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Beyond the Smoke, a Lesson was Lost

David Snyder

Rise has already come out with the first pre-season, national high school football rankings. Northwestern High in Miami is ranked first.

It would probably strike the outside observer strange then that on July 11th the Northwestern Bull's entire coaching staff was dismissed from their positions. They were among a group of 21 total employees that were let go by Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent, Rudy Crew.

The reason for the dismissals had nothing to do with a matter on the football field, but it was an issue that affected the state of Florida's 6A champions from the locker to the class room.

The firings followed the June 6th indictment of former Northwestern principal Dwight Bernard for his role in covering up the sexual misconduct of a student athlete before the Bull's championship game.

Antwain Easterling, Northwestern's star running back and a top national recruit, was caught having sex with a 14-year-old girl, when he himself was 18, on school grounds. Bernard and other school officials were aware of the act of statutory rape, which would later be charged as 2nd degree lewd and lascivious battery on a minor, and instead of disciplining Easterling allowed him to play in the schools championship game.

The title of the grand jury report on the incident:

"Justice Intercepted - the All-Consuming Power of Football"

As Rudy Crew decided whether or not the entire 2007 season should be scrapped for the Bulls, the issue turned into a hot plate for political, social, and racial rhetoric. Situations like these have become too common place in our media, with stories like the unjust captivity of Genarlow Wilson, a young Georgia man who has spent 2 years of a 10 year sentence for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old when he was 17, being common fodder for talking heads.

The rhetorical smoke that surrounds these issues is too much and too difficult to sift through. Most journalists and politicians do not understand the culture of an inner-city school such as Northwestern, which stands in the shadow of the "Pork n' Beans" housing project in Liberty City, Miami. We cannot understand how important school officials may have believed that football season was to that community. We do not know what the reaction to all of this would have been if this were a white student in a predominantly white high school.

All we can do is project our values on the situation and weigh in with our own baggage and ideas.

The one thing that is clear from the situation, beyond the smoke, a lesson was lost.

I earn my living as teacher in the Broward County school system. Writing does not pay my bills, and I have a gift for educating kids. I understand them, and they seem to be able to learn from me.

The one thing that all educators look for are "teachable moments." These are those unscripted pieces of time that flutter into the heavily mandated curriculum where a teacher can just teach. These moments stem from a situation or question posed by a student. They are a point where the pupil is eager and yearning for knowledge, and we as educators are able to give them those lessons.

Such situations presented themselves at Northwestern High and 21 educators, Rudy Crew, and countless others let them pass without acknowledgment. No matter your opinion on this topic, no matter how much smoke surrounds the issue; that much is inarguable truth.

The athletic director failed to teach Easterling a life long lesson of responsibility. The incredibly talented young man will likely be involved with football for years to come, and his coaches passed on the opportunity to teach him that football does not outweigh his humanity. That ability does not trump responsibility.

The principal failed to teach the young girl, who, according to the Miami-Dade state attorney's office, has since repeatedly attempted suicide, that a school is a safe place. That those in a position of power are there to help and not exploit. Dwight Bernard passed on the "teachable moment" that the young girl was just as important as a star athlete, and that she deserved care and attention being spent on her individual situation.

The football coaches failed to teach their players that an individual does not outweigh the team. This is a lesson that they see destroyed constantly on ESPN, through the reality of how talent affects professional sport. Team work, however, is supposed to be the very reason schools sanction sports.

Rudy Crew failed to teach the entire Liberty City community that the way to mend wounds is by accepting responsibility. Instead of moving on the issue in January, when Easterling entered a pre-trial diversion program, he waited until Bernard's indictment and a lawsuit from the victim. Then he hoisted threats of suspending the football program, putting in jeopardy dozens of inner-city kids' abilities to obtain college educations through scholarships. Luckily, common sense prevailed and he only erased his own complacency by punishing that of others.

Educators failed students.

Lessons were lost.

That is the true injustice in this case. No matter how you feel about the situation and its social, racial, and political layers, the one truth that rises above all of that smoke is the fact that there was an opportunity to teach, the job all of these people were assigned to do, that was passed up for reasons that do not justify any of the results.

David Snyder catches topics floating around the sports world at bigdaveonsports.com.