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1. MaddenAmp_3.5_Setup.exe - by gommo (Madden 08)
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We will NEVER be intimidated by lowlife scumbag terrorists!!!

by Joe - jgand@pcfootball.net

5/26/04

It’s amazing the things you will find when you are not even looking.

While I was doing some research on my book I came across some information that struck me. Some information that was important only because for the grace of God, it could have been me. While I was researching any connections between Doom and the shootings at Columbine High School I came across a site called Slashdot. It was here that I encountered a series of articles written by Jon Katz entitled “Voices from the Hellmouth”.

These articles delt with the aftermath of the Columbine shootings, particularly with that segment of high school society that is still considered to be on the outside looking in. You know, the geeks, computer nerds, drama fags, video game freaks, goth pussies and band queers that “infest” every high school in America. The vermin that deserve to be looked down on, spit on, thrown down stairs, beaten to a bloody pulp, run over with the expensive Jaguar of the jocks, cheerleaders, kiss-asses, sluts, teachers and administration in an effort to keep them in their place.

Now I don’t want anybody to get the wrong idea with that last paragraph, because that was sarcasm at its finest. Anyway, back to my point.

The articles detailed what was, and probably still is, going on in this country. They told of the culture of bullying and harassment that has been going on in our nation’s school systems for decades now. They stories were told from the point of view of the kids who were on the outside, and the tales they told were harrowing. Let me give you a small sample of what was said:

"I was picked on in high school. I actually snapped at one point, I was sent home for standing up in the middle of class and screaming at some jocks who were throwing paper footballs at me. Summed up I told them to f-off and die, they told me it was I who would die. I stopped and looked around and realized the silliness of it all and proceeded to laugh. They thought I was laughing at the threat of death. I was sent to the office and held for about an hour, didn't stop laughing the whole time, they finally sent me home for the day. On my way home, during lunch hour, the jocks actually hit me with their car (5 mph) and proceeded to whup me. One small problem with their plan, my parents in one of their "let's boost his self esteem plans," enrolled me in AIKIDO when I was in 6th grade. I was able to hold them off until the police came and hauled them away, assault with a deadly weapon (car). No one touched me ever again, I was actually praised for being able to hold my own."---R

"For what it's worth to the many kids out there who are in the geek crowd, standing outside what's considered 'normal.' "I was exactly that in high school. The dangerous nerd who knew about eight times as much as the people around me. I was hacking out the oldies while my peers were looking for the cheapest beer they could smuggle. I wasn't the one with the best looking girlfriend or the hordes of adoring followers. I was different in every imaginable way. Well, I didn't bother assimilating. I didn't bother going mainstream and talking about my feelings or any of the New Age Warm Fuzzy stuff. I stuck to who I was, and even played it up a bit. Where am I now? Well, nearly a decade later, I'm the youngest senior exectuive at the healthcare company I work at. I make ridiculous amounts of money doing what I love: technology. In fact, I would say I probably make about three times what those high school peers of mine now make. All of the jocks, all of the "in" crowd hit their peak. They peaked too early, and they're now tired, old souls in life. Me? What was once called "weird" in hallway whispers is now written as "innovative" on performance reviews. What was once called "nerdy" is now "fast track to success". You may have to endure some awful things in the near future as the mainstream culture plays moral masturbation to make everyone feel better. Take the anger and the resentment you feel and direct it toward the goal I found: to beat every single naysayer and insulter, to take their world and not destroy it, but own it. The path in the real world awaits you if you can fuel your motivation with every insult you've ever received."---J.H.K

'Don't let people tell you that teasing is just "kid's stuff", either. Unpopular kids in school are often the helpless targets of truly sadistic and evil people and acts who make us feel like our lives are threatened. One friend had someone a full foot taller than him pick him up by the throat in front of an administrator with little consequence. Another encountered some schoolmates in a park at night, said hello to them by name, only to find himself attacked by a piece of pipe, have his arm broken and his bicycle stolen. The offenders got probation when he turned them in, and afterwards he daily felt his life in danger coming to the same school with these kids. One of my worst tormentors during high school, who spit on us daily and threw rocks and chewing tobacco in an attempt to start a fight, is now in jail. A few months after I graduated, he and his brother decided it would be fun to go out with baseball bats and find some homeless people to beat up. All in a good, white upper-middle class town. This is the type of people that outcasts are forced to deal with every day of their lives for years, and we're surprised when they lash out in revenge?"---A.C.

"If you aren't a member of a culture, you can't judge its values. You probably don't understand it enough to label it in that way. But if you want to talk to people with lifestyles that glorify violence, forget the people that look different, start counseling the football players. I live in a college town, and from reading police reports in the paper, I'd say they could use it. Look at how many athletes are in legal trouble. The last time I caught sports on the radio (not something I make a point of trying to do), 75% of the stories were about which athletes had been charged with what. So why don't you start counseling the football players, and leave the guys and girls in the chess club alone?"

"I am 24 years old, and a successful professional now, but, fifteen years ago, I was in the Hellmouth. Just wanted to shout some small form of encouragement out to the kids fighting today. Take your fight for the right to be different to the people with power, enlist your parents help. Remember that if you can get your parents to understand your need to be creative, and non-conformist, because your brain is just plain bigger than the small world of middle and high school, your parents can make a fuss to school boards. But if they won't listen, go to the school boards yourself. Peacefully, but forcefully, assert your right to be different by speaking out against fear and oppression. Because that's what it is. It's all about the fear. People fear what they don't understand, and let's face it , the world of geek isn't something most people can understand, if only because it's a complicated world filled with smart folks. And most people aren't complicated smart folks. You have GOT to break them of the fear. You gotta explain that it's not violent, it's colorful. You want violent? Look at football, look at sports. That's REAL ACTUAL violence, not the simulated, stylized, far from even looking-real violence of video ames or D&D (Dungeons & Dragons). And for a real kicker, ask them how many geeks are arrested for violent crimes and misdemeanors when compared to popular athletes."---Evan

Those are just a sampling of what was said in the ten-part series “Voices from the Hellmouth”. There are many more stories of kids getting verbally harrased, physically assaulted, and having their lives threatened while the adults in their lives, the ones who were supposed to protect them, looked the other way. Kids were being profiled because they wore trench coats, or were into goth, or were computer literate or played video games. Kids were being made out to be criminals because they stood up for themselves, and tried to make the teasing and bullying stop. We would see this type of profiling again after the attacks of 9/11, but I'm still waiting for a geek to be searched at an airport in the way that they profile Arabs.

In our forums I asked the question: "Has anything changed since Columbine?" Has anything changed for the better for the outcasts or has it gotten worse? The wide array of responses has been astounding. And in fact, one of our owners, JaquelineStrappe, came up with what I believe is a damn good idea:

"I have a thought...for all of those who feel so passionately about this topic. For those who so desperately want a change in the way we all treat eachother....get off your ass and do something about it. Volunteer somewhere, start an organization, mentor a kid. Start with yourself...make a conscience effort to treat people in a more human manner in your life. Don't rest on your lofty visions of how things should be, if you feel so passionately about this, get out and get active. Otherwise come down from the pedestal and shut the hell up. Preaching on the internet how everyone is too stupid or too programmed to understand what you are trying to say gets you nowhere, and your cause remains stagnant."

You know what? She's right, we should stop talking about it and start doing something about it. I'm doing a small something in writing this book. Because I devote a section of the book to debunking the myth that Columbine was caused by Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold playing hours upon hours of Doom, I also have an opportunity to give my own take on the tragedy. I will always believe that Columbine was caused by bullying and parental indifference. The adults/parents/teachers/authority figures either didn’t want to get involved, felt that it was just “kid stuff”, or they wanted to protect their chances of a State Championship in Football/Basketball/Baseball, since it was supposedly the jocks who were apparently harassing Harris and Kleibold.

See, now that’s the good thing about video games, particularly if they happen to be sports titles. You don’t have any of that crap going on, your players don’t break the law, or somebody’s arm, or participate in a gang-bang because she has had too much to drink and she wants it, bad.

In the sports video gaming world, we don’t have the Orenthals, the Rae Carruth’s, the American Chewey’s, and we certainly don’t have the alcohol-feuled sex-parties on the campus of the University of Colorado in NCAA Football ’99. I certainly can’t find any sex parties in that program…and believe me, I’ve looked!

When I turn on Madden 2004 and load my High School franchise, there are no kids ostracizing each other because they’re not rich enough, or they wear glasses, or wear braces on their teeth, or they play D&D with their acne afflicted buddies. In that world, everybody’s the same, everybody in the stands is no better or worse than anybody else. They are all fans.

Like I was in High School.

I was lucky, I went to an all-boys Catholic High School where the regulations were really strict on harassment. I was also lucky in the respect that I was in our booster club known as the “Spirit Team”. We would create the signs you normaly see at sporting events for our school teams, and we would go to the games and yell our support for them. Eventually I was elected president of the club, and, with our vice-president, took on the duties of the school mascot during my senior year. Even though we might have been considered weird by some people at the school, the jocks appreciated what we did for them and considered us okay. We were accepted by them, and we got to know each other as young men. Nobody was judged there, and everybody was considered no better than anyone else.

If only all high schools could be like St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower , California .

So why am I writing about this instead of my adventures creating the All-Time Auburn Tigers for Madden 2004? Because the 5^th anniversery of the shootings at Columbine High School are coming up this Tuesday, April 20^th, 2004.

One of the things I had always wanted to propose to the powers that be was a charity home-and-home schedule between the St. John Bosco Braves and the Columbine Rebles. Proceeds would have been donated to the victims who were still recovering from the shootings so that their medical expenses could be paid. I was never able to do it, but I have played those two teams in Madden 2004 as a way of remembering the victims of that day. (Braves over the Rebels 31-10 with pictures and boxscore to follow.)

I look at what happened then, and I look at my life in High School, and I think of how lucky I really was to have gone to that place. I think about how fortunate I was to have a chance to start my young life over again. The pride I had in my school stays with me even to this day. So much so that when it was time to register my car up here in Idaho , I took the opportunity to honor my alma mater.

So if any alumni from St. John Bosco are in the Boise, Idaho area, and you see a silver Saturn coupe with the license plate reading “SJB 85”, you’ll know that the “stalwart Bosco Brave has come upon the scene.”  

So this Tuesday, at some point in the day do me a favor...

stop and think.

Think about all the kids you went to school with. Think about how you treated people when you went to school. Then think about how you can best teach your kids that they should shoe respect for people, especially those who have some perceived weakness. 

Teach your kids how much damage bullying can really do, and teach them to step in whenever somebody is bullying someone else and put a stop to it.

Because that is how we stop anymore Columbines from happening.

That is how lives are saved.

Until next time…