What if this happens to your teen?
T his much we know: We all evolve. Some faster than others. Example: I've come to accept the permanent reality of anonymous reader comments.
When I'm Czar of the Universe, anonymous reader comments will disappear faster than Jimmy Hoffa. Until that time, however, my opinion is irrelevant. I could pull a Khrushchev and start banging my shoe on the table. Wail and howl like a banshee. Immaterial. Anonymous reader comments have become French fries: They come with the meal.
And so in the even noble pursuit of time better spent ... shall we examine the residual effect?
This is a cautionary tale for high school athletes. Get ready, kiddos. No longer will we argue whether high school athletes are de facto public figures. They are. Or at least they've become as much by default. Hence, if you are good enough so that your exploits are celebrated publicly, you are now subject to the same darts and arrows normally reserved for people much older, much more accomplished and much more entrenched in the public eye.
There is no distinction. A public figure is a public figure, in spite of
of the moral bankruptcy required to openly criticize a high school kid. It's going to happen. It just did. In recent days, Mikey Buscetto, the whiz kid guard at Waterford High, accepted a scholarship offer from Division II Southern New Hampshire. Buscetto, 5-foot-2 and thin enough to be spread across a Ritz cracker as a freshman, has worked his ascot off since, earning a free college education all while playing for one of the elite Div. II programs in the country.
All good, right? Au contraire. One of the esteemed social commentators on theday.com read the accompanying story and couldn't resist offering the following: "Hold the phone, what happen to D1 scholarship? 5'4 dad point guard couldn't make it happen." Boom. Again: We can shake our heads at the dizzying levels of wretchedness required to mock the notable accomplishment of a high school kid, anonymous or not.
But then, we're all good at something. And some people are accomplished in miserable.
But the larger point, perhaps better made to parents than the kids, is this: You think your kid will be treated differently? All it takes is one of Spiro Agnew's nattering nabobs of negativity to log on and spew. The world we live in, folks. Pretty ugly if you ask me.
Maybe it's an early life lesson for the kids: develop a thick skin. Not everybody is going to like you. Haters provide great motivation. But doesn't it make us all stop the think how we've arrived here?
The idea that a 16-year-old who is good at dribbling a basketball is subject to the same scrutiny as a snotty columnist, loud-mouthed politician or misbehaving star athlete?
Is this, really, what we want to become? The answer: apparently. I suppose I could appeal to the least common denominators here. Leave the kids alone. How would you like it if your kid were subject to the same treatment?
Ah, but I fear willful ignorance. Or worse, a renewed commitment to testing boundaries.
I've always believed in things like faith, hope and wonder. That things, with patience and time, get better. But this? Anonymous comments are only going to get worse.
Perhaps you enjoy reading them in the same way you can't resist slowing down on the highway to look at a car accident.
Unless, of course, your kid is involved. Then it's not so funny anymore. But in lieu of meaningful discussion, we sit and eat our French fries.
Pass the salt. This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro