Notre Dame football recruit dies in fall from hotel balcony

Sucks. Kid had a bright future.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100402/SPT030101/304020086/St.+X+star+Matt+James+dead+after+fall

 

Ouch. Amazes me sometimes what kids with bright futures think they can do. Alcohol comes to mind here, but people have done the jumping between hotel balconies bit sober.

Whatever the case, it's a major loss for ND and for the family. My condolences.

 

What parent lets their 17-year-old go with his or her buddies to spring break in Florida? It's the equivalent of saying, "Go wild, son!" My parents would have laughed at me for even suggesting it.

 

Of course they get along. You'd get along great with your teenager too if you never freaking parented, at all. You never disciplined, you never scolded, you never taught them right from wrong. When your kid dressed like a hooch for school you yelled at the school district for "singling out" your kid. When they got a bad grade you blamed the teacher and not the half-assed attempt your kid put in.

I'm not saying this was what happened with this young man, but I certainly see a helluva' lot of it.

 

Brian Kelly should recruit kids who are smart enough to not fall off a hotel balcony.

 

Wow. This is getting ugly fast.

 

I wasn't trying to make it ugly. It frustrates me that something senseless and totally avoidable like this had to happen. I don't think high school kids have any business going on spring break. I hope that that seems mutually exclusive from blaming the victim, because it feels like it is but I know it's a delicate line.

 

When I was 16 the high school band did a four-day trip to Ocean City. We had about 15 parents along to monitor roughly 100 students and there were a set of rules. We had to be in our rooms by 11 p.m. and they put tape on the doors. The tape broke, they assumed you left the room after curfew and you paid the consequences. Girls weren't to be in guys rooms and vice versa with the door closed. Basically safeguards from the trip turning into a giant orgy (and it could have with some of the color guard members we had. This one, brunette, ooh man, she had the best.........shit, I'm off track again). That was in 1993.

So why, 17 years later, with a generation of kids that have proven to be even more sexually active than ours was, would this even be an option? As the quasi-step parent I am (GF has a 15-year-old son), the negatives are way too numerous.

* - He gets a girl pregnant.
* - He gets an STD.
* - He gets a girl pregnant AND gets an STD.
* - He overdoses on something.
* - Alcohol poisoning.
* - He gets his ass kicked.
* - All of the above.

Cons far outweigh the pros.

 

Um, we had whole CARAVANS of kids from my high school that went to Padre every year for Spring Break. And they still do, which is weird for me to think about going to the same place every year. But I guess it doesn't matter as long as you're wasted, right?

It's the same thing as the Natalee Holloway incident. My parents never let me go to Padre and they sure as hell never would have let me go to Aruba unless they were going.

But some parents have a very different idea of "safe trip" and "having fun" that mine did.

 

From the AP story that just moved:

“Witnesses and friends indicate he had become drunk and belligerent. He had leaned over the balcony rail, was shaking his finger at the people in the next room over. He fell over.”

And there was this:

About 40 students from St. Xavier and a half-dozen parents were on the trip to Florida, police said.

Why do I have the feeling that it was one of the "half-dozen parents" who bought the booze?

 

Drunk and belligerent is no way to go through life, son.