A handshake is worthless today

I admit it, I'm very old school. I was brought up in west Texas, where a handshake was a solid contract, and I've always tried to conduct my life that way. I have always believed that if you treat people with respect, they will return the same. I was sadly mistaken. Archer Communications will not be broadcasting Highland Park high school football this fall. It seems that I was blindsided by a member of my crew, who unexpectedly resigned in March "to pursue other interests". As it turned out, those interests were stealing the broadcasts away from our company, and putting some of my crew out of work. I still don't understand his logic. The crew was the best paid high school crew in the area, and had everything and anything they needed. I made sure that each broadcast was critiqued so that we could improve every week (and I hate critiques as much as the next person, so I made sure they were positive in nature). But this crew member was not satisfied, and decided that he could do a better job. The Highland Park people were part of this ruse too. Each year, I meet with the incoming captains dads to set up the season, and give them the assistance they need to market the broadcasts. I had my meeting, and at no time did they say anything about any plans to move the broadcasts away from my company. I discovered later that my former crew member had already made arrangements to steal the property, and had encouraged the dads to get as much information from me. They called me 3 weeks later (the last weekend of May) to tell me the news, that they would no longer need my services, that they were going to go another direction. They were not concerned that I had been working on the upcoming season since the close of the last season, nor were they concerned that I had already spent money in preparation. I was told that people from Highland Park could not be trusted, and I didn't believe them. Turns out I was wrong. So this fall, Archer Communications will not be in a football stadium. We will not be calling the action of any team. We tried to find a compatible school for the radio signal we had, but the lack of time to make the arrangements made it impossible.