Rock, meet Hard Place

If a policy of placing the cart before the horse were a discussion topic, a recent kerfuffle involving alcohol, sports, high school students and a certain highly funded high school nails it. La Cueva football coaches were recently suspended because students were caught drinking on a school bus trip back from Las Cruces. For the most part nothing outside of those facts is known and a heated discussion ensued this morning on KKOB radio. The discussion mostly centered on responsibility, its placement and lack thereof from just about everyone involved.

The range of discussion was from demands for the coaches to be hung in the public square to those who don’t see anything wrong at all. Personal opinions tend to be that way but in the end the only thing that matters for those involved is the rules of their school and the laws of the state of New Mexico and city of Albuquerque.

The most intriguing part is that, outside of those involved, no one knows anything about what actually happened and whether or not there is any culpability towards any of the parties because of what actually happened. A caller mentioned that this kind of thing, high schoolers drinking on a school trip on the bus, is common and that the adults aren’t numerous enough or dispersed throughout the bus in an effective manner that would discourage such behavior. I thought that was a reasonable assessment.

Of course, this is in the absence of some important facts such as, who purchased the alcohol? After the adults on board learned of the behavior, what happened?

Some of the callers were just silly. Once caller stated that they knew the coaches personally and that the issue was completely a fabrication of the media because these coaches would never have done something like that. Really? Does this caller know more than anyone else? Probably not. What if the coaches actually did obtain the booze? Reminds me of the parents in high school who provide alcohol for their children and friends in order to better monitor their behavior, sounds reasonable, but is still illegal.

Another opinion involves the idea that because it involves La Cueva, a well funded high school in an affluent area of Albuquerque, this story is being swept under the rug and the perpetrators are being handled with kid gloves. It’s my opinion that anything to do with any sort of actual or perceived malfeasance in any public school is often glossed over in order to hide problems with a big government cash cow. In this case there is still an investigation going on making this charge incomplete at best.

The problem is that this kind of story brings with it public outcry and demands to ‘do something’ while investigations take time for a number of reasons. I know that I cannot say definitively what happened or exactly what laws may or may not have been broken. If I was a parent of one of the students I would be paying much more attention and learning as much as I can. Sadly, it seems doubtful that what really happened will ever be learned because of faulty memory or outright lying. What to do?