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For light hearted content, how about a story where every kid in a jr high learned many of their teachers are wretched humans? Picture ‘80s small town America. The annual 8th grade boys team vs Teachers basketball charity game. One evening, 500 attendees, all trust destroyed
A boy died in an accident in the ‘70s. He played 
. His parents donated $ for the sports programs in their son’s name. Before the game, the parents gave a speech about their son. Crowd is tearful. A spirit award is presented to an 8th grade boy. $5 tickets to fund equipment
. His parents donated $ for the sports programs in their son’s name. Before the game, the parents gave a speech about their son. Crowd is tearful. A spirit award is presented to an 8th grade boy. $5 tickets to fund equipment
Teams are announced like it’s a pro game. 8th grade boys are a mishmash of short boys & +6ft gawky young men. Teachers are age 25-50. Everyone has their fave teacher right, so lots of applause seeing them in screen-printed, makeshift jerseys with funny numbers & nicknames
Principal & vice principal referee in goofy outfits. The bald one had a rainbow wig. A dad worked the scoreboard. Secretary who did morning PA was the announcer. All are delighted by the night.
The game always has a pattern. Teachers let boys have a lead at halftime, then play steady in the 2nd half & put it away to show that adults rule. We were a great team, 17-5 on the year. First half goes as normal, kids lead by a handful. Crowd of students going wild.
2nd half starts & teachers turn it up. They retake lead. Then something happens. A gawky 6ft kid in glasses catches fire. He hits 6 shots from the baseline in a row, students retake lead. Teachers call timeout. Our coach says “You guys wanna go for it?” We are all hyped.
He switches us to a zone D to force teachers to shoot outside. He also designs plays for hot shooter & tells him to take two steps back to shoot baseline 3s. Game on! Teachers adjust & start double teaming him. We get easy layups as hot hand passes quickly to open guys.
Old teacher takes it too far & decides to hip check hot hand. Hot hand falls to ground hard. Crowd goes silent. Injury timeout. Hot hand comes out. Team hears teachers saying “who is that fucking kid”, “we cant fucking lose”, “that’ll scare them”. Our coach is shocked by this.
Our coach was a 27yo radio DJ who coached for extra $. He says to us “Full court press, tire them out, collapse back to a zone. Start fouling them back.” He draws up double baseline screens to free up hot hand like the kid was reggie miller.
After injury, hot hand is shook but we start hacking at the teachers. Teachers hack back. No one is scoring. Refs start calling fouls in a charity game. Average play starts looking like this. Principal calls a technical on a teacher and yells at him to “Cool it”. Crowd is SILENT
8th grade up 4 with 5 mins to go. Hot hand gets a ball, puts up a 3, gets clobbered, makes it, foul called. Vice principal yells to teacher “Greg, it’s A GAME. Take a seat.” Teachers leave Greg in as he was young & good. Playing to win. Principals stare blankly at teachers team.
Principals call a ref’s timeout and have a long talk with the teachers at their bench. Voices are raised. We hear “These are your students” to which the reply is “not all of them”. Vice Principal yells “Really Classy K”.
Teachers are pissed. Our coach yells “Press them and do a box & 1 on Greg, don’t let him score. Even if we lose, don’t let him score.” The crowd gets it. Suddenly 400 kids are ready for blood & parents look uncomfortable. Back to game, hot hand hits the foul shot. We’re up 8.
Teachers are a sweaty, angry team. Start making mistakes, start swearing. Hard fouls on all. Principals calling fouls to slow the game. Final 5 mins take 1/2 an hour. Students heckle teachers. Crowd boos every teacher score & goes bonkers at every student score. We’re in the zone
Teens up 4 with a minute to go. Timeout. Teachers are yelling at each other in their huddle. Our coach says “Fuck these guys. Play like Detroit. Bad Boy D.” Teachers get ball, rotate around, I jump to block a shot, don’t but i come down & slam my elbow into shooter’s collarbone.
No foul. Teacher turns to principal ref to complain. Principal says “Shut up J”. We play keep-away with the ball a bit & watch the clock run out to warn the sweetest win. Student crowd counted down final 10 seconds & lost it when the buzzer went off.
One night of tempers? Nope. Via exaggeration, the crowd turned a rough game into a bloody battle in the school hallways the next day. Teachers who played hand out detentions like candy for a week. 8th grade classes become quiet. 8th graders not talking to teachers socially.
Other teachers close ranks. Yes, even the female teachers. Hot hand shooter is treated as a god by the students. Teachers stopped being “Mr./Mrs. Teacher” and turned into just another adult with 3 dimensions & a lot of negatives on top of normal teacher pettiness
Valentines day rolls around. All 8th grade teachers get gifts w/typed notes. Deodorant for a sweaty teacher, soap for a smelly one, shaving cream for a female teacher, a bra for another. Condoms for Mr. Smith with his note calling him gay.
By lunch, of course, they figure it out. Kid gets suspended. He was on our team. His parents fight it (not on his permanent record!). Vice principal sides with them. Broke no rule. No suspension but he gets detention. We cheer for him each day as he enters detention.
For 3 more months, this continued. Neither side socialized. Even the suck ups understood. For our graduation, we voted for the guidance counselor to give the teacher’s speech. Hot hand & Valentine’s day gift guy got standing ovations from us when their names were called.
No one took pics with teachers. No one said a thing. It was all understood and our parents got it. All because grown adults paid to mold & guide these kids every single day couldn’t handle one kid shooting the lights out at a charity game
I played for 11 years of my life. Some games stand out, but details get mixed between them. None are burnt in my memory like that meaningless charity game when whatever illusions we had about our teachers evaporated.
for 11 years of my life. Some games stand out, but details get mixed between them. None are burnt in my memory like that meaningless charity game when whatever illusions we had about our teachers evaporated.
