Sixth Graders Organized Fight Club at School!

I read today in the paper of a group of sixth graders in Tacoma, Washington, that were involved in some sort of a “Fight Club”.

They would stage these fights on school grounds and in private homes, video them, put them on websites or Youtube! The club was discovered when one of the relatives talked to a news outlet in Tacoma, and watched a video that was on a cell phone—the club had their own set of rules—one of which was not to hit their opponent in the face, each match was timed—and no one was to know about it!

What in the world are we coming too? When was it allowed to have fights in school?

I remember when you had a fight at school, it was because someone was picking on someone, or you talked to someone else’s girlfriend, or you had a school bully on the grounds.

What was the phrase?: “Meet me at the flag pole after school!” and the fight was on at that point!

I had my struggles growing up, I can’t tell you how many fights I got in when I was in elementary school, there were two kids that were bullies! Clifford Attaway, and Mike Murphy! They constantly picked on me, and were always in my business, and just cutting me down, and causing grief.

I would come home beat up, and messed up, but I got home soon enough that I was able to clean up and not let my parents know about the troubles. Until one day I took a shot to the face, and got a pretty good size shiner under my left eye from a right cross to the face!

That’s when I decided that enough was enough!

The next time I was involved in a fight, Our Coach caught us… dragged both of us into the gym, and informed myself and Cliff that if we were going to fight we would do it fairly—no wrestling, no going to the ground—it was with boxing gloves and he would supervise!

Once the gloves got on my hands—I just envisioned being Mohammed Ali! Started to dance on my toes to my left—flicked my left hand into Cliff’s face—then drew my right hand—and just one move—my right hand slammed into the bridge of the nose of Cliff, his eyes started to water, and the next thing I know—he crumpled to the ground on his knees and started to cry! Just as he had made me cry numerous times when he would pin me on the ground and start in on me! The empowerment that I felt that moment was incredible—I beat the bully! From that moment forward, I never had problems with Cliff or Mike, or for that matter anyone else!

This was the way it was for generations before me and for a few after my time in school.  There was once an incident at my High School, that a friend of mine—in his ROTC uniform, was confronted by another student who was met our bus when it arrived at the campus—my friend stepped off the bus, and the next thing I know—His face was met with a strait right hand to his jaw—and it dropped him like a sack of potatoes! No fight club—just two people getting into an altercation!

This is different—this is organized, this is where a group of kids get together and just plain fight bare fisted against each other!

The nine that were involved have all been expelled from school—no word as to their permanent situation, though if I am the parents of these children, I would first have them in some sort of counseling, or maybe if they are that good—into the Golden Gloves program!

There are many Police departments that offer after school boxing programs, and these kids might need an outlet that will help them vent whatever angst they have!

I am not sure where our society is going, I am not sure that I understand it.  I am old school to a point because in some cased—OLD SCHOOL works best! Its not that its outdated or so old that it can’t keep up with technology! Sometimes, too much technology is not always best!

When children are no longer going outside to play in their neighborhoods just to play games— such as street football, or maybe a sandlot baseball game, we had a game called “Grab the Flag”… now there are organized games—such as Soccer, Basketball, Volleyball, maybe even select Baseball, but do you have any clue how much money we spend on that—and trust me when I tell you that your child involved with any one of those organizations is never going to guarantee that your child will make it a profession out of it! My own experience with that is that—its good competition, but if a college really wants to take a look at your child—they will do so while they are in school working with the school program!

Fighting is never a good solution for any reason, we know that wars are sometimes the only solution to situations! But children are in school for one purpose and that is to learn—to be educated! WE need to implement that more! Its not longer a good enough to just make them go to class—its important for them to learn while they are there—and not disrupt the classroom. When that happens there has to be more than detention, or sent to the office! It has to have some consequence to it, and suspension is not the answer either! Keep them in school! And with budget cuts in the state of Texas, as well as other states, its difficult to make that happen!

Here’s an idea—since there is a possibility that there won’t be a NFL season this year, why don’t we make the owners of the NFL donate the 4 billion dollars that they are scheduled to make this year from the networks, that are not going to air their games if there is a lockout and put it back into the EDUCATION budget for all 50 states.. lets see—4Billion divided by 50 comes out to…$80Million Dollars per State—HELLO! ANYONE! BEULLER? BEULLER?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out—just think of the possibilities we can have if that simple gesture is made (alright lets say they take half of that—and donate it—that’s still 40 million per state!)

Its just a thought!