Written by Brian McPeek

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If you’re looking for sports coverage this week from this column I’m sorry to disappoint. Not that those sports columns don’t disappoint. But after this week I just don’t have it in me to talk Browns, Cavs and Tribe. I couldn’t give you a sports column this week with any integrity or any conviction so if you move on down the dial I completely understand. I write for me and I always have. The fact that many of you don’t mind reading what I throw out there is flattering and appreciated, but I’d write it somewhere whether it was published for public consumption or not. It’s how I help process information and events and emotions.

Think of this column as my personal excretory system that processes waste and occasionally produces the bile that allows me to digest what I see (normally from a sports standpoint), and what I feel so that I can somehow justify watching the next loss, blown draft pick or mind-numbing local sports team disappointment. Some people drink. Some people self-medicate. I drink, self-medicate and write.

This week is the same except that it's very different.

If you regularly read The Wrap you know that you typically get an ‘immediate’ reaction to a weekend’s worth of Cleveland sports soon after they happen. This is a fan-driven site and that initial response that I provide is emblematic of how (some) fans typically react. I give you, relatively speaking, the instant and emotional reaction to an event or game that transpires and then I let the smart guys take over during the week and over analyze the living hell out of every second of every game until we do it all again. That might be the reason I love baseball so dearly; because it doesn’t lend itself to paralysis by analysis in terms of W’s and L’s and because there is another game just hours after the last one ended.

But then Chardon happened last week and sports can’t help but take a back seat in this space. For just a week, anyway.  And the reason I’m writing about it now is, as stated above, more for cathartic purposes than anything else but it’s also because, like a sporting event, the events are relatively fresh in my mind. Unlike anything relating to a sporting event, however, millions of kids went to school on Monday across the country and three kids never made it back home to their parents and loved ones in Chardon, OH.

And that horror show transpired and played out in a community that’s 20 minutes from my own and to people who aren’t complete strangers to me or my family.

I’m not inserting myself or my family into the narrative of the Chardon shootings and the tragedy that claimed three kids. I’m more than far enough removed that putting myself any closer to the events would simply be terribly disrespectful to those truly suffering. I can't begin to know the pain and anguish the families who suffered the greatest loss imaginable suffered and I can't begin to feel the pain of the families whose children were seriously injured and have years, if not a lifetime, of physical and emotional pain that will need to be treated. The extent of my affiliation is that my brother and my wife and many of my friends graduated with Bobby Parmertor, the father of Daniel Parmertor who was the first child to die last Monday. Also, my daughter is acquainted with one of Daniel’s cousins who lives in the same city we do, Madison, OH.

That’s it. 

But for the purpose of today that’s enough.

It’s enough to differentiate these events from the Paducah, KY school shootings in 1997, the Columbine school killings in 1999 and even the far more local Success Tech shootings in downtown Cleveland a few years back.

All of those shootings were tragic. And all of them ended in death and bloodshed and all involved the unfathomable notion that kids were killing kids in an environment that parents and kids alike assume is safe and protected.

Why is Chardon different? Why is Chardon more impactful than Columbine when 12 kids and a teacher died in Colorado and when I can still remember the name of one of the student-killers, Dylan Klebold?  Maybe because I’ve spent a lot of time in Chardon, whether it was playing ball at the Chardon Eagles tournaments, golfing at Chardon Lakes, watching my daughter play volleyball at the Chardon Middle school, or shopping for groceries when we lived in Leroy Township. Maybe it’s because of acquaintances with some of those affected so horribly. But, far more likely, it’s because I have a 17-year old daughter at a neighboring high school and it’s simply not a big leap to imagine that helplessness, hopelessness and desperation taking place a few miles northeast of where it actually happened.

If you’re a parent then you know how inconceivable it is to put your kid on a bus or drop them off at school in the morning, or even say ‘goodbye’ to them as they drive themselves to class and then to entertain the possibility that you’ll never see them again. To get that call from the school and to have that sick, overwhelming dread spread through your body and absolutely know that it’s your son or daughter who’s been gravely injured in such an inconceivable way? Incomprehensible.

But when it actually happens it’s not that big of a jump to place yourself in the shoes of those affected when it occurs in not only a community somewhat similar to yours but in a community that’s one you’re neighboring.

My heart continues to hurt for the entire community and for the parents of Danny Parmertor, Russell King Jr. and Demetrius Hewlin.  I can’t even imagine how the victims' families ever  heal from that, how you return to ‘normal’. I don’t imagine you ever truly do. Instead I think it’s likely that you re-define ‘normal’ and you live out your life with a gaping hole that never goes away.  I know I personally would never be the same. I’m not sure I ever will be now.

It also makes me sad in many ways to see how this ‘event’ was covered by the local media. Having a journalism degree I was appalled and shocked that reporters were pressing cameras and microphones into the faces of young kids who had just witnessed hell on earth. Some of the kids were nonchalant in their responses, not knowing the severity of what had actually happened and/or still in shock and unable to fully comprehend the events.

It’s always a race to get news like this out. It’s not a race for accuracy or to let the story unfold, it’s a race simply to be first and to have a presence on scene. There were very few details other than the very basics that were determined Monday but that didn’t stop the three major Cleveland television stations from combining for 30+ hours of coverage.

It disappoints me to no end when journalists and the media seek to create a story as opposed to report it, when they interject themselves as a part of it, when they publish the name of minors irresponsibly and when they stick microphones in the face of kids who just walked through that horror and have no idea how to process their thoughts.

It disappoints me that there are people that live for events like this to lift their Q rating or hope it bumps their sweeps week books. And I honestly believe that there were a few of those people in Chardon last Monday.

There were people I respect who told me to simply stop watching it. If it were that easy I would have gone that route and I did limit what I watched myself. But with kids who had ancillary knowledge of the people and places involved that’s really a ridiculous suggestion, no? It’s ridiculous to me because, despite the horror and the fear and the despicable action of some media members, every moment is a teachable moment when you have children.

I could have chosen to declare martial law in the house and turned off the electronics. Would that have prevented my kids from having questions or not being exposed to the story? Would that have eliminated the fear that they had regarding how safe they are in school? Would it have eliminated my 14-year old daughter from being in school with a victim’s cousin and my 11-year old daughter from wondering why her teacher, a Chardon grad and resident with family and friends in the school and community, was sullen, withdrawn and sad to the point of being near tears? To the point where she and another little girl went up to him asked if he was okay.

I understand there’s sometimes no explanation for pure, unadulterated evil. I believe it walks among us and there is absolutely nothing you can do to wipe it out.

But I can explain that to my kids. I can tell them that and I can assure them those responsible parents and adults do everything they possibly can to limit the ability of evil to reach them. I can do that in a way that doesn’t scare the living shit out of them. I can be there to hug them when they broke down watching an interview of the Parmertor family on television because they see the pain on the family’s faces.

I can teach them that doing nothing in a situation like Chardon is the very worst ‘action’ they can take. ‘Fight or flight’ are both valid options. Freezing up in the chaos of an event like that is far worse.

I can teach them these things and I can do my very best to prepare them for any event that takes place. It doesn’t mean it’s going to prevent those events and it doesn’t mean that as a parent or a child you can do everything right and be prepared and  still get that call that five sets of families got last Monday.

But doesn’t it beat turning off the TV and the computer, throwing up my hands and saying, “Well…what are you gonna do? The world can be an evil place and that’s a damn shame, kids…”

There’s the old story of two guys being out in the woods when they’re suddenly confronted by a bear. One guy looks at the other and says, “How are we going to out run this bear?”, and his buddy turns to him and says, “I don’t have to out run this bear. I have to out run YOU.”

I’m not trying to be cute or irreverent. It gets back to the original point that all you can do is all you can do. You raise your kids the best you can, you teach them all you can, you walk the fine line between protecting them and smothering them and you try to instill in them an awareness of their surroundings that never approaches making them fearful or paranoid. And you instill in them the responsibility to carry that forward to their kids so that maybe you put enough good into the world that it makes a difference. But if I can provide my kids with more awareness and tools than other parents provide kids then I have that obligation to do so.

After that, after we’ve shown them all the love we can, and after we’ve taught them all we can teach them, well, the rest is simply out of our control. And while I know that to be true and I understand it in theory, don’t think for a second that being on the receiving end of one of ‘those’ calls still doesn’t weigh heavily on my mind and scare me to death.

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One Related Note

You know there's as much bad in the world of sports as there is good. Whether it's NFL players running drug operations that would make Pablo Escobar blush, tearing up bars, assaulting women, etc. Even in high school sports you'll see brawls and fights published before you'll see the good, healing nature of sports on display. But the Sectional tournament game Thursday night between Chardon and Madison, played at Euclid High School, was a moment that shouldn't ever be forgotten or minimized.

The Madison kids, with the OHSAA having no clue and without any publicity, took the floor for pregame in black Chardon t-shirts and red socks. The officials at the game were in the process of advising 'Chardon' they were on the wrong side of the floor when the Chardon kids actually came out of the locker room wearing their red jerseys and warm-ups. That gesture of solidarity and compassion demonstrated by the Madison coaches and kids makes me as proud as anything ever has to be part of this community. The picture of the Madison and Chardon kids shoulder-to-shoulder, with emotion evident on every face, evokes just a flood of feelings from sadness remorse to, most significantly, pride and hope and speaks of the healing powers and everything that is special about sports.

Kudos also have to go to the News Herald for running it (and shame on the Plain Dealer for demonstrating again how completely detached they are from the community, much less the actual news, in choosing not to run it). That News Herald photo will outlive all of us as the perfect case of a picture being worth a thousand words and as a historical document that captures the emotion of the event.  The compassion that the people of Euclid and the kids from Madison exhibited, as well as the courage of the kids from Chardon to get back on the floor and win that game is perfectly displayed in that one photo.

 

*Photo courtesy of the Lake County News Herald

 

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