Andrew Mitton

It’s fun to play tricks on oth­ers. There’s the setup. The time when you won­der if it will work. You think through all the ways that the trick will be spoiled and guard against it. Then there’s the exe­cu­tion of the trick. The reck­on­ing of the plan­ning. It will either work or it wont. If it does, there will be sto­ries to be told. If it doesn’t, there will be a lit­tle bit of laugh­ter. But it will be forgotten.

Driscoll Mid­dle School played a big trick in a foot­ball game. One that has been viewed over 12 mil­lion times on YouTube. It only takes 27 sec­onds to watch.

This looks pretty inno­cent. My first thought when I watched it was “heh, heh good one.” But my favorite sports writer, Frank Deford, doesn’t think so (Mid­dle School Trick is No Laugh­ing Mat­ter). Come to find out that the adult coach planned this all out and took part in the trick. Frank says,

… it was only the other team’s kids who were embar­rassed and belit­tled by a children’s coach being a wise guy, a bully of sorts. It wasn’t genius at all. Sure, it was legal, but it wasn’t fair. Laugh at kids being out­slicked by a grown-up, and you’re cruel. That isn’t sport.

So there was more to the story. There always is. And it isn’t nice. I guess i need to be more care­ful when I see some­thing that looks like genius..