School leaders in Amherst jumped, as they should, on reports that fans of the girls varsity soccer team crossed a line in comments to the opposing team at a Sept. 23 game in Holyoke.
Principal Mark Jackson promptly laid down the law on behavior at athletic contests: Be a fan, not a fanatic. He detailed a “reset” of the school’s standards for fan behavior in messages to the community late last week.
His words about words may already be sticking.
Last Saturday, Amherst hosted the Holyoke boys soccer team without any repeat of what Jackson acknowledged was “considerable evidence” that male Amherst students on the sidelines acted inappropriately at the girls game in Holyoke the week before.
We are relieved to learn Jackson’s investigation did not turn up evidence that the inappropriate behavior included racial slurs. But the probe only went so far — and didn’t include making contact with athletes on the Holyoke team. The mother of Holyoke’s goalie, in Facebook posts, is vowing to take her allegation that racial taunts were indeed made to school officials in Amherst.
For their part, Holyoke school officials aren’t entirely ready to let this go. In a statement Monday, Stephen Zrike, who heads Holyoke public schools as the state’s receiver of the district, said the city’s high school plans to stay in touch with the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association about the Sept. 23 fan behavior. The association is conducting its own probe. What’s more, Zrike said, Holyoke athletes and their families are telling him it wasn’t just one game. They have expressed concern with fan behavior toward the visiting team at contests in Amherst.
The test of whether Jackson’s “Fan Framework” message will stick may come later this month when the girls teams face off in Amherst.
This affair consumed at least two days of Jackson’s time, but that comes with the territory. The challenge for this principal, and all those who set expectations in our public schools, is to balance a call to reason – the proper response in an academic community – with a readiness to impose sanctions. Jackson hit all the right notes in his report to the community last week about his investigation into evidence of unsavory “fanatic” behavior at the girls soccer match.
After sending it Thursday, Jackson followed up with remarks over the school’s PA last Friday, then made himself available at lunch that day to answer questions and hear concerns. His distillation of what’s acceptable deserves to be consulted by educators across the country — and likely will, since these incidents come up again and again.
The fanatic, Jackson wrote, loses sight of the fact that a game is about more than the score. People in the stands have a right to get excited, and to shout encouragement. “I have no interest in turning athletic contests into a library,” he wrote. “Home field advantage should continue to mean something.”
But fans should yell for, he noted, not against. They can question calls by refs, but not criticize them personally. That all makes sense for games like these. Emotions run high at close contests and it is too easy for “fanatic” behavior to spill over into mayhem. Parents are often as guilty of fan excess as their children.
It gets dicey to ban specific words or phrases, but Jackson strides into that terrain with several mandates. On the threat of removal from home games by event staff, Jackson said he won’t tolerate use of the word “lousy” or any of its synonyms – of which, in a language as rich as English, there are many.
The principal is also banning two chants: “Warm up the bus” and “If you’re winning clap your hands.” People being people, we’re sure they’ll mint some new chants to get under an opponent’s skin. Jackson said he’s a patient man and admits it will take time for people to grasp this “reset.”
If new evidence is presented that Amherst fans did use racial slurs, the school will have to issue a second, and much deeper, apology to Holyoke.
Jackson’s messages should help ward off a recurrence. We’re for, not against, his heads-up plan.