The North Sand Mountain High football team was beaten by Fyffe on Friday night and people for miles around were absolutely delighted. Word has spread like wildfire that a vile and sickening disease has infected Coach Adam Gilbert’s football team and, as allegations of sexual abuse and bullying now run rampant, the Bisons’ 33-23 loss this weekend was just perfect. I just hope the Fyffe kids washed their hands afterwards.

Sometime before North Sand Mountain beat Ider High the week before, two varsity football players held down a smaller, first-year player while another “team leader” rubbed his naked genitals in the little kid’s face. The irrepressible act is called “tea-bagging” and last month in Louisiana, a “very nervous” Alabama fan was sentenced to two hard years in prison for doing the same thing to an inebriated LSU fan after a disgusting video of the act went viral.

Of course, on Sand Mountain in the tiny town of Higdon they handle things a little differently. C’mon, it’s just boys-being-boys and it’s the football team that matters – the older guys are desperately needed if “the Herd” ever expects to better the school’s now-6-2 season. For the record, school officials told Huntsville TV station WAAY that some of the perverts will perform “community service” while others won’t play but there are disturbing reports that this is laughable – one kid just had to sit out the first quarter!

There is mounting evidence that bullying and hazing takes place at every school – from kindergarten through college – but not until recently has it involved sexual abuse as well. In California there was the soccer team that violated younger kids with broom handles as “a rite of passage” and then there is the college where sorority initiates either had to snort cocaine or submit to repugnant sexual acts in front of all the jeering “sisters.”

Bullying in any form is absolutely unacceptable but when sexual abuse is involved, somebody should have called the Jackson County sheriff immediately. North Sand Mountain principal Chris Davis and county superintendent Ken Harding should be held accountable, but there is now more to the story.

The ninth-grader who was the locker-room victim tragically lost his mother not long ago and today lives with his grandmother. When his guardian became incensed at the school’s lackadaisical approach to the atrocity, she went public with what had happened and now the 14-year-old is not just going to counseling but has been brutally ostracized by the other kids at school.

Do you see the way this works? If you tell on bullies, the other kids side with the football heroes because that’s the cool thing to do. Then the other kids get cruel, too -- saying things that are mean, watching as the victim eats lunch by himself, and letting the social stigma settle in so deeply a grieving ninth-grader doesn’t stand a prayer.

Trust me, “tea-bagging” at North Sand Mountain High School hasn’t gone away. In Los Angeles authorities found the soccer team at La Puente High School had a long history of hazing rookie players and that the pervasive attitude was, “If it happened to me when I was a freshman, it is going to happen to them, too.”

So what we’ve got at just about any school you can name is a “disease” that must be eradicated with fast and furious countermeasures. Penalties must be severe and, if some dolt thinks punishment for hazing or sexual abuse will hurt a star athlete’s chance of getting a college scholarship, you can’t show me one college team that would dare take a high school pervert.

I think it is imperative that Jackson County Sheriff Chuck Phillips – who is running against Billy Wilson in the election – launch an investigation and, if the alleged sexual abuse did occur, it is his sworn duty to uphold the law. North Sand Mountain principal Chris Davis and head football coach Adam Gilbert should answer to the school board for their actions or they are no better than Penn State’s coverup. That’s harsh, but true.

I think every parent or guardian of a child who attends North Sand Mountain High should be furious and indignant, calling for swift action before the next victim becomes their child. Wait until they see their own child’s eyes. I think every student in every grade should learn it is okay to tell, that it is courageous to speak out when they see or hear of “tea-bagging” or hazing or bullying anywhere.

And then I think the football team, not just the captains, ought to approach the ninth-grade victim, apologize face-to-face and beg him to get back on the team, sitting with him every day at lunch until his tender heart has time to heal. What the entire team did to this boy, whether directly or indirectly, is a reflection on “The Herd” and only “The Herd” can ever change it. Today total strangers hope the Bison lose.

Finally, the good people on Sand Mountain know the names of the football players involved and I will let you in on a secret – nobody who they love respects what they just did. They are not noble athletes at all but are every bit as repulsive and filthy as the Alabama fan that “tea-bagged” the LSU drunk - yet some who were in on the “tea-bagging” just played in the game against Fyffe. “Roll, Herd, Roll.”

The only difference is that the Alabama fan is now locked up in a tough prison where a sexual offender is at the very bottom of the food chain. In a Louisiana jail, the ruffians don’t take kindly to sexual offenders and the next 24 months for that moron are going to be awful.

At North Sand Mountain High School, they just did the exact same thing that could possibly cost that moron his life.

royexum@aol.com