Bradford Pearson

Texas Justice, steel cage style

Ya'll like fightin'? Well who the hell doesn't?

Story of the year:

“DALLAS- The principal and other staff members at South Oak Cliff High School were supposed to be breaking up fights. Instead, they sent troubled students into a steel utility cage in an athletic locker room to battle it out with bare fists and no head protection, records show.”

And if you need a greater incentive to read this, apparently school employees taped the fights, a la Bum Fights.

In this corner, weighing in at a scrawny 135 pounds, a 5’8” 15-year-old freshman with who spends most of his time playing video games, Michaelllllllll “The Mouth” Masterson!

And his opponent, a self-described “new kid” from Peoria, Illinois, fighting for self-respect, 152 pound 5’10” Luis “El Tigre” Ignnnnnnnnnacio!

Seriously, though, this is ridiculous. Kids fight enough in high school without assorted janitors, band directors, assistant principals and substitute teachers betting paychecks against them in the showers. Then again, they might have been thinking that this could save the cost of some of those pesky school psychologist salaries, and, hell, maybe even bet on the fights and make the district some money!

I think there is a bigger question at hand here, though: why was there a steel cage- big enough to fit two fighting high schoolers-in this locker room? And why didn’t my high school have one?

The best part of this whole story is that The Dallas Morning News felt that they had to include the phrase “and no head protection,” as if the only problem with the situation was that the kids weren’t properly equipped.