Dartmouth soccer players taunt Harvard squash players

That probably belongs on BYH's thread.

 

1. That's an extremely well-done story

2. I bet Ragu feels like an ass

 

It's a good little paper up there, managed by a Pulitzer winner.

 

Do we have to be outraged at everything that gets said? Does sticks and stones ever apply anymore?

I think if we let the little stuff go, once in a while, we could really start, working on some of the bigger stuff.

When my daughter was playing high level travel softball, there were teams that would shout all kinds of stuff. Her solution to the problem was to strike them out, or if it got really bad from a particular person, plunk 'em.

She did not start making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

This was more than just a little heckling though. A creative insult or chant is one thing. As is saying someone sucks or something along those lines.

These students were calling the women supporting the other team "whores" and "sluts." One of the students -- who was an athlete himself -- went up to a player's parents and ripped into them about the kid being a "cheater." The anti-semitic comment seems possibly questionable (it was defended as referring to "bagels" because he hadn't scored; not sure if I buy it or not, but it's at least a possibility it wasn't as bad as it sounded) but overall there was a lot of completely uncivilized behavior in there. Nothing wrong with respectfully calling that out. It doesn't help to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it's not beneficial to look at a stone and call it a pebble either.

 

If somebody gets beat 6-0, 6-0 in tennis, I've heard it referred to countless times at being "double-bageled." I'm not excusing the rest of the abuse, but I wouldn't normally consider that a slur. In an avalanche, though, every snowflake adds up.

 

Nope, because there's always that fear that the little stuff will lead to an angry kid bringing a gun to school.

 

Baron, you make a good point. It is a different world. Real consequences can come out of this stuff.

 

Yes, heckling happens and often times it goes too far. In this case, it seems like it went way too far and we can see by some of the above responses exactly which type of people are the ones responsible for things like that. People are so jealous that others are wealthier, more athletic and more intelligent that they make fun of them just to feel better about themselves.

 

Maybe I'm dense, but I didn't read Ragu's essay as condoning anti-Semitism, but rather a parody of prep school/Ivy/elite culture.

While the taunting was undoubtedly over-the-top, the fact that a) this relatively insignificant incident generated such a lengthy story, and b) it involves college squash, makes it ripe for parody.

 

Same here.