Mandatory lacrosse attendance new graduation requirement
After seeing empty bleachers time after time at NC’s lacrosse games, Principal Horton finally decided to take matters into his own hands. Under the new regime, students must attend at least seven games a year to graduate. “This is a valuable step towards equal respect and visibility for all of our hardworking student athletes,” administrator Sy Cophant said.
April 1, 2018
On Wednesday, March 28, Principal Bucky Horton announced a bold new plan to solve one of NC’s most pressing problems: the constant lack of attendance at lacrosse games. Despite the hard work, talent, and sacrifice that the school’s lacrosse players put into their sport, their accomplishments go unacknowledged and unseen, with only a handful of students attending any given match. In a stunning display of visionary leadership, Horton decided to find a solution to the problem.
“I always tell students, ‘work hard, play hard.’ Well, I’ve given up on trying to make teenagers work hard, so I decided to try and get them to play harder instead,” Horton said.
The new policy requires that all students attend at least seven lacrosse games a year to graduate. Horton describes this as a modest, overdue show of respect for an underrecognized but integral part of the school community. Several students, though, disagree.
“I don’t see why sports always have to take such a precedence over my academics,” senior Leon Dorkenstein, Jr., said while solving atomic equations in the margins of his well-loved copy of Finnegans Wake. “I drive up here from Austell and back every day to attend the Magnet program. I have a GPA of 4.9. I contribute so much to this school. And yet this administration seems determined to, dare I say, punish us for not going to a sports game no one cares about anyway.”
On the other hand, NC’s lacrosse team welcomes the move.
“Whenever I get out there and play, I’m giving my all for this school. And my all is a lot. Not to brag or anything, but people call me the Tom Brady of high school lacrosse. And now people finally get to see that instead of just sitting like couch potatoes and watching the other Tom Brady on their television set,” junior Nat Handel said while sitting like a couch potato and watching the other Tom Brady on his television set.
At first, the initiative seemed to accomplish its goal splendidly; no less than 50 students arrived at Thursday’s game. As it turned out, though, only freshman Mackenzie White and sophomore Ashleigh Blanco, the on-and-off girlfriends of two of the players, had come to satisfy the requirements. The others attended to protest the new policy. Angry students drowned out the noise of the game with impassioned shouts and chants, waving signs with such messages as “No Cruel & Unusual Punishment” and “Roses Are Red / Horses Wear Shoes / No One Should Force Us to Watch You Lose.”
After Thursday’s fiasco, anonymous reports from a source who wished to be known only as “Deep GOAT” have said that the administration has now begun to consider alternative methods of increasing turnout. Rumored proposals include a school lunch eating contest, which administration reportedly tabled due to public health concerns, and a vaudeville-style dance routine performed by the lacrosse team at halftime to the tune of “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede.
The Chant could not reach Principal Horton for comment at press time.
April Fool’s, you fools!
XOXO,
The Chant
