The Outside the Line's article, "Miles Apart," has received a barrage of critical responses from readers around the country. The article, which compared the lives of two high school athletes from different schools, La Costa Canyon and Oceanside, lacked a real point, and stirred a firestorm of critical responses oriented towards the pieces "sensationalist" approach.

Check out these comments below:

"ESPN.... This story bastardizes a great American town, one that has plays a crucial role in the United States armed forces, high school athletics, and more. The author of this article should be fired immediately. He has no writing ability and represents bogus media - trying to make a story out of something that doesn't exist. He should join Fox news or MSNBC."

"Gare Joyce is a hack reporter. Gare settled for sensationalism instead of reality. What a poor choice to depict one players enviornment better than the other. All your comment regarding Oside are inacurate and is cause for a slander suit. Have you ever stepped foot in Oceanside!! You have lost all creditability and should not be writing any more atricles on Highschool sports and you need to print a full apology to the citizens of Oceanside, California and Justin Vae'ena."


"Thank you to ryanbrodman for pointing out that Oceanside is not the horrible place that it is painted out to be.


A few months back OTL wrote a story on another Oceanside graduate, Matthew Cerda, who in that story was the "have" and Danny Almonte was the "have not". In that story Oceanside was a "nice place to raise a family." In this story nobody would want to come within a five mile radius of Oceanside. A huge contradiction, as well as poor reporting. A school where 50% of the student's parents attended college is not poor.


As a fourth-generation Oceanside resident and an Oceanside educator I have time and again talked to my students about the negative stereotypes of Oceanside. Both my students and I are frustrated time and again with the negative press of Oceanside. It is not a secret that there has been gang violence in some of the city's neighborhoods, but these gangs do not speak for nor represent the community as a whole.


I'm sure neither Justin nor Connor or there families would appreciate being defined by their social class. What the Vae'ena family lacks in money, they make up in rich culture, tradition, family, and friends. They are by no means poor. And while I do not know the Garrett family, I'm sure what they value most is not their money.
Justin and Connor seem to have faith in common. In the video of Justin leading a post-game prayer, the players are from both teams. Maybe the story should have been on the boys' faith, not the money that separates them."

"ThomasGertrude: Well said! To paraphrase Shakespeare, "It is a tale told by an idiot, lacking sound and fury, signifying nothing." I've been to Oceanside High many times for athletic events, debate contests; one of my sons even took the SAT there. It's a beautiful campus less than a mile from the Oceanside Pier where I've taken my boys fishing. Right down the block is perhaps the best camera and telescope shop in San Diego county. Whatever if anything Justin is suffering from, it isn't emanating from the school.

It must be a J-school thing, that all of life is best described through the prism of income inequity. Note to the writer: I've lived in Boston, Chicago, Denver and points in between, and Southern California is the most egalitarian place I've ever been. When you're surfing, no one cares whether the guy next to you is a CEO or a carpenter. Trying to make Connor and Justin fit into the preconceived class template in the author's head isn't pretty. But I suppose we should expect this muddled mess when the author has to take three paragraphs at the top to try to explain his purpose."

"Another ESPN story about race.....zzzzz...zzz z...zzzz...zzzz...."

"Just like any big city (and Oceanside is a big one), there are some good parts and bad parts. Oceanside High School happens to be located in one of the worst parts of Oceanside. There are a lot of bad neighborhoods very close to the school, and the gang violence is not blown out of proportion. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who went to high school in that area who didn't know someone who was a victim of gang related violence. Does this make it a terrible, gang ridden city? No. But let's not pretend it's all rainbows and lollipops either.

The point of this article though is to show that both of these impressive young men are building nice futures for themselves, regardless of their background or demographic.

A rose can grow in a garden, and it grow out of concrete, but a rose is a rose."