Next: Willie Nelson on the dangers of pot

     So, the six Eagle football players caught drinking plea bargained a deal for a large fine, a requirement of 180 days of good conduct and community service. This whole incident has been handled fairly well by the school, the city courts and the police, but the community service “punishment” was a stupid idea.
     According to the Eagle Pass Chronicles website, these guys will visit elementary and junior highs “to talk to students about the dangers of consuming alcohol.”
     If these underage students who were caught with alcohol and are supposedly being punished are allowed to miss class time to visit other schools, that’s really going to piss me off. If I were a principal, I wouldn’t allow it. As a teacher. I would rebel against my students having to listen to them, and as a parent, I would demand that my kids not be made to be in their audience.
     If they want to go in the evenings and speak to church groups or boy scouts, and those groups want to have them, that’s fine. But why should we allow their mistakes to lead to wasting our precious educational time?
     Obviously, if these guys gave a damn about the “dangers of alcohol” they would never have been caught with it. They are not any kind of experts on the subject. They are not any kind of role models – anymore. Finally, they’ve lost any credibility in discussing a serious topic like this with younger kids. I’d bet $1,000 they’re all already drinking again on the weekends or at least counting down the days for the scrutiny to die out so they CAN drink every weekend again.
     I can just picture their speeches going something like this:
     Former Player One: “Hi. I’m here to talk about the dangers of alcohol. Ummm. Don’t drink alcohol because you might get kicked off your football team.”
     Former Player Two: “Right. What that guy said. You might also have to pay a big ticket.”
     Former Player Three: “Raise your hands if you play football. Oh, only 3 of you. Well, for the other 27, don’t drink alcohol because if you do, the football players will show up to drink with you, and then they might get kicked off the team.”
     Questions?
     Sixth Grader One: “Does beer taste good?”
     Former Player Four: “Well, yes, it tastes good, but don’t drink it because it’s bad for you.”
     Sixth Grader Two: “If you know alcohol is bad, why were you drinking?”
     Former Player Five: “I guess because everybody does it. But you shouldn’t.”
     Sixth Grader Three: “I know alcohol does a lot of bad things to a person. What do you think is the best reason not to drink it?”
     Former Player Six: “Probably because you might get kicked off the football team.”
     Community service for these guys should be picking up trash or painting over graffiti – something that actually makes them labor a little and something that actually provides a benefit to our community. To have them go talk to other students will really be more of a reward for them and a total waste of time for the younger kids. I truly hope this proposed “punishment” never gets carried out.