Published in the March 23, 2016 edition

opinion

By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI

The Catholic Memorial–Newton North boys basketball playoff game from a couple of weeks ago made national news as the CM students were chanting “You killed Jesus,” to the Newton North fans as Newton has a heavy Jewish population.

What amazed me was how one–sided the stories in the papers and coverage on the local television stations seemed to be.

Now to be up front, I am a straight, Catholic guy and I have been covering high school sports for many years and have seen my share of tasteless chants.

I feel like the Newton North students got a free pass by the media as their sausage-fest chants were glossed over or, in some cases, not even mentioned. With the problems the Catholic Church has had over the years with the pedophile priests we know where the Newton North students were going.

The fact of that night is that Newton North provoked the CM students with those chants first. Unfortunately, the CM students took the bait and went right into the gutter as well with their own hateful chant.

The wise thing for the CM students to do was to chant “scoreboard, scoreboard” near the end of the game as the Knights won, 77-73, if they wanted to respond.

This was one of those two wrongs don’t make a right case as both sets of students were equally to blame.

However, it felt like the anti-Semitic remarks was more buzz worthy to the media than the anti-gay remarks. It seemed like the guy from the Anti-Defamation League was on every station and in every paper to condemn the CM students.

However, I did not see anybody interview any gay rights group, like GLAD (Gays and Lesbian Advocate and Defenders) about how they felt the Newton North students acted.

After the game, the president of CM had the students personally apologize to the Newton North principal and shake his hand.

As punishment, the CM administration then did not allow the students to attend the state semifinal game against Cambridge Rindge and Latin at the TD Garden in a contest the Knights lost, 77–73, as the Falcons beat St. John’s of Shrewsbury, 66–51, to win the Div. 1 state title.

The memory of getting to see their team play at the TD Garden was lost by the action of several of CM knuckleheads.

I have the feeling that if Newton North won that game, their students would have been allowed to attend.

This event was a black eye for both schools and you hope both student bodies learn something out of this.