By: Mitchell Moore @MogulMitchell - Lane Losh @LaneLosh2
This past week, student sections from Dallas Center-Grimes and Boone have been under scrutiny for their provocative chants toward Perry’s basketball teams. Some of these chants are alleged to have had racial undertones and others just poorly timed. As students in attendance at the girls district game on Saturday, we do not believe this level of press is warranted.
As this situation has come to light, we read an article written by reporter, Jeff Webster, from the Perry News. While Jeff makes a few valid points, he swings and misses on a majority of the editorial.
In Monday night’s double-header district game in Adel, the DCG student section could be heard chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump!”, evidently making a reference to Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s policies against illegal immigrants. While this itself was rather offensive and uncalled for, that’s really the only meat Mr. Webster has for this editorial. The rest is incorrect facts based on his opinion. He says what he wants to hear.
At one point, he says that Boone girls basketball coach Jim McPartland should have taken a break from coaching the game, went to the PA system, and told his own crowd to quiet down. This is a ridiculous expectation, as McPartland was obviously centering his attention towards the game at hand.
He also claims that the entire section was chanting that a Perry player “needed a wheelchair”. We can confirm that this was yelled by one single student, and he was quickly told that it was out of line.
Several noise makers were said to be “plainly and repeatedly heard”. However, he’s speaking about one kid, with a duck call, who used the duck call three times at a maximum.
Boone’s minor infractions were lumped together with the actions of DCG to create a seemingly bigger problem than there actually was.
If you weren’t at the game and you read Mr. Webster’s editorial, you would probably be appalled. It sounds disrespectful and ignorant for fans to act this way. And this is because the writer magnified the severity of it with his opinion. His scream for attention is actually going rather well, with his piece garnering a lot of attention. Mr. Webster went as far to call high school students “buffoons” and “immature clowns”. It seems inappropriate for an adult man to name call a group of students who are under age and are still in the process of maturing. He seems to be furthering the behavior he is so adamantly against.
It wasn’t the spectacle that it was described to be. We’d be willing to bet that most of the players and coaches were completely unaware of anything being said. It wasn’t even to the level that a member of the administration should’ve stepped in.
The bottom line is this. Mr. Webster magnified the severity of what actually took place by implementing his own opinion, and by writing what he wanted it to be. By writing what would be popular. He should be ashamed.
The Kate Shelley Krazies traveled to Pella on Tuesday night and were louder and prouder than ever; they plan to do the same this Thursday when the Boone boys face off against the Perry Bluejays at Johnston High School.
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