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The Way the Ball Bounces?
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Business New Haven
1/11/1999
By: BNH
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The corporate callousness of American business strikes again.
Barely one month before the local Girl Scout troops hit the streets to sell their cookies, the New England Blizzard women's basketball team files for bankruptcy and socks the Girl Scouts for a $43,000 loss.
Connecticut troops, acutely aware of the role models that Blizzard players provided for them, had purchased advance tickets for this season in support of the team. Perhaps it's time for pro basketball to return that support.
Here are young, impressionable girls eager to interact with women they hope to emulate some day. But what is more ironic is that Girl Scouts are schooled in the pragmatics of cookie sales. They're taught the financial rewards of selling cookies - even the accountability of it all - an income that provides 80-percent funding for all Girl Scout programs locally. Most haven't even learned the financial shelter of corporate bankruptcy, nor should they have to.
In the next two months during the annual cookie drive, perhaps the Blizzard management, the players and coaches, and the entire “business” of professional sports can pull behind the Connecticut troops and find a creative method to bail out these young girls from their losses. If not, we all lose as parents, business people and supporters of one of the most decent causes left in America. How do we teach young girls “failure” when they need all the help possible to succeed themselves as individuals?
They'll be back out there on January 23 for two months selling cookies. Perhaps the sad management of the Blizzard, in simple decency, can put their money where their mouth is.
- Russ Madison
Woodbridge
Business New Haven welcomes letters to the editor pertaining to subjects written about in these pages. Letters should be typewritten (or submitted on 3.5-inch diskette in ASCII format) and sent to LETTERS, Business New Haven, One Church Street, New Haven, CT 06510, or faxed to (203) 781-3482. Letters are subject to editing for space and clarity and must include the author's daytime telephone number for verification.
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