Time has made the world go away from Wilson. A story that made the national news and was featured on “Outside the Lines on ESPN” is dimming. The alleged hazing incident on a baseball bus ride from Niagara Falls to Wilson on April 17 has lost its shock value and Tuesday’s court hearing will likely get only local attention.
I was struck by the coincidence of the two “Outside the Lines segments “of ESPN. The Niagara Frontier got in the national spotlight for instances that occurred a half-century apart. The 1959 University of Buffalo football was knighted by ESPN because the Bulls stood as one against bigotry. The players would not go to the Tangerine Bowl because Orlando barred UB’s black players from the city park.
The Wilson baseball team was scandalized by allegations of sordid things in April 2008.
Probably every kid from middle school on up has had inside-the-line information. I don’t. At the court sessions, the lawyers and cops said plenty but very little about what happened.
In Elizabeth Merrill’s account in, “A Town Torn Apart.” The ESPN senior writer wrote: “The rumors and whispers seeped through bookshelves, whipped their way around back aisles at the IGA, and blanketed barstools on Young Street. Everybody knows somebody else’s business in a small town. Most folks like the coziness. The trust.”
ESPN’s Eric Neal wrote “Bound by Collision.” The first chapter was called ‘Bull in the Ring.’
“You stood in the middle of a circle of teammates in linebacker position, arms up and fists clenched. Coach called a name and someone came running to hit you. You absorbed the blow. Delivered your own. Then he called another name, maybe someone behind you, and you spun and rushed to combat again. And so it went. A dozen hits — maybe more — at a spell. ... Over time what mattered was that you suffered together.”
Initiation is part of the sports experience, a lawyer for one of the defendants said. However, UB’s initiation brought the team together. The Lakemen’s initiation is dividing the town.
No will come out a winner in Wilson. Not the defendants, not the victims, not the families, not the friends, not the town, not the school district, not the coaches, not the families, not the media. Maybe the lawyers.
I have trouble understanding either, the “Bull in the Ring” or the boys on the bus. Can one be so right, when one is so wrong?
As the old whiskey commercial said, Wilson “That's All.”
Contact reporter Bill Wolcott
at 439-9222, ext. 6246.
Bill Wolcott
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