I had another of my strange dreams last night. I don’t recall it vividly; just bits and pieces.
It was some kind of institution that had a lot of children of various ages. Some kind of violence was coming into the facility. There was one little, skinny guy that kept getting caught up in the crossfire.
- When somebody spit, it landed on him
- When snacks were tossed about, he lost his food
- When a bullet was shot, it grazed his head
Fortunately, there was an EMT on the premises, so we asked him to look at the little guy’s head. I was reluctant to tell what had happened, I suppose, because I was afraid of the bad guys. But the situation was urgent enough that I felt we had to tell the full story.
And that’s when I woke up. I thought of all the children around the world in desperate situations. They always get the worst of anything bad that happens in society.
- If there’s not enough food, they get none
- If there’s violence, it lands hardest on them
- If there’s sickness, it destroys their little bodies and they die
Who is going to speak up for them? As I was waking up and thinking about all of this, my thoughts turned to the Penn State situation. How pathetic, that all these men knew about the abuse and did not sound the alarm. Who knows how many children were abused through the years, right under the noses of the authorities?
Then, sadly, I thought of the situation taking place right now in our own high school. Our football coach had to resign mid-season because of an inappropriate action on his part. He passed out a “Hurt Feelings Report” to the football team, apparently as a joke. This is also pathetic. I noticed that some students from the past have been talking about the situation on Facebook. They described him as one who “always used foul language, never smiled or was cordial…extremely arrogant,” “offensive,” “bullied students,” “crossed the line,” “tried to portray a tough-guy image,” and “used profanity all the time.” I have known this was true for years, but how do you report this type of thing? There was no specific incident (until now) that could be confirmed. But true colors always come forward. None of the former football players seem to be surprised to hear the news.
And yet, strangely enough, although he is no longer the football coach, he continues to work as our school counsellor. Parents that banded together to bring all this to light were branded (in the local paper) as “a horde of angry parents,” who “flew into a rage” and used “a cloak-and-dagger act” involving “secret meetings conspiring against the coach.” Then the article goes on to talk about how the team was “robbed of their coach,” and said that the report in question “which is clearly not a serious document, may be offensive to some.” It says the situation is either “a grave situation or a joke that has gone too far.” This is sad and inappropriate too. Listen to this ridiculous paragraph:
I agree with the idea that action had to be taken, but we could have cooled our heels a bit before orchestrating the Lynch mob mentality [clever use of the coach’s name]. The handout was in bad taste, and Lynch’s future with the team was legitimately in jeopardy, but we caused a commotion that possibly cost the Bison a trip to the state championship game. Win or lose, it’s a dream of almost every kid in this state to play in War Memorial Stadium at the University of Wyoming, which is where the state championship game is played. The handout was bad, but we robbed them of that dream. That’s not good, either. — Tom Milstead/Sports Editor, Buffalo Bulletin
When did it become acceptable to offend a student but not acceptable to offend a coach? By contrast, the Casper Star-Tribune called for his full dismissal:
As a parent of one of the Buffalo players pointed out, Lynch should have apologized to the students, not to the school board for making their lives more difficult.
“I never heard one mention of the kids,” said the parent, Wayne Jensen.
To our dismay, Kessler also didn’t talk about the effect the incident has had on the players and other students.
According to the schools chief, the ex-coach “made a bad mistake and he’s paid for it, and he’s got an uphill battle to work with right now. He’s got our support, and we’re going to try and make it.”
He refused to discuss Lynch’s long-term status, other than to mention that the district renews contracts on a yearly basis. If Kessler believes Lynch has already paid for his mistake, does that mean he will be returning to his coaching job?
The school board’s primary concern should be to do what’s right for the students, and not on rehabilitating an employee who has foolishly squandered the trust placed in him.
— Casper Star-Tribune, 11/14/11
We all need to speak up when we are aware of abuse of any kind. It’s hard to be the whistleblower because one is bound to receive this type of abuse in return from those who feel “it was just a joke.” But when “the little guy gets caught in the crossfire” we have to speak up; don’t you agree? What is most ironic is that the “Hurt Feelings Report” is exactly that — an attack against those who try to report abuse! This is exactly why the abuse has continued in each of these situations year after year; to report it gets you branded as a “sissy” or “baby.”
I can only close with quotes from a real hero of mine — someone who was abused by people like this and who stood his ground against them.
In most of the developing world, the concept of winning at the expense of someone else is considered not only strange but unacceptable. You are free to achieve whatever you can — so long as you don’t hurt, embarrass, or demean the other person…The concept of achieving personal victory at the expense of another’s defeat was not only foreign but, when explained, repulsive…The elders lived this out all day long and then taught it to us around the village fires at night. If you were made strong, it was so you could help the weak. if you were courageous, it was so you could protect the frightened. If you had, you gave…we played soccer in Nielle [Ivory Coast, Africa], too, but with a much different tone. We fully enjoyed the game in a gentle, noncompetitive way. It went like this…
First of all, everyone got to play. You didn’t have to be one of the top twenty-two players in the village to get selected. you were free to jump in and play whenever the game found its way to you. Needless to say, no official uniforms or soccer boots were required. Oh, and did I mention that we didn’t really have a field? The whole village was the field. The game raced from courtyard to courtyard like a wild tornado. Women cooking at the evening fire would jump up, giggling and kicking when the game invaded their space, dropping out only if the action wandered far enough that they risked burning their meal. We were very adept at dribbling the ball, and the point of our game was not to defeat another team by scoring more goals than they did. The point rather was excellence and teamwork in ball handling. Thus the games were a cacophony of laughter, barking dogs, squeals of delight, dust, flashing feet, and a ball gone mad. [By the way, the ball was made of chicken guts]
–Wess Stafford, Too Small to Ignore, chapter 7
I love how Wess goes on to explain how he brought this mentality to American children’s soccer games, when he coached his daughter’s team. It’s a wonderful story about learning one skill per week — losing all the games except the last one — and having a great time as a team learning, laughing, growing and sharing. Abuse and bullying was unheard of, towards the players of either team. Let’s stop abuse in its tracks. Speak up!
Sheep Droppings 