I wonder if it will occur to Damascus High School, located a few miles from UD‘s house, to remove the sign – a proud reference to the school’s football mascot, a hornet – that greets you as you drive through the school’s front gates. I wonder if they know the smutty jokes people are making about the stinger that dangles between the hornet’s legs in the image that accompanies the sign; if the school is on to the lord of the flies allusions that occur to people when they see the word swarm. When your school has managed to spawn a gang of broomstick-up-the-ass rapists on the football team, everything takes on new meaning.
It’s all national and international news now, and the story of the boys who trapped other boys in the locker room and shoved a broom up them will get bigger as details of the depravity (and its almost-certain recording/photographing by someone) emerge.
The passing the buck story has already begun: Defense lawyers blame it on the school, as if the rapists (who also beat their victims) didn’t do it. (Though if what one Washington Post commenter alleges – that football powerhouses like Damascus do “special” transfer of talented players to their schools – then of course the Montgomery County system does have much to answer for.) The school has – bizarrely – blamed whatever its principal means by social media. Each participant (given the nature of the charges, they’re being tried as adults) has blamed another participant. I’m sure we’ll hear attacks on the parents, attacks on football, attacks on peer pressure, attacks on hazing culture. I mean, we know how the story goes because of Bixby and Steubenville and all the other high school football gang rapes. The blame lies with the people who are going to go to prison.
This blog focuses on universities… but after all, these are the sports heroes coming to your campus in a year or two.
And after that, it’s off to the Redskins!
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NO meaningful comment, as the story goes viral, from the school’s principal. Her twitter feed stops around Thanksgiving.