride in his team for season.

“The Rockets scored more runs this season than any team in public league baseball,” he stated.

The Rockets won their last game of the season against Sankofa Academy Charter School with a forfeit due to weather complications.

Overall, though they are not going to the playoffs, the Rockets have moved up a division; a bittersweet ending to their season.

By Jacob Lotkowski

Staff Writer

The Philadelphia School District is rolling out 300 million dollars in cuts to schools for the 2013-

2014 school year. These proposed cuts would include a complete elimination of 7.1 million dollar (2011-2012) athletics program for every school in the district.

Principal Chris Lehmann wants to change that.

With his petition on Change.org, Lehmann trying to get the attention of Philadelphia’s highly profitable sports teams, the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, 76ers and Union to tap into the vast expanses of revenue, about a combined total of 800 million dollars (2012), to fund the district’s sports leagues.

There appears to be no precedent for private sports teams funding public programs in such a large, systemic manner. However, donations coming from players on Philadelphia sports teams are not unheard of.

In June of 2012, The Cole Hamels foundation donated more than $400,000 to three schools for updates of their playgrounds and libraries. The foundation was hoping that these projects would help keep these schools off the chopping block–but in January of this year, they were slated for closure.

Although this donation wasn’t able to save any schools from closing, it is that same type of philanthropic spirit that this petition is trying to get out of our hometown sports teams.

The petition has been picked up by local news NBC 10, The Philly Post, The Notebook and Philadelphia Business Journal. The petition has gotten more than 2,300 supporters total, but public interest peaked last week and signatures have since plateaued.

The School District is currently looking over the proposal and Lehmann is awaiting their response.

Until then, the only thing that can move forward is the number of signatures on the petition and awareness of the looming 2013-2014 budget cuts.

Broad Street Run Play-by-Play from SLA Media on Vimeo.

By DeShawn McLeod

Staff Writer

Broad Street on May 5, 2013 was surreal.

We had to be at school by 6:30 AM if we wanted to get a bus ride to the starting line. I

accidentally woke up at 5:57 AM. Wonderful morning, right?

Once everything was situated and the bus nearly came, I realized I didn’t have my knee brace. Wonderful morning example #2.

My corral started at 8:50 and we were off! I remember seeing City Hall from Broad and Olney and I imagined how long it

would take to get there.

Me and my running buddy Dejah Harley agreed to keep the same pace. We got to Temple Hospital and soon we reached Broad and Cecile B. Moore. There was a parade of bystanders, Temple Owls, cheerleaders, bandmates, and football players cheering us on. That was between miles 3 and 4.

Once we got to mile 5, there were hundreds of people out supporting us. The water-givers were cheering, the spectators were cheering, and even the runners themselves were

cheering from all the hype.

And then we got to City Hall. I couldn’t believe it.

Once we were on our way to South Philly, things started to look up hill. (Well, downhill, because the whole course was literally all downhill.) My legs weren’t hurting and my knee was doing just fine.

But then we hit mile 8, and that’s when the soreness started to kick in – everywhere. My partner and I kept the same pace and felt the same pain.

To get me through, I remembered practice. We had two miles left and I just reminisced about running to Lloyd hall and back during after-school runs at SLA.

Mile 9! Once I saw that we had half a mile left, I pictured myself running from Lloyd Hall to the Viking Statue. I was thinking in my head… the finish line is not far away.

When the Navy Yard sign confronted us, we knew we had just a quarter mile before we

were able to stop. Dejah grabbed my hand and we jogged the last bit in stride with each other. Then we saw our coach, Internship Coordinator Jeremy Spry. He had already finished, so he jumped the fence and grabbed my friend’s other hand and picked up the pace and we crossed the finish line hand-in-hand.

“Was that the hardest thing you ever had to do?” Spry said.

Breathless we responded, “Yes.”

I want to give a shout-out my running partner and friend, Dejah Harley for keeping the pace and going farther than ever before.