When the whistle blows, parents often – and should – tell their kids to leave it on the field. After all, once the decision is final it’s final.

 

Life moves on, particularly after high school sporting events, which despite what many have been told, is not the most important part of the public education process. Well, at least life should move on and in most scenarios the students have found a way to leave it on the field. Adults, and in several cases I’m using the term adult in the very loosest of manners, can’t seem to let go of that high school mentality.

 

The ailment, which I’ve dubbed the high school football mentality (feel free to insert sport of your choice if you would like), usually only rears its head after a heated prep sporting event. For years it was confined to yells from the stands at actual games or in bars or at the water cooler later that night or in the following days.

 

Thanks to social media, anything can stir it up. And apparently that mentality is at an epidemic level. Instead of leaving it on the field, adults seem to introduce the mentality into just about any aspect involving our youth. Heck, it isn't even necessarily sports either, but for purposes of space, time and sanity, that's the area I'll focus on.

 

Need proof?

 

By the nature of what I now do for a living, I monitor social media. In most cases that’s Facebook and Twitter. For those who are on Facebook, they know all about the recent fight involving two students at Bridgeport High School. Too many treated the incident as a sign of the Apocalypse. And please note that this ISN'T about the fight that took place and another incident I'll mention shortly, but the action by those years removed from high school that followed via social media.

 

As the comments and shares of the post literally went into the thousands, my standard curiosity to see what it involved took over. Understand at no time did it ever enter my mind to post the video on our own Web site, which a few suggested.

 

These are juveniles. I’ve never posted a story that showed pictures or listed names of juveniles involved in criminal mischief and certainly a school fight wasn’t going to change that. And before anyone says anything, yes I was saddened and sickened to see the fight happen.

 

That, of course, leads to me to what also saddened and sickened me as I began to read the comments on dozens of threads from the video that was likely shared more than a thousand times and showed up over and over on my news feed. Beyond the profanity that came up and comments void of common sense, there was one other thing that once again reared its ugly head.

 

Some way, somehow, this turned into a Bridgeport against Clarksburg thing. And in a few cases, Bridgeport vs. Clarksburg vs. Shinnston vs. any other area of Harrison County.

 

Hello High School football mentality.

 

Let’s be clear that these weren’t kids commenting. This wasn’t head coaches of prep sports like Mike Robey and Bill Bennett arguing or Josh Nicewarner and Bryan Fisher. Besides, those folks all get along. By and large, the students get along too.

 

These were adults with students in the school system; again using the terminology very loosely. They were treating the fight not only as if it were the first to ever happen in a Harrison County school, but many had become judge, jury and executioner. And they were either happy pilling on Bridgeport or there were those from Bridgeport that were more than pleased to trash someone else’s school and city as a rebuttal.

 

The fight itself was sad. The commentary, in many cases, was pathetic.

 

There were actually posters, and understand I’m paraphrasing, taking joy that “Bridgeport finally got caught.”  So apparently, the BHS administration has been undertaking a massive operation to not let the public know that fights take place in their school.

 

There were those that responded that “at least it wasn’t drug related like in other county schools.” So that’s what’s causing other fights in other schools. Conspiracy at Bridgeport is keeping fights from being shown and drugs are causing all the others.

 

Everyone got that? Sound ridiculous? It is, and I can assure you I saw comments like that or of a related nature easily more than 100 times over the course of reading comments for an hour. That said part was that I barely scratched the surface so who knows what else was out there.

 

And one thread I saw actually had two parents – apparently mothers – of two schools that weren’t Bridgeport or Robert C. Byrd going at it as to which school was “trashier” than the other. Again, pathetic.

 

By Monday of this week, most of the furor was over. Thankfully, the mentality would be put in the closet because, certainly, there wasn’t much else that could stir it up. Of course, I was wrong.

 

Some way, somehow, when Robert C. Byrd was put on lockdown – or a Code Yellow – due to a threat written on a bathroom wall, it appeared again. This time, like many others, I was looking at social media postings to see what was breaking with the story and to the nature of the situation for possibly posting it to our own Web page.

 

It wasn’t long before several threads managed to devolve into a “my school is better” or a “bomb threat vs. a fist fight” debate. The numbers of comments were far less than the fight; in fact it wasn’t even close, but the fact that a threat that required a school to be locked down somehow became a debate between Bridgeport and Clarksburg schools (exclusive to this situation) is a terribly sad testament to those who are supposed to be setting examples for their kids and teaching tolerance. Perhaps those involved can take a lesson from their children at different schools - most of whom, let me say it again, get along.

 

There, of course, were some voices of reason in both situations – many voices to be fair. Some, in fact, all but called the situation a “high school football mentality.” And sadly, a few of those individuals were shot down for being a voice of reason.

 

Folks, I’ve railed on this for years. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to put the letterman jackets away. As one person posted so eloquently, goodness of people aren’t determined by the school they go to or the community they live in, but by what’s in their heart.

 

As the social media posts proved, idiocy doesn’t stop at the municipal limits of any city I’m aware of. It’s not the exclusive domain of any city or community. The good news is that goodness, decency and common sense isn’t precluded from any boundary – real or on a map – either.

 

Let the hatred go folks because those high school sporting events that seem to be fueling all of this are a thing of the past. If you’re still bothered by those results from this year or 20 years ago, just leave it unsaid. Better yet, just leave it on the field.