When we were growing up, there was a term: "beer muscles." Have a few brews, and get liquid courage. Then you could act like a complete jackass. Today, the muscles are pumped behind the computer screen. Under the guise of anonymity, people (particularly teens) get juiced and reckless. They think they can say anything, about anyone, without repercussion. Can you think of a more cowardly behavior?
Every day we hear more and more warnings about the treachery of bullying. Yet, kids think it is perfectly acceptable to slander teachers and coaches in public forums online. The latest spineless example is a Twitter page entitled, "Kingston Coaches." I invite you all to log on and read the posts, as they are public. Just one glance will assure you that our hard earned tax dollars are not paying off well for the barely literate author/creator.
Not only are the comments incoherent and ungrammatical, but they border on racist rants. I would challenge any reader to reverse the racial profile. Where he (she?) insinuates that a coach is incompetent because he or she is white, would it not be racist to say a black coach is incompetent? I shutter to even think what the reaction would be. But on here, people accept it and laugh. Are we not going backward?
And the disgustingly blatant sexist riffs surely should dissuade any young woman from reading on, yet there are a good number of female followers of the page. As a woman, I think this is what disappoints me most. Any opportunity to resort to body parts and sex talk he takes. Women, especially athletes: do you want to be devalued like that?
This coward bolsters his own non-existent ego by spewing forth hate that others willingly suck up. OK; I'll give in; it's rampant in today's culture. But glancing at the names of the followers angers me. There are a number of intelligent, respectful, hard working athletes following this crap. It's a damn shame that they feel the need to align themselves with an illiterate libeler.
Here's my attempt at breaking through the writer's veil of anonymity. See if you agree: He or she is a disgruntled, former athlete whose current activities consist of playing videogames in his parents' basement while getting high. Obviously, his grades were not up to snuff, nor his commitment to hard work. It's easy to blame everyone else but yourself: coaches, teachers, parents, people with money, people with jobs, big booties, the City of Kingston. The fact that you are not going to the NBA/NFL/MLB squarely rests on your incompetent coach's shoulders. Because let's face it, so many KHS students have made it in professional sports (cough, cough). It has nothing to do with the fact that you're posting pictures of your weed and beer pong tables, and throwing your buddy under the bus by sharing snapshots of him with his head in your toilet.
How many times has this coward relied on a coach for a ride when his parents didn't show? Or borrowed his phone? How many meals have coaches bought for him? How many hours spent away from their own families were invested in his half-baked dreams of playing somewhere beyond Kingston? Your anger is surely misdirected. It's too bad that computer screens aren't mirrored. Then, maybe nameless tweeters could look themselves squarely in the face and clearly see the source of their problems.
