It was, explained Nathan Chaddick, principal of Nacogdoches (Texas) High School, all about spirit.
The football pep-rally skit opens with some NHS cheerleaders dressed as that week’s opponents, the Central High School Roughriders, wearing cowboy hats and carrying toy pistols.
The “Roughriders” kidnap the Golden Dragons’ mascot, which is then rescued by the Nacogdoches cheerleaders. So far, standard high-school rally fare. What follows isn’t, and here I quote from an Oct. 4 article in The Daily Sentinel.
“The music shifts to a popular song which includes the sound of gunfire. As the NHS cheerleaders hold the guns to the back of the kneeling ‘prisoners’ ’ heads, gunfire is heard. The ‘prisoners’ fall over, dead.
“The victorious NHS cheerleaders then toss what appears to be fake money into the air in celebration, then drag the bodies representing Center into a pile, whereupon the NHS mascot holds up a tombstone over the executed ‘prisoners,’ to the sound of clapping and cheering from the spectators.”
Not everyone cheered.
In the days following the rally, some students circulated a petition against the promotion of gun violence, and two editorials were written for the school newspaper. One — written by a cheerleader in defense of the skit — ran in full. The other — attacking the skit’s appropriateness — had paragraphs removed by the principal, including one that questioned the administration’s support for the skit.
Asked by The Sentinel what was objectionable about the excised material, Chaddick said it was obvious that a personal grudge was involved — something student journalists Katie Rushing and Mollie Garrigan denied.
“They were calling the cheerleaders ‘fearleaders,’ ” Chaddick said. “That’s inappropriate.”
That’s inappropriate?
Chaddick also moved a news story about the skit from the front page of the paper to inside, saying, “ … There’s more important things going on than a personal agenda of three little girls.”
It’s unclear who the third girl is Chaddick is referring to, but note the demeaning language: “three … little … girls.” If anyone comes up little in this incident, it’s Chaddick.
Among the material he censored was the following:
“ … it is inappropriate to allow such a display of excessive violence in a high school. This is not only unacceptable in a school environment, but also from a moral standpoint. This skit did not portray the other team as our opponent in a sports game, but as an enemy.”
Chaddick said the skit was a “simple, innocent satire” and was done “to promote some school spirit.”
A skit showing a mock execution, especially in an era when gun violence and death on school grounds is all too common, surely involves spirit — but not the type of spirit I would think a principal would want anywhere near his campus.
Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.
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