Roy Exum
I’ve been around sports for a long time and I know that hazing – and bullying – can be an unfortunate part of the ritual, especially where some less-than-successful coaches turn a blind eye. Oh, the older players will put “deep heat” salve in some kid’s jock strap or shave freshmen’s heads at football camp. Stupid stuff, silly stuff, always with the lame excuse “if they did it to me in the ninth grade them I’m going to do it to them when I am a senior.”
But to rape a 15-year-old with a pool cue, as is alleged after the Ooltewah High School basketball team was in Gatlinburg for a holiday tournament, is so far over the line that a steel fist and a hob-nailed boot should have already been brought down mightily on the high school’s basketball team. It appears the program is obviously so far off kilter that the coaches had little idea such sickness and perversion had crept into the program. One news account intimated the coaches had been even been told what was happening but did little, if anything, before the hazing would get far worse.
Quite frankly, I don’t think the Ooltewah administration and the Hamilton County School system has any choice but to dismantle the team and am surprised swift and strong steps have not already been taken. Ooltewah basketball coach Andre Montgomery should be summoned to Principal Jim Jarvis’ office and fired for no other reason than total and absolute incompetence.
The coach and his wife, along with what we are told were “other chaperones,” are believed to have been in the cabin when the heinous act occurred. The kid’s screams were described as blood-curdling. Yet this guy had no idea or any clue of what was going on? That is simply too hard to believe.
If Montgomery didn’t have a better grip or a better read on his players, he should never be entrusted with an athlete’s well-being again. The criminal act should haunt him like a ghost. Let’s be candid: this tragedy happened on Montgomery’s watch. If anyone is to be held responsible, it is Andre Montgomery and I don’t care what he knows about power forwards or a full-court press.
One of his players now has a perforated colon and a damaged bladder. Comparatively, his won-lost record means zero and the fact Montgomery has allowed three sickening thugs to ruin his coaching career speaks volumes. Other younger players were beaten and thrown on the ground, according to one account, and if Montgomery was told by the younger players they were being beaten, there may be room “child endangerment” charges against him and his assistants for not preventing it.
It is unbelievable to me that school officials and the education system have allowed the team to continue to play. My God, is the kid being forced to wear a colostomy bag now going to sit on the bench during games? Who is he going to sit with … somebody whose nickname is ‘Judas’? Doesn’t common sense dictate the other players knew about what was going on in the basement of that cabin but not a one stepped up to halt it?
The Hamilton County School Board? Please, they plan to talk about it sometime next week but that’s an “internal problem,” so to speak. That’s Ooltewah’s problem. The School Board handles bigger stuff. The rape of an athlete by his teammates should be everyone’s hot button but, you know, with the holidays, our elected school leaders wanted to wait until after New Year’s so we can all have a good time. Hey, and don’t forget the Vols were playing New Year’s Day. I am absolutely staggered by our collective ineptness. It’s embarrassing.
In the court of public opinion, the entire Chattanooga community is enraged. You say it isn’t fair to the other players who had no part in the horror or were also beaten to cancel the rest of the season? Then tell us what to do about those who watched with pointed fingers and laughter and did absolutely nothing to intercede for their teammate. How are they going to look at their teammate in the hall between classes and know they could have prevented his bladder from being torn by the jagged end of a broken pool cue?
The fact that Ooltewah has been allowed to continue play since the tragedy occurred is an absolute mockery. School Superintendent Rick Smith and Ooltewah principal Jim Jarvis should have immediately dealt with the worst sports debacle I can remember ever happening in our city’s athletic history rather than enjoy the remainder of Christmas vacation “with their loved ones.”
Instead, our education leaders have allowed the heinous act to fester while the cowardly basketball team has played four or five games since the tragedy. My belief is that anyone who didn’t run for help does not deserve to put on an Ooltewah jersey. Further, I feel like any athlete or student -- at any school -- becomes an “accessory to the crime” if they allow a teammate or fellow student to shamefully suffer and don’t do anything about it. Do we have to wait for a broken pool cue to make this stop?
While I am a big believer of “innocent until proven guilty,” and appreciate the Gatlinburg Police Department pressing charges, it is disappointing that the first response in Chattanooga was to wait until school resumes. What do they think every family that has a child has been talking about? My goodness, to leak the news that the three in jail are already suspended does nothing to stifle the outrage in the Ooltewah community or, according to the news media, all across Tennessee.
The Ooltewah Owls basketball team even made it to network TV and, yes, sodomy was prominently mentioned. People Magazine, newspapers in England, you have no idea how bad the exposure is, or will become. The notoriety that our three dibble-and-shoot morons have just brought to a wonderful high school is inexcusable. Sadly, every child that attends Ooltewah is involved by association and that’s hardly fair yet an unfortunate reality.
When the truth is found, the legal system will handle the crimes that were committed but the collateral damage is already immense. Just the psychological effect this will have on the student body is huge; every kid at Ooltewah already knows who did what to whom. Grown men are wondering what the Owls do in the football locker room, on an overnight baseball trip, or what really takes place where their daughter goes to school.
How can any Ooltewah student or teacher to look at the maimed kid in the hall between classes and know somebody else they see in the same hall at the same time could have prevented his bladder from being perforated by the jagged end of a broken pool cue?
I cannot begin to describe what severe actions must be taken, not just with the seriousness of the crime but to send a message to the next copy-cats that this is so unacceptable, so obscene, so nauseating, that there is no “politically correct” way to handle to handle such a horrid scenario but to slam the door on the coach and the season. Hard!
For every action, there is a reaction. Our reaction should be such that every child in every school would know rape is not allowed here. Bullying will not be tolerated. Hazing is not acceptable. And every coach in every sport at every school should realize that when we entrust our children in your care, they become your children as well. Treat them each that way. Or be gone.
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A fund has been established at a trust-worthy web site -- GoFundMe.com -- that will help the injured athlete and his single mother with mounting expenses. It can be found by typing “Ooltewah Basketball” in the website’s ‘search’ line and you can safely use a credit/debit card to make an online donation. Yesterday the fund was nearing $25,000 from a grieving public but the family’s expenses will be much more.
Royexum@aol.com