'You Would Have To Be An Idiot To Get Caught!'

"You would have to be an idiot to get caught!"

That quote stuck in my mind for the last seven years. It  was told to me by the actor I suspected was partying on weekends that was in the high school Stagemaster's program.

I told him, when I had tried to council not to party on the weekends. I warned him
that if he got caught, if I even found out that he had been doing it I would
have to keep him  out of plays. He looked at me with that blend of confidence and arrogance that youth breeds that he would never get caught.

I thought he was taking foolish risks. Turns out he was right. He never did get
caught, nor did his friends.

It is hard to get caught drinking in Barrington. The rules are set up to provide no consequences for teenagers to drink. It is in everyone's interest not to catch anyone.

To wit: The police catch people the parents are more likely to be angry at the police for catching their children than angry with their children for drinking.

Parents of a socially aware town like this do not want the stigma of being
a parent of a caught child so they turn a blind eye, or worse being children of
the 1970s and 1980s actually approve of teenagers drinking. No consequences
there.

The school system hides behind confidentiality rules. It serves them well. These rules make it appear there less teens drinking than there really are because most of it never comes out. All kept neatly quiet. For when a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it, not only does it not make a sound, but it never even happened!

Not the athletic coordinator. It is in his interest in only perusing the most obvious cases. Catching star athletes, and benching them does not make for competitive teams. It might also give  the appearance the students in sports actually drink. This would be bad because many parents send their kids to sports in Barrington to keep people out of trouble.

Well I've heard it said the third rail of national politics is Social Security. If this is true well, then, I am about to step on the 3rd, 6th and 9th electric rail of Barrington culture.

It is in the sports teams at the high school that most kids learn to drink and pick up the partying behavior.

There, I've said it. It is rather cathartic actually. It felt good.

No one likes hearing it, but it has to be said. It's the facts. When you send those kids out to soccer and field hockey and T-ball at age 5, you are setting them on a path that leads to Elm Lane and a trashed house.

Before you jump all over me, hear me out. Everyone knows that most kids in Barrington High School drink (some more than others) and most kids are involved in sports (70% I think) Those are two big overlapping circles. Most of the students caught, the few we find out about, were indeed sports kids.

After 10 years of dealing with Barrington kids, I have an opinion of where the first pressure starts. It is in the summer before 9th grade.

Now the interscholastic sports rules don't allow coaches to have practices over the summer. So to get around that, they have what are called "captain's practices" during the summer, which are run by upper classmen WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION.

Imagine impressionable 14-year-olds, scared about entering high school and all that entails, who are trying to both impress the older kids to get a good report to the coach to make the team, and, of course, show that they fit in with the older kids.

Remember all kids want to fit in so badly that it hurts. Students who do not attend the "captain's practices" are labeled as not having the desire needed to make the team. I have never met a student who felt those practices were optional. All thought it was mandatory.

This is the perfect recipe for disaster! Of course, most kids end up drinking. How could they not.

I have never understood where students at the high school are not allowed to be in a classroom without an adult, let along practices without adults. There are teams that are less inclined to drinking than others and, of course, there are students who end up not drinking. But it takes a strong individual to stand up to that kind of pressure.

But now I come back to Elm Lane, the hockey team, and who got caught and punished if the girls hockey team should lose its title, as someone called for in the Barrington Times.

Below is a portion of an article. It puts Police Chief John LaCross, I think, in a bad light:

Barrington Police Chief John LaCross, who helped coach  the girls hockey team in prior years, vehemently denied the unnamed resident’s claims. He said department detectives worked hard interviewing witnesses and eventually charged 15 individuals. Chief LaCross said certain information was not released because it could have compromised the investigation.

#“We did report it, but by keeping it low-profile we were able to interview almost two dozen people,” he said. “It was a successful investigation.”

#Chief LaCross, who has not coached the team since the 2009-2010 season, also challenged the idea of forcing the girls team to forfeit the state title.

#“You’d have to say, what would be the grounds for that? What proof is there ... how many girls on the hockey team were involved in this party? What about some of the other sports teams?” he said, adding that at least one student-athlete was already punished by the school.

#Chief LaCross said it would be better for residents to question some of the parents of local teenagers: “They should lash out at the parents who did know their sons and daughters were at the party.”

#The chief said he has regularly tried to address this issue with local parents. He said the BAY Team, Barrington’s substance abuse task force, has also worked hard, but often the message goes unheard. He said a recent BAY Team meeting for local parents saw only one parent show up.

#“The message is for parents to work together as a team and for kids to work together. If you’re not going to be part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.”

With respect to the police chief, the grounds for losing the title lies in the fact that if the girls hockey teams members were involved, they do deserve to lose their title. On the grounds that they have cheated to win the title as surely as a pitcher throws a spit ball.

All Barrington athletes agree to a code of conduct that these girls, if they participated in the party, have violated. Had they honored that code of conduct then they would have turned themselves into the school, and accepted the accompanying suspensions. But they played through, contrary to the code of conduct they agreed to. If they keep the title it should be a very hollow one. And they should feel that.s

For this was not a few kids drinking beer behind Nayatt School or in the woods by Brickyard Pond, or a few kids drinking in their parents' basement. This was not just a drinking party. This was a vandalism party. This was the knowing destruction of someone's home, the violation of the owners' most basic rights.

No student called the police while it was going on. No one made it stop. And students are still defending it. And surely they all knew what they were doing was wrong.

And, Chief, it does not reflect on you well to try to deflect from the sport you were involved in to suggest that the paper look to the other sports. If the hockey team was involved, they need to take responsibility for their actions, regardless of who ever else was involved.

Also, you can't mention any of this, remember? Confidentiality rules! We can't have it get out can we?

And if the parents don't show up to the BAY team meetings, is it the fault of the parents or the BAY Team? They work within the system and the schools. They have had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and no parents show up? Surely the BAY Team need to look at what it is doing to get more parents involved.

Lastly, hockey is not my sport, baseball is. I don't know what is acceptable in hockey, but if the investigation was successful, an extensive 5-week investigation mind you, was successful, then your use of the term successful concerns me.

There were 90 people at the party and after a successful investigation you have caught 15 out of 90. That is a .166 batting average. You don't get to stay in the minors with a .166 batting average and you never see the majors. And there are really not going to be any consequences for the 15 caught. Not even missing a hockey game.

So that student told me correctly seven years ago. You have to be an idiot to get caught. But you know what if you do get caught, don't worry. Nothing will really happen to you anyway. It makes you wonder what the point is.