MUD IN THE EYE

Hopkinton's beer hearing produces tidy but poor results.

Hopkinton school officials, student-athletes and their parents all appear
satisfied with the deliberations last week regarding under- age drinking at
a sports bash. Call us a party-pooper if you will, but neither the outcome
nor the process leading to it looks very good from here.

The party was held to celebrate the completion of a successful fall sports
season. The adult hosts allegedly provided a keg of beer. When some kids got
sick after going home, their parents called the police. The result was
criminal charges against three adults and, for 28 kids who admitted
drinking, the prospect of suspension from part of the next sports season.

But last week, in a closed meeting with students and parents, an athletic
board accepted something less: a commitment that the kids would perform
community service work and consider attending an alcohol-counseling program.

Very neat, very tidy and not without merit. But it wasn't enough.

These kids had signed a contract promising not to drink alcohol during the
season; what's more, under-age drinking is illegal. Yet the debate over what
consequence these students should face was almost immediately taken hostage
by a technicality: The season had ended days before the party.

This distinction may make perfect sense to a lawyer used to parsing
language, a coach worried about his or her lineup or a student- athlete
eager to be in it.

But what it brings to our mind is the unpleasant memory of President Clinton
trying to finagle his way around questions about an adulterous affair while
under oath. You'll forget the details of that scandal long before you'll
forget this Clinton answer: It depends what your definition of is is.

No shaving of words could change the reality that Clinton had done something
wrong. The same is true for these kids, even though the final whistle had
just blown and despite the mixed message sent by adults who apparently
served up their beer.

The mitigating circumstances might have justified lessening the penalty
called for in the contract, but not eliminating it altogether. After all,
missing a portion of a sports season is not the end of the world - or
shouldn't be, no matter how much community pride is invested in school
sports. Does Hopkinton really want the young athletes who represent the town
to think that it's wrong to drink alcohol during sports seasons but okay to
drink in between?

The most striking aspect of the disciplinary process that produced this
result was its closed nature. The participants in the hearing were the
students involved, their parents and a review board made up of coaches, the
athletic director and the principal. The public was not invited.

Had the circle of participants been enlarged, either in the disciplinary
meeting or with a public hearing beforehand, the discussion certainly would
have been different - and the outcome might have been.

Later, the principal said that an open meeting would have left "sparks
flying." That would have been uncomfortable, yes, but bad? Would it be bad
to expose Hopkinton kids to the depth of feeling adults bring to this issue?
Bad to hear from kids about the hypocrisy they see in adult behavior with
alcohol? Bad for coaches to hear from residents who value not just winning
teams but winning values?

Because alcohol is adult America's drug of choice, the issues surrounding
alcohol and the young are very complex. We all have lots to learn on this
subject, as struggles with it this fall in Hopkinton, Concord and other
communities make clear. Closing the doors isn't the way to make progress.
Opening up the discussion is.

A few kids caught on TV after the disciplinary meeting said they thought the
matter had been blown out of proportion. In the sense that few kids who
drink get caught and that far fewer end up in the news because of it, this
is quite true. But in a larger sense - that this issue deserves much more
attention, painful as it can be in some cases - it's not true at all.