The Cho Factor, Part XXXI

Jocks Rule

Years after the only high school reunion I ever attended, the Columbine shootings occurred. People were rightly horrified, as they have been by every school shooting since then. Investigations into the backgrounds of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, made it clear that the root cause of their anger was that they had been on the receiving end of a nonstop barrage of bullying, taunting, and teasing at school.

Sadly, Harris and Klebold have become cult figures among bullied and disenfranchised teenagers. Seung-Hui Cho even mentioned them in his manifesto prior to killing thirty-two fellow students and teachers at Virginia Tech. Actions do indeed have consequences.

What immediately struck me the day the Columbine story flashed across television screens worldwide was that the school sounded like a clone of Brigadoon High. Even on the news, there was no attempt to hide Columbine’s firmly entrenched caste system. In particular, I recall one student saying during an interview, “Everyone knows that jocks rule at Columbine.” High school sports are huge in the minds of administrators, parents, and students.

I don’t think you need to convince most students and parents of the truth in that statement. After all, jocks ruled at Brigadoon High when I was there and, amazingly, still did at our class reunion years later.

In a recent article in Time, Adam Cohen wrote:

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It’s a cliché that jocks and cheerleaders rule, but it is largely true. While others plod through high school, they glide: their exploits celebrated in pep rallies and recorded in the school paper and in trophy cases. “The jocks and the cheerleaders, yes, have the most clout,” says Blake McConnell, a student at Sprayberry High School near Atlanta. “They get out of punishment – even with the police. Joe Blow has a wreck and has been drinking, and he gets the book thrown at him. The quarterback gets busted, and he gets a lighter sentence.”

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Cohen just as easily could have been writing about Brigadoon High. In fact, the truth be known, it’s the same at virtually every high school in America. Though most administrators would deny it, athletes are revered and given special treatment at both public and private high schools. Which puts other students at a decided disadvantage, especially socially, if they are not athletic — or simply have no interest in athletics.

Perhaps Alice James, a 23-year-old IT consultant who went to school in the United States, Great Britain, and France, summed up the Columbine situation best in Theage.com.au when she wrote:

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The U.S. high school system is unusually vicious. Of course, all teenagers are cliquey and can be cruel. But there are two differences in the U.S. system, I guess. The first is that it is unusually hierarchical. In British schools, you get different groups who all sneer at each other, but there’s no obvious ranking system. The kids into hip-hop might hate the kids who are into pop, but neither of them is universally regarded to be better or higher up the social tree.In American schools, it’s like the bloody Indian caste system. Jocks simply rule the school, and everyone knows it. They are indisputably at the top, and “freaks,” which means anybody a little bit different (and I guess that included Eric [Harris] and Dylan [Klebold]), are indisputably at the bottom.

The second big difference is that the hierarchy the teenagers create for themselves is reinforced by parents and the school authorities by giving out awards to the prom queen and the football squad. While most British or French parents see their teenagers’ social affairs as trivial or even slightly comical, American parents take it incredibly seriously.

It’s given a kind of official imprimatur, because they build their kids up to be cheerleaders or jocks and they’re openly disappointed if they don’t make it. For “freaks,” it’s not just like they’ve failed in the eyes of their schoolmates — it’s like they’ve failed for life.”

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I believe that most parents favor less emphasis on athletics, but few of them have the courage to step forward and say so. And with good reason: They fully understand the rules of The Game and realize that making waves would quickly label them — and their kids — troublemakers. A good question would be, “Who gains the most by promoting high school sports?” It really isn’t the jocks. They simply benefit peripherally.

Nevertheless, jocks continue to rule at high schools throughout the country — and continue to get special treatment. And that, in turn, sends a terrible signal to the rest of the student body. A kid who gets straight A’s has to wonder why a guy who can run with a football gets a letter sweater, but he doesn’t.

I would go one step further and say that athletes should get no awards for their athletic accomplishments and certainly no special treatment, and students who excel at academics and the arts should be hailed and applauded by both faculty members and their fellow students. There’s nothing wrong with being good at sports, but it should be kept in perspective. Winning a basketball game is not a major achievement in the grand scale of things.

Which brings me to one-time CBS news anchor Dan Blather Rather. I remember shaking my head in disgust when Rather opened one of his broadcasts in December 1999 by saying excitedly, “There’s joy once again at Columbine High School.” He then went on to tell how Columbine had won the Class 5A state football championship of Colorado.

The implication was that winning the football championship somehow made things right at Columbine. No, no, no! As usual, Dan, you got it completely wrong. The exaltation of jocks is a major part of the out-of-control bullying problem at schools like Columbine. Your jubilation over that football championship simply papered over it.

Former Columbine student Brooks Brown, a friend of Harris and Klebold, showed a much better understanding of the situation than Rather when he said: “The truth is that our school was not the happy place everyone’s playing it off to be. A lot of people walk through that school with just a feeling of fear. … You feel nothing else. You worry if someone’s going to come up and beat the hell out of you all the time.”

And another friend of the two killers put it in simple terms that everyone can understand: “They were hated, so they hated back.”

I’m not naïve enough to believe that parents of athletes in high school sports programs will agree with anything I’ve said in this article, but plenty of other people do. And I’ll post some examples of that in the next Feedback Forum.

Previous – Part XXX, At Long Last

Next – Part XXII, Poor Baby