
I'm not joking. According to the WIAA's chief moron, excuse me, assistant director, Tom Shafranski --- "High school students can’t bare their chests in class, so there’s no reason for them to do it at indoor sporting events." Uh, what? The ridiculousness of that statement is on par with the quotes from despairing Hillary supporters who are now refusing to vote for Obama. (People-- their policies are virtually identical.)
Here are a few of the unimaginably large number of problems with that justification--
First, since when are you required to sit quietly and take notes at a sporting event? Only if you're the team statistician.
Second, classes are for learning. Sporting events are for enjoying yourself and supporting your friends, classmates, relatives and community. The rules of conduct are, and always will be, different.
Third, has this guy never played shirts and skins in gym class? Did he ever have to change in the locker room in gym class?
Fourth, has he not seen how kids dress these days? Many teenage girls are definitely baring most of their chests in class. If you really want to help teens, do something about that. (Such conspicuous clevage only exacerbates existing problems with premarital sex, social awkwardness, and heterosexual teenage boys generally acting like morons.)
Fifth, is he not aware that gym classes, like the ones at my high school, have swimming as an activity? Or that you can take lifeguard training as a class?
Sixth, has he ever been to a swim meet? Every swimmer is running around 80% naked. But spectators have to stay fully clothed?
And then another prissy busybody, Todd Clark, coordinator of the confederacy of prudes who proposed the rule, says "people find it offensive." Please, who? Hasidic Jews? Mormon fundamentalists? Octogenarians? Have these people ever been to the beach? A pool? A lake? Summerfest? (By the way, I fully support a topless ban at Summerfest. I would much rather see a bare-chested 16 year old with a "T" emblazoned on his chest than some of the half-naked beached whales you see waddling around the Marcus Amphitheater every July.)
Seriously now, do the guys on the WIAA sportsmanship committee (the wanks who've proposed this theory) all have three nipples? Were they the models for the kid in the Charles Atlas ads who gets sand kicked in his face? Do they all have outies intead of innies? Are they allergic to paint or fluorescent lighting? Has there been an outbreak of Goldfinger-esque body painting deaths among Wisconsin high schoolers? Seriously, what is their problem? Why, for the love of all that is good, are we wasting time on this crap? Please tell me these guys aren't on the public payroll. Hell, even the State Journal is with me.