Yesterday, my heart felt warm and fuzzy as I read a post in a local Howard County Facebook group thanking the Hammond High School marching band for supporting the Wilde Lake High School marching band at the football game at the Lake this past Friday night. The HaHS band members cheered in support and joined the WLHS band in the stands to enjoy the game together. It was a classy and wonderful display of sportsmanship and support for a fellow HoCo school. Thank you, Hammond, for demonstrating kindness and lifting up another school community.
Contrast that to the Friday night prior, when the WLHS marching band found itself the target of nasty behavior by fans of the visiting Glenelg High School team. Accounts of what exactly happened that night vary, but this post by Board of Education member Antonia Watts stated that GHS fans threw trash and booed the WLHS marching band.
Some of you are no doubt dismissing this in your mind, saying to yourself, “So what? Booing happens at sporting events everywhere.” And you’re correct that booing happens everywhere from Little League to the MLB, aimed at players, coaches, and game officials alike. It’s rude and juvenile, but commonplace. But I want you all to understand an important distinction here: the visiting spectators booed and threw trash at the home team’s marching band. The band was not competing with anyone; they were providing entertainment for the crowds at halftime. They were showing school spirit and demonstrating their skills for everyone’s enjoyment while their parents watched proudly. And they were booed and disrespected for it. On their home field.
When word of this incident began to spread on social media, I noticed a disturbing trend: WLHS parents and alumni were saying that behavior like this is not unusual when GHS is the opponent, and it’s been that way for decades – with little action from HCPSS to curb it. This immediately piqued my interest, because if it’s true that there is a longstanding pattern of bad behavior involving a particular school, then that’s a problem that HCPSS needs to investigate and address. I wanted to find out more, but how? The only way I could think of was social media crowdsourcing. So, last Sunday, I posted to Facebook and Twitter: “Have you been witness to bad behavior at an athletic event where Glenelg High School is participating? Comment below and tell us about it.”
From the reaction I got, you’d think I kicked a puppy. Turns out, I kicked a hornet’s nest.
While I did hear from some folks who confirmed that yes, they’d been witness to unsportsmanlike behavior from GHS fans, I also heard from a lot of folks who were angry at me for even asking the question. Several people defended and dismissed the behavior from the GHS/WLHS game as harmless teen hijinks. Some demanded video proof of what happened at the GHS/WLHS game. Some demanded to know why I was focusing only on GHS. Some accused me of shaming children, “targeting” a school, and “dividing” the community. I was called “pathetic” and “snowflake.” There’s a saying that defensiveness is a sign of guilt, and this ragey, non-sequitur response to a simple question suggests that I had good reason to ask it.
The “gentleman” who I believe still runs the Reopen Howard County Facebook page, kind soul that he is, posted not once, not twice, but three times, characterizing me as “crazy,” “vicious,” “hateful,” “poisonous,” and “divisive” for “demeaning the West” and “trashing schools.” Most of the folks who responded to these posts were simply overcome by the vapors, but one comment in particular from a western HoCo resident summed up the entire problem here: “Great job GHS students and fans. must be doing something right. time to step it up a notch.”
Wow.
It isn’t clear whether the behavior in question at the recent GHS/WLHS game was on the part of students, adults, or both. Regardless, kids learn how to behave by watching the adults in their lives. Obviously, if any adults were behaving badly at the football game, they were setting an extremely poor example. But adults are also setting a very poor example by demonstrating that the way to respond to bad behavior is to excuse, defend, dismiss, deflect, blame-shift, and put the focus of our ire on anything or anyone other than the behavior itself. The irony, of course, is that you would think that all decent people would be united in condemning this behavior, yet the word “divisive” was lobbed at me and anyone else who dared to shed light on it.
I haven’t come to any firm conclusions about the claims made about GHS and its patterns of behavior. But what’s most important in all this is that the WLHS marching band was treated badly, the people responsible need to be held accountable, and repeated offenses need to be examined for more systemic causes.
Let’s keep our eye on the ball, folks.