Friday Night Frights

When academic administrators overreach, parents overreact. Well, let’s face it: Parents overreact no matter what. As a Dear Old Dad, I can say that.

Last week, the heads of state within Medina City Schools announced — kind of out of the blue and for reasons that weren’t entirely clear, since nobody seemed to buy the official explanation — that new rules would be put in place at home football games at Ken Dukes Stadium.

The rule changes were sensible, if maybe a bit overcooked. The one that riled up the most folks concerned kids roaming around during the game — also known as what most kids ages 10-18 do at high school football games.

Around the same time parents lost their collective mind, local media outlets — especially TV stations — lost theirs. Because nothing drives local TV more than parents on banana boat rides.

The parents weren’t wrong, mind you. While the new rules were not, as some said, “draconian,” they still seemed a bit heavy-handed. Many responded on social media by saying their kids simply wouldn’t go to the game, often followed by a threat to pull their kids from the district.

Because they wouldn’t be allowed to roam. At a football game.

We get it, though. A little order in the stadium never hurt anyone.

Calls for Superintendent Aaron Sable’s job soon flooded the internet, as did promises to vote out the current school board. Seriously — over football game crowd rules. In a district that has been flourishing in recent years.

It’s just a few bad apples flexing their internet muscles, but it’s a few too many.

The reasons stated by the district made sense. Safety of children was the main goal (though many believe the safety of the district’s new track was the larger concern). And nobody should question that.

If you followed the story on social media, you also may have heard claims that the rules were needed because kids today are more awful and out of control than back in the day, when apparently everyone was perfect.

This calls to mind the basement discussion between Mr. Vernon and Carl the janitor in The Breakfast Club, when Vernon says, “Carl, I’ve been teaching for 22 years, and each year these kids get more and more arrogant.” To which Carl snaps back, after an expletive: “Come on, Vern, the kids haven’t changed. You have.”

Carl was right.

Having spent most of my career covering high school athletes, I can safely say they haven’t changed — at least not to the naked eye.

What has changed? The media. Particularly handheld media, of which every know-it-all is now a member.

It’s how stories like this one, which shouldn’t even be a story, get out of hand. Someone hears something, texts it, tweets it or TikToks it. Someone else goes crazy. Someone calls Fox 8. Soon, no fewer than 10 outlets (not this one) are covering the story, which grows legs like a harvestman.

The other new rule — banning large bags in the stadium — drew plenty of complaints, because that’s what people do. But it made perfect sense.

I have to imagine people were bringing bags at one point, or they wouldn’t need the rule. I’ve spent hundreds of Friday nights covering high school football and don’t recall anyone bringing large bags of stuff. And if they had been? Why? That’s a practice that should have been shut down years ago.

This all turned out, as things like this tend to do, to be much ado about nothing. The fervor created by a community-wide knee-jerk caused a ripple rather than a wave — exactly the kind of reaction it should have been.