Two nights ago, I played a small part in making history, and, hopefully, in starting a new revolution.

Concord, Massachusetts, the town where I have lived for the past twenty-five years and where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in 1775, voted at our annual town meeting to approve Warrant Article 32 banning the sale, after January 1, 2013, of non-sparkling, unflavored water in single-serving (e.g. 34 ounces/1 liter or less) plastic bottles.  

The vote comes two years after a similar warrant article passed at Town Meeting, only to be thrown out by the Commonwealth's Attorney General for a drafting defect.

Since then, I have read with interest in our local newspaper all of the very well-researched and written articles and Letters to the Editor, both for and against the ban.

I voted in favor, but only after some deep soul searching.  On the one hand, I wondered whether it was appropriate for the small percentage of the residents of Concord who show up at town meeting to decide for the rest of the citizens what we can and cannot purchase. I also had concerns about how the ban might unfairly impact the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of thirsty tourists who visit our historic town each year, not to mention the kids playing sports on our playing fields, rinks, and courts who need to stay well-hydrated.

On the other, banning the sale of single-serve plastic bottles would be a step, albeit tiny, in the right direction towards tackling the huge environmental problem they cause. An estimated 38 billion non-biodegradable plastic bottles end up in the nation's landfills every year, and less than 20% of plastic water bottles are recycled. If nothing else, the ban would likely generate a more spirited public debate about the issue, and perhaps get the corporations who manufacture bottled water (often filling them with filtered water from a municipal water supply, not from some pristine underground spring) to consider what they are doing to the environment.

Some of those who stepped to the microphone at town meeting to oppose the ban said they were acting purely out of self-interest: what was best for them. Others expressed support out of a belief that the ban was what was best for everyone. 

In the end, my decision to vote in favor of the ban came down to my concern for the planet and our children. We need to be good stewards of the earth.  What kind of message do we send our kids if we bequeath to them a mountain of trash and don't do what can to protect the entire planet?

Assuming the ban passes muster with the A.G.'s office this time around, the ban will undoubtedly take a bit of time to get used to for some, and undoubtedly inconvenience some visitors, but it won't be a problem at MomsTeam, as we already drink filtered tap water from reusable bottles.

Prompted by students learning in the classroom about the harmful effect on the environment of plastic water bottles, an increasing number of colleges, including Colby and Brown, are already water bottle-free campuses.

To suggest that the vote at Concord's Town Meeting will end up rivaling in importance the original "shot heard ‘round the world" at the Old North Bridge on April 19, 1775 would be to engage in hyperbole.

But a clarion call to environmental arms?

Only time will tell.

Has your team or league banned plastic bottles? If so, how is the ban working and what are kids doing instead to stay hydrated during sports? I would love to hear what you are doing to help youth sports in your community "go green." Send your e-mails to delench@momsTEAM.com

Brooke de Lench is the Founder and Publisher of MomsTeam.com and the author of Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports, now available as an e-book.

This is a success story virtually without equal in women's sports in the post-Title IX era. A story not only about the success of one remarkable young woman, but about her parents and those, like me, who were privileged to watch her grow from a starry-eyed and talented teenager to the mature, self-assured woman she is today; a story which should serve, not only as an inspiration to any youth athlete who wants to reach the elite level in their sport, but for their parents as well.

Two days ago, Angela Ruggiero held a press conference to announce her retirement from women's ice hockey, two weeks after she told me of her decision.

As it is for any elite athlete, retiring was a bittersweet moment for Angela. Bitter because a shoulder injury would cut short her hope to compete for another gold medal in a fifth Olympics in 2014. Sweet because she could now devote her incredible energies and talents full time to representing the athletes of the world on the International and United States Olympic Committees, by beginning the next chapter in an odyssey that I have been lucky enough to watch, as the profiles of athletes on Olympic television broadcasts used to say, "up close and personal."

Any attempt to recount Angela's accomplishments, not only on the ice but off, since she won gold at a member of the Women's National Team at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan as a high school senior at age 18, won't do her career justice, so for those not already familiar with her stellar athletic -and personal - resumé I direct you to her website. But here's just a partial list:

• a collegiate career at Harvard highlighted by an NCAA championship, four straight first-team All-American selections, a Patty Kazmaier Award, first-team NCAA Academic All-American honors;
• a sixteen-year career on the Women's National Team during which she appeared in an all-time record 256 games and tallied 208 points on 67 goals and 141 assists, highlighted by four Olympic medals (one gold, two silver, one bronze), four World Championship golds and six silvers in 10 appearances, and selection as the top defenseman at the tournament four times; and
• a history-making appearance on January 28, 2005, when she and her brother, Bill, competed for the Central Hockey League's Tulsa Oilers, becoming the first-ever brother-sister tandem to play in a professional hockey game in North America; a contest which also saw Angela become the first female non-goalie to play in a professional hockey game in North America.

In announcing her resignation, she told USA Hockey that she felt "honored and privileged to have represented the U.S.A. program over the past 16 years." Listening to press conference, all I could think was how honored and privileged I am to have known Angela for the past eleven years of her journey.

Harvard

I first met Angela in the spring of 2001 as she began training for her second Olympic games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then a junior at Harvard, Angela agreed to become MomsTeam's ice hockey expert, and began posting fascinating blog entries about her experiences as a member of the Women's National Team as it prepared for the Olympics, including contributing to an article I wrote about the traumatic day when the final cuts were made, leaving some of her teammates out in the cold looking in. Angela's dad, Bill, who had coached Angela and her brother, Billy, also chipped in with articles.

I was, I have to admit, a bit envious of Angela and the generation of female athletes of which she was a part. As an athletic young girl growing up in the pre-Title IX years, the only times I saw women athletes competing were at the Olympics. In the four years between Games, the spotlight seldom shone on women athletes, so my female role models were few and far between. As a girl who learned to ski at a very young age and spent all of my winter vacations in Vermont on the slopes of Bromley and Stratton with my father, one of my dreams growing up was to be a giant slalom skier in the Olympics. So, as a lifelong fan of the Olympics, especially the Winter Games, it was a thrill to get to know Angela, not only because she was an Olympic athlete, but because she helped make my lifelong dream of attending one in person a reality.

Birthday surprise

My trip to Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games, could not have been more memorable, and Angela had a lot to do with making it so special. When she learned that I would be attending, she gave me one of only four passes each athlete was given to the AT&T Family Center, where I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance, along with her brother, sister and mom, Karen, to get to know many of the athletes and their families, eat all my meals and watch all of the events that I was not able to attend in person on huge wide-screen TVs.

The highlight of my stay came on the evening of February 15, 2002, 50 years to the day after another skating legend from Harvard, Dick Button, won a gold medal in men's figure skating at the Olympics in Oslo, Norway, and the day I was born.

Just before dinner in the ATT Center, Angela, along with the entire U.S.A. Women's Hockey Team, surprised me with a birthday cake. Along with Angela's mom Karen, sister Pam and my triplet sons, they then serenaded me with "Happy Birthday." Next to the birth of my triplets, it was one of the most memorable and special moments of my life.

Soon after the Olympics, Angela joined the Board of Directors for the Teams of Angels, a non-profit organization I had established to educate parents on ways to prevent catastrophic injury and death among youth athletes. Angela demonstrated through her work for Teams of Angels a genuine passion to help kids in sports, a passion she displays every time she meets a young hockey player, and in teaching girls to play hockey at her camp every summer.

Special invitations

In 2004, when Angela was a finalist - for the fourth straight year - for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, bestowed annually on the top player in NCAA Division I women's ice hockey, she honored me with an invitation to attend the award's dinner in Providence as her guest. You can only imagine the joy I experienced when Angela was named the winner. When she graduated with honors from Harvard later that year, I wasn't able to attend, but have kept the engraved invitation as a cherished keepsake.

I wasn't able to watch Angela win her third straight medal at the 2006 Winter Games in Turino, Italy, but she continued to stay in touch,  calling or e-mailing me on a regular basis to share news of her team's and her own individual successes, including visits to China, her appearance on "Celebrity Apprentice", the satisfaction of beating arch-rival Team Canada for gold at the World Championships in 2008 and again in 2009, and gearing up for a fourth Olympics in 2010.

Vancouver

With the Olympics in North America again, it was time for another trip to the Olympics to watch Angela, with a team of veterans, including her Harvard teammate, Julie Chu, and newcomers, battle once again with Team Canada for gold in Vancouver. Angela made sure that I had tickets to the gold-medal game which, no surprise, was yet another re-match with Canada's Haley Wikenheiser - like Angela, 31 and competing in her fourth straight Olympics.

Canada Hockey Place was a sea of red: red Canadian flags, red coats, red hats. I still wonder to this day about how the tickets were allocated. Every other time I had seen Angela play with tickets that she had gotten, I had a great seat. This time around, we were in nosebleed heaven, surrounded by screaming Canadians, which made things all the more difficult when a brilliant game by the Canadian goalie kept the Americans off the scoreboard in a 2-0 win for Team Canada, its third-straight gold, and, I am sure, the most satisfying, coming as it did on home ice with all of hockey-crazed Canada watching.

Ironically, not only did Angela add another Olympic silver to her trophy case, but the trip to Vancouver had a silver lining: just days later I learned that she had won, not just a medal, but the respect of her fellow Olympians from around the world, when they elected her to an eight-year term to the highly regarded position as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athlete's Commission, which consults with the IOC and serves as a liaison with active athletes.

Over the years I have watched Angela play innumerable times, from games in Cambridge for Harvard, to games for the National Team against college all-stars at Northeastern, to road trips to Durham, New Hampshire for a game at UNH in preparation for the Olympics, even a trip to Lake Placid to watch her prepare for the Olympics in Salt Lake City. But, perhaps the one game, other than the ones at the Olympics, I will always remember was her last professional game with the Boston Blades, a team in the Canadian Women's Hockey league in March 2011, against the Toronto Furies, which, fittingly, was played at Harvard's Bright Arena. I didn't know it at the time, but it would prove to be Angela's final game. MomsTeam had run a contest to give away 50 tickets. I decided to take Heloise, my ten-year-old neighbor. It would be Heloise's first time as a spectator watching a team sport. She was mesmerized and became an immediate fan. Angela made it all the more special for Heloise by meeting her after the game and posing for a photo with the awe-struck young girl. 

I know that deciding to hang up her skates was a tough decision over which Angela agonized for months, but I also know it was the right decision for her. "To be an elite level Olympic athlete requires complete dedication" Angela said at yesterday's press conference-"and I want to be the best voice I can be for the Olympics."

When she was asked at the press conference about when she made the decision to retire, she admitted that "it was a process which began just after my fourth Olympics in Vancouver in 2010." When Angela finally decided the time was right, she made sure that her USA Women's Hockey teammates and coach, Katie Stone, were the first to know; a sign of respect, of class, and of putting the team ahead of one's self that have been essential parts of Angela's character from the start.

I don't know where Angela's post-athletic career will take her, but I do know that she will be a success in whatever she does. She will, I am sure, continue to make the world a much better place, not only for the athletes she represents on the IOC, but for anyone who gets to know her, as I have, as a person.

As I told her recently; "You have the world in the palm of your hand and so many fabulous opportunities coming your way I am so excited for you."

Thanks

Congratulations, Angela, on your decision and best wishes for the future. To your parents, Karen and Bill, I say, great parenting job! Kudos, too, to your sister, Pam: you have been your Angela's biggest fan (next to your mom!); a sister couldn't ask for more. As for your brother, Billy, I am sure a bit of friendly sibling rivalry helped you to become the remarkable ice hockey player you became; to have been able to share the ice on the same professional team has to make you the best brother Angela could ever have wanted. I know the entire Ruggiero family are proud of what Angela has achieved already in her 31 years, and is excited for her future.

Thanks for the memories, Angela. They'll last a lifetime.

Every spring around this time, MomsTeam receives e-mails from parents asking for advice on how they can help their athletically gifted child get into and afford to pay for a private or parochial school with a top-flight athletic program.  The one I recently received was a bit different: a dad who was wondering whether I knew any schools who awarded financial aid based, not on need, but on athletic talent. 

Before I responded, I talked with Jeff Maidment, the Athletic Director at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, who was the AD at the private school one of my sons attended back in the early 2000s.  I consider him to be one of the best athletic directors in the nation, in part because of the respect he has earned from the entire sports community at his schools, not just athletes, but coaches, and parents. 

Here's the e-mail I received from the parent, my exchange of emails with Jeff, and my response to the parent.  If you are a parent who considering private or parochial school for your child because of its athletic program, I hope you will find the email exchange helpful.  If you have advice for other parents that you would like to share, I hope you will feel free to post a comment.

From: Tiger's Dad

To: Brooke de Lench

Hi Brooke:

Just to provide the context, I talked to you after your FBU Top Gun lecture last summer. I explained that my son was a straight-A student, besides being a quarterback, and I was trying to find a private school that offers scholarships that are not needs based. You said to give you a call.

I've heard of athletic scholarships at some of these schools that claim to be only needs based. I've also heard that some of these schools look for a quarterback when they need one. Maybe you know how to approach this.

My situation is that I have a healthy salary, but I'm still finishing up the significant funding to send two kids to college. I went through the financial aid process for needs based assistance at one area private school, but they would not provide any aid, although they did want Tiger* to attend.

Tiger's Dad

From: Brooke de Lench

To: Jeff Maidment

Hi Jeff,

Hope you are well. I see you on twitter so I feel somewhat connected-kinda fun.

I got this email from a dad of a really good QB and am curious if you have any thoughts on what he can do? He came up to me after a talk I gave in Virginia last summer and I want to see if I can help him.

Brooke

From: Jeff Maidment

To: Brooke de Lench

Hi Brooke,

It has been fun following MomsTeam on Twitter. I love the articles and ability to RT to my followers, very informative.

To answer the question about merit aid for athletes. I can say with certainty that no reputable independent school will give aid to a family who has the means to pay.  Financial Aid based on need is what allows independent schools to diversify their student body.  Merit Aid only allows schools to enhance one aspect of the school, or maybe if the school is financially sound a few areas of the school.

I worked for a school in Virginia which went into bankruptcy as a result of awarding merit aid to basketball players back in the 1980's. There are schools in this country that give merit aid, but they will not be found on the National Association of Independent Schools website.

I hope this helps the father in search of merit aid. I don't have any advice for him, other than "if an independent school education is important, then find the way to pay for it."

Looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Jeff

From: Brooke de Lench

To: Tiger's Dad

Hi TD,

So, here is what I know. Students for most private (non parochial) schools have been selected for the fall by about the second week in March. Process is long and arduous with many "touch points."  One of my sons went through the process with three private schools. He was accepted at all three, and we asked for help, too. They all offered a very little amount. They really are looking to the neediest of kids.

XXX school may be an option for late comers who are great athletes and need financial aid. You don't mention your son's age but if he is in 8th grade you have missed the admissions window, so why not start for grade 10 entry? Then it is all about "touch-points": setting a time to visit the school this summer, getting in early on the admissions meetings, attending games (making sure to say hello to the admissions folks), going to all open-houses.  In other words, show focused interest and you may have a good shot.

As for merit aid, here's an email I got from an AD at a private school.

Brooke

Is this the answer Tiger's dad was looking for? Probably not, although I would like to think that, like other parents, he was looking for the best school for his son. He clearly was caught in no-man's land: neither wealthy enough to afford to a private school education for his son, but with too much income to qualify for financial aid based on need. 

Have you as a parent faced this situation and, if so, what did you do? Are there schools out there that award merit-based financial aid in order to recruit top athletes?  I would love to hear from you, either in the comments section below or via post on our Facebook page.

Over the weekend I posted a link in the @MomsTeam Twitter account to an article in the New York Times titled "High School Players Forced to Choose in Soccer's New Way."  My tweet generated a lot of buzz, and, as I had commented in the past on the way sports talent is developed in this country, I thought it would be a great topic for a blog.

Then, the following Tweet appeared in my timeline from one of MomsTeam's good Twitter friends, Emily Cohen @gobearsemily, which read: "no other sport tells kids where and when they can play. Forcing kids to choose between club and school is wrong ... and misleading."

So I decided that, instead of doing my own blog, I would ask Emily if she would be a guest blogger on this issue and she agreed.  What follows is her take on the Times  story, under the title "Elite or Elitist?"

The United States Soccer Federation's (USSF) recent mandate that ‘elite' soccer players who play for Development Academy teams will not be allowed to play for their high school soccer teams after this season simply frosts me. I've read volumes in the last few weeks, from Soccer America's initial news article and the seemingly unending comments from readers and the soccer experati to The New York Times piece this past Sunday by Sam Borden, that really brought "Soccer's New Way" into the collective consciousness across America.

While my 15-year-old son doesn't play soccer (instead, he's passionate about baseball and plays travel ball as well as high school varsity baseball), he has plenty of friends who do, and some of them play at a very high level. A couple of them, at least, will likely go on to play soccer in college. To me, telling these teenagers that they must choose between their club or their high school soccer team goes against the core of a fundamentally American value: freedom.

The freedom to choose to play with your friends on your high school soccer team, to gain bragging rights against friends on other high school teams and make memories that will last a lifetime should not taken away from you just because a group of men feel that the "United States doesn't measure up to other countries in soccer." Frankly, I am more worried about the "performance gap" in manufacturing, technology, and our economy in general, aren't you?

And speaking of economics, this new approach smacks more of elitism by the USSF than any benefits to the elite athlete. The cost to join a Development Academy team - or any club team, for that matter - is exorbitant. Does the USSF really believe that the only players worthy of wearing a U.S. jersey are those who have the financial resources and family situations to pay for and support a player participating on a Development Academy team? Last I checked, soccer experts were lamenting that not enough kids, in general, play unstructured soccer on their own time and that low-income and urban kids were eschewing soccer for sports such as basketball, football and baseball. Now, all of a sudden, these same experts have taken a U-turn: more organized training and games are the answer. Why? The money, of course. Those less privileged kids can't afford to pay for this elite development academy system, so they're clearly not on their radar. OccupySoccer, anyone?

Aside from taking the freedom to choose away from these youth athletes and the elitist mentality of the academies, I also have a huge problem with the focus on athletics to the detriment, even elimination of, a focus on academics. It's not only misleading, it's misguided. Today, there are significantly more college scholarships available for academic achievement than for athletic achievement. Of the estimated 3,000 young athletes currently participating on U.S. Soccer Development Academy teams, only about 30 - or 1% (here we go with that number again) will end up playing professionally. That's more than 2,900 kids who are going to be misled, told by the USSF, "if you want to be good and go pro, you have to do it OUR way," and then won't have the education - or the resources to get the education - they need to succeed in another career. But the USSF will gladly take your money anyway.

Finally, I'm not sure what to make of the male-only focus of this new mandate. Are the powers-that-be saying that the development of female soccer players in the U.S. is on the right track and no changes need to be made, even though the majority of the players on last year's Women's World Cup runner-up U. S. Women's National Team (USWMT) played on their high school teams? Apparently, the status quo is working for the development of our women soccer players, but not the men. Is the quality of high school coaching - oft-maligned by these so-called soccer experts - fine for women but not for men? Or isn't the women's game important enough for them to want or care to improve?
In the end, I think the path upon which the USSF has set is a slippery slope - and not just for soccer. At what point will other sports - basketball, baseball, football and more - follow suit and tell kids they can't play for their high school if they want to play on an AAU, USSSA, or other elite travel team? In fact, I've heard rumblings that AAU wants to force high-school basketball players to make a similar club-or-high-school decision. What does this portend for the future of high school sports? Will the Friday Night Lights be turned off forever?

Where do you stand on the club versus school debate? Do you agree with Emily? Disagree? Unsure? Share your thoughts by commenting below, or on Facebook or via Twitter (to keep Emily in the loop, add the hashtag #@gobearsemily to your Twitter post) and take the new poll we have posted on our home page (either by clicking on the link or going to the lower right hand corner of the MomsTeam home page under the heading "MomsTeam Asks"). 

March 12, 2012: Update: MomsTeam is pleased to announce that Emily Cohen has now joined our team of bloggers.  This blog, minus the introduction, now also appears under her byline.

We at MomsTeam are deeply saddened by the passing of Sarah Burke, Canadian freestyle skier and a pioneer of the superpipe event, who died January 19th from injuries she received in an accident nine days earlier while training for the upcoming Winter X Games at Park City Mountain, Utah.

Sarah was a freeskiing pioneer, six-time X Games gold medalist and beloved wife, daughter, sister and friend; an athlete whose star shone brightly well beyond her sport; a star whose light has now, tragically, been extinguished, forever.  We join in expressing our condolences to her family and at the loss of such a remarkable young woman. 

I had an opportunity to meet Sarah during my ten days at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada and at nearby Whistler Mountain, the venue for most of the ski and snowboard events, where Sarah trained, and near where she grew up. Her event was on the men's program, but not yet recognized as an Olympic sport on the women's side.  I remember Sarah actively lobbying at the time to have her sport added to the 2014 Olympic program.

As readers of this space know, I am a huge and lifelong fan of the Olympics. I grew up skiing on the icy slopes of southern Vermont, dreaming of someday competing in the Games myself.  As someone who has devoted many years to advocating on behalf of female athletes and for a greater role of women in sports, both as coaches and administrators, I took an immediate interest in Sarah mission, and was thrilled when the International Olympic Committee voted to add women's superpipe skiing to the program for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia. Had her life not been cut short, Sarah would have been the odds-on favorite for a gold medal.

Sarah left an indelible impression on many, many people, but especially women in sports. Her amazing, loving spirit will live on, not only among her fellow athletes, but the entire sporting world. She will be greatly missed.

Reprinted here, in case you haven't seen it elsewhere on the Web, is the statement from Sarah's family released by her publicist, Nicole Wool, yesterday:

January 19, 2012

Groundbreaking Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke passed away at 9:22AM January 19, 2012 at the University of Utah Hospital from injuries sustained in an accident on the Eagle Superpipe at Park City Mountain Resort on Tuesday, January 10, 2012. She was training for upcoming winter events.

As the result of Sarah's fall, she suffered a ruptured vertebral artery, one of the four major arteries supplying blood to the brain. The rupture of this artery led to a severe intracranial hemorrhage, which caused Sarah to go into cardiac arrest on the scene. Emergency personnel responded and CPR was administered on the scene during which time she remained without a pulse or spontaneous breathing. Studies in the University of Utah Hospital Emergency Department indicated that she retained brainstem function. She was placed on life support and a protocol of therapeutic hypothermia was initiated to protect her brain. An angiogram indicated the site of arterial bleeding, and on Wednesday, January 11 the injured artery was successfully repaired.

After the operation, numerous neurological examinations, electrodiagnostic tests and imaging studies revealed that Sarah sustained severe irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest, resulting in hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. Sarah passed away peacefully surrounded by those she loved. In accordance with Sarah's wishes, her organs and tissues were donated to save the lives of others.

While early reports in the media stated that Sarah's injury was a traumatic brain injury, it is important to note that Sarah's condition was the result of a lack of oxygen to the brain during cardiac arrest.

The family wishes to express their deep gratitude to Sarah's dear friends for their love and support, and for traveling to Salt Lake City to comfort the family.

They would also like to thank the University of Utah Hospital and her physicians and care team in the Neuro Critical Care Unit for their incredible care and compassion.

The family was moved by the sincere and heartfelt sympathy expressed by people inspired by Sarah from all around the world. They have received a substantial number of inquiries from those who would like to make a contribution on behalf of Sarah. For more information, please go to www.giveforward.com/sarahburke.

A public celebration of Sarah's life will be held in the coming weeks.

Sources: Statement from Sarah Burke's family - GlobalTVEdmonton.com Jan. 19, 2012; Freestyle star sustains serious head injury in training - New York Times Jan. 12, 2012

Questions/comments? Contact Brooke de Lench delench@momsteam.com