Severe case of Pink-eye in Mississippi -- Sports Thoughts for November 18, 2010

I don’t know how many of you have followed the recent events at Mendenhall High School in Mendenhall, Mississippi, but this story should make all rational adults question how public education operates in this state.

Last month a 17-year-old football player, Coy Sheppard, was dismissed from his high school football team for... Get this... Wearing PINK cleats to a football game and practice in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Last week, this young man was reinstated to the football team. However, local and national newspapers reported yesterday that this young man has been relegated to the bench since his reinstatement.

His attorney, Oliver Diaz, a former Mississippi Court Justice, is shocked at the events.
I’m not, and after reading this column, I hope none of you are either.

I offer you a letter I faxed on November 11 to Mr. Joe Welch, the superintendent of the Simpson County School District in Mendenhall, and copied to Mr. Sheppard’s attorney:

Dear Superintendent Welch:
I just read an article in USA TODAY regarding the lawsuit recently filed by Coy Sheppard against your school district.
As a veteran educational research scholar, and a former football player, I found the story simultaneously amusing and appalling.

From the reference point of an outsider to your district, I see two critical issues at hand:
1. The young man’s football coach, Chris Peterson, appears to have serious team management and interpersonal communication issues.
2. Your Deputy Superintendent, Tom Duncan, appears to need better training on how to respond to the press.

Unless there’s a specific federal, state, or local statute forbidding an individual student-athlete from wearing cleats of a color different from the rest of the team (such rules do exist in the National Football League as well as Major League Baseball), Coach Peterson is completely out of bounds in his actions toward Mr. Sheppard. The young man reportedly chose to wear pink cleats in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, or to at least raise attention to breast cancer, something the NFL did last year and this year, and something MLB similarly does on Mother’s Day (and blue on Father’s Day to raise awareness for prostate cancer, which I happen to be a 15-year survivor of).

From what I gleaned from the USA TODAY article, Coach Peterson had no rational or educational reason for admonishing then dismissing Mr. Sheppard other than to exert control on a 17-year-old KICKER... NOT a quarterback or any other skilled position player, nor a lineman. Unless I’ve missed something since I last played football over 25 years ago, the color of one’s cleats gives neither a team nor its opponent an unfair advantage or disadvantage. For Heaven’s sake, Joe Namath taped his cleats white in an era of all-black shoes, because it gave him confidence, and outside the occasional ribbing he took from teammates and opposing players, it was not only a non-issue, it eventually became the trend in the NFL for over 30 years. In fact, according to NFL rules, KICKERS are the only players exempt from having to wear the same colored cleats as the rest of the team, because kicking shoes are CUSTOM-MADE.

To compound Coach Peterson’s foolishness, your own Deputy Superintendent tells the media that punishing Mr. Sheppard “had absolutely nothing to do with a lack of support for breast cancer awareness”, that this was simply an issue of a high school student “ignoring the orders of his coaches to take off the shoes.” So let me get this straight... Mr. Sheppard is not only scolded by his football coaches for wearing pink-colored cleats, dismissed from the team for refusal of compliance, but he has to potentially worry about his high school graduation due to the fact that playing football constitutes credit for physical education requirements?

As a native New Yorker who spent a good part of my adult life in the south, I need to ask you WHAT CENTURY ARE Y’ALL STILL LIVING IN?!

If I understand the events as reported in USA TODAY, a kid wears pink cleats to a football game, the coaches vehemently want him to not wear them, even though there’s no specific rule stating he can’t wear them, but the coaches are fully supportive about breast cancer awareness nonetheless. The kid wears the same cleats to practice, and the coaches react the same way. The kid declines taking off the cleats, so the coaches dismiss him from the team because he’s NOT OBEDIENT WITH REGARDS TO ORDERS.

So, are people like me supposed to infer from these events that Mendenhall High School operates according to some military protocol, and Mr. Sheppard violated orders from a superior or commanding officer?!

Unless this high school and its football program operates according to military protocol, neither Coach Peterson nor Deputy Superintendent Duncan have a legal leg to stand on. No matter what position your district takes on this issue, the simple fact is that one or more high school football coaches went off on a 17-year-old kid for demonstrating his First Amendment rights under the US Constitution without having a logical or statutory justifiable reason, AND acted with impunity in the name of adult power and authority. Even if Mr. Sheppard chose to wear pink cleats because he loves the color pink, Coach Peterson had no legal grounds for his actions UNLESS FOOTWEAR COLOR REQUIREMENTS ARE ADDRESSED IN A SPECIFIC RULE OR LEGAL STATUTES BOOK.

I’ve heard more than enough embarrassing stories about the state of education in Mississippi since the start of my academic career in 1984. If it’s not your district going after a kid for pink cleats, it’s another district canceling a senior prom in order to bar lesbians from attending as couples. What’s the matter — is overt racism no longer enough for your state’s sustainability that you now need systemic homophobia? Maybe if your state spent less time demonizing kids for being unique human beings, and spent more time eradicating ignorance and illiteracy, your state wouldn’t consistently rank 50th in the nation in almost every major educational attribute!

Do your district and everyone looking at your district a big favor: get out from behind your desk, stand up and admit to the media and Mr. Sheppard’s family that your district personnel were wrong and abused that student’s civil rights, then fire Coach Peterson and Deputy Superintendent Duncan, or at least suspend them a month without pay. Either that, or I hope Mr. Sheppard’s attorney, Oliver Diaz, hits your district for as much monetary damage as possible, because your fiscal loss will be the American Cancer Society’s gain.

No matter how much money ultimately goes to charity, your school district created a permanent black mark for itself and K-12 education in your state. I can only wonder how proud your district feels right now.

Neither Mr. Welch nor Mr. Diaz responded to my letter.

Could someone PLEASE explain to me what social, moral, or institutional crime Coy Sheppard committed by not only wearing pink cleats but refusing to take them off at the over-the-top demands by his coaches? If the coaching staff and school district administration’s stance still remains that cleate-gate was never an issue of supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month or not, then what exactly is the message these adults wished to send to not only a 17-year-old student-athlete but to an entire community and educational system? That Plantation-style hegemony is still the modus operandi in the deep south? That ostracizing free expression is the best way to ensure respect and discipline from the ranks of our nation’s youth? That the retaliatory marginalizing of a teenager whose heart was in the right place is a more effective and cleaner message to big-city lawyers from Jackson to stay out of local business? That burying your 17-year-old placekicker on the bench is a warning to back down and accept one’s place in the local food chain?

Sure, we can shrug and say, “it’s just a pair of cleats... What’s the big deal? Let it go”, but the actions of adults over something as harmless as athletic footwear sends a chill down my spine and harkens me back to dark days in Mississippi almost 40 years ago. Back in June 1964, three young men -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — tried to make a statement for the benefit of others, to raise awareness for voter rights, and give Americans a reason to be proud. It was just helping African-Americans register to vote and be a fuller part of democratic society... What was the big deal? Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner lost their lives at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Apparently trying to make Mississippi a better place, a place to be proud of, was hazardous to their being. The message was loud and clear: don’t mess with the way things are done here, if you know what’s good for you.

The adults with power in the Simpson County School District have sent their message, albeit less heinous but odious enough: don’t mess with the way things are done here, if you know what’s good for you. Coy Sheppard didn’t lose his life trying to help make the world a better place, yet he’s still the victim of a mob attack, apparently the way things are done in Mendenhall. Once again, an establishment in Mississippi gives its state a big black eye... Because they saw red at the sight of pink.