My 17th Year

Recently, I was discussing topics for future writings with my partner on this site. I told her that I would like to write about “bullying”. I explained that I have always hated bullies. I recounted to her my experiences of fighting against them for myself and for others. She nodded and then said, “But you have bullied people before haven’t you?”. I responded with quick and complete denial. Then she added, “When you played soccer”. I was now on the defensive and I did defend but inside my heart sunk. There was one very specific time that still bothers me.

I attended a Jesuit high school. It was and still is a highly academic institution which at the time was all male. There were approximately twelve hundred students equally distributed over four grades, freshman to senior. Bullying did occur from time to time at the school. Some of it was verbal and some was physical. None of it seemed to be that bad. I was never the focus of any bullying for a couple reasons. First, my older brother was two years ahead of me at the school and I believe that shielded me to some extent. Secondly, although I was never very big, I projected a certain level of physical confidence that kept the bullies away. Bullies do not like to fight. They do not like opposition. They prey on those that appear weak and afraid.

This is going to be somewhat painful. When I was seventeen, I was a senior in high school. I was a good student and a good soccer player. I was a defensive player on an accomplished team. We were playing a league game against a fairly good opponent from another Catholic school. Sometimes in soccer, when your team is on the offensive, it leaves the opposing center forward alone with two defenders at the center of the field. It was the case on this particular afternoon. I was standing with my teammate, also a senior, also a very good player, with the opposing center forward. The opposing center forward was a sophomore at his high school who was on varsity because he was an extremely good player. I believe he ended up getting a scholarship and playing at UCLA. The two of us were physically bigger than he and he was alone. One other distinguishing feature about this boy was a large birthmark on his face. In an effort to demean him and to get him off his game I asked my teammate, in a way so this boy could hear, if he could tell what that was on the kid’s face. I commented on how ugly he was and then I told my teammate not to touch him because what was on his face might be contagious. So very wicked.

In my defense, I could say that I was just trying to win the game and that this was just me trying to get inside his head and off his game. I could claim that there was a lot of pressure on us to win and that I was just doing what my coaches indirectly wanted me to do. That defense did not work at Nuremberg and it holds no sway in my case either. It has to be one of the lowest moments in my life. It was absolute bullying. It was cruel and unnecessary. I began feeling bad about what I had done from the moment I saw the first tear roll down his cheek and I still feel bad about it to this day. Just absolute unavoidable shame.

The high school I attended was built in the shape of an “H” and was three stories tall. The halls were lined with lockers that were organized alphabetically according to each student’s last name. My name was toward the end of the alphabet so my locker was on the third floor. Early in my senior year I noticed that the locker above mine was assigned to a freshman. He was a little guy with glasses who had the exact last name as I did. His name was Chris. In the first month of school we barely spoke. Our interactions were mostly in regard to getting in and out of our respective lockers and staying out of each other’s way. About a month into the school year I was standing at my locker. It was about five minutes after the final bell so the school was like a ghost town. I heard a commotion and from around the corner of the center of the building. Chris came running toward me with an anxious look on his face. Just behind were two other freshman boys chasing him. Chris then braced himself against the lockers and the two boys began punching his arm. I then stepped toward the three and said, “What the hell are you doing”? All three boys froze. Then I said to Chris’s two pursuers, “If I ever see you near my brother again I am going to kick your ass”. The two of them slinked away and I returned to my locker. Chris said nothing. As I left, I turned to him, smiled and walked away.

Over the remainder of the year we bumped into each other probably ten or so times. I would always make a point to say hello to him, talk a little and then say that I would see him at home. Once, when he was with some other boys, I told him not to be late for dinner because mom had been mad at him for being late the night before. Chris and I never spoke about our secret. But he would always smile during our brief encounters. I just enjoyed the our little game and the positive effect it seemed to have on him.

I graduated that year and he was once again alone at school. I never saw or spoke to him again. Years later I went to a picnic with friends. One of my friends at the picnic had made arrangements to look at a motorcycle he was interested in buying from a guy who happened to live close by the park where we were having the picnic. He went to see the bike and when he returned to the picnic he came over to me to tell me about his meeting. He told me that while talking to the man about the motorcycle, that the subject of where he grew up and what high school he had attended came up. He told the man about the neighborhood he grew up in and the schools he had attended. Then the man told him that his son had gone to that same high school. The man then asked him if he knew a guy named Bill Sheppard. My friend explained that not only did he know me but that I was one of his friends. The man then said to him, “If it were not for your friend Bill, I don’t think my son would have survived high school”. I guess Chris Sheppard had shared our secret with his father.

So these are two stories from the seventeenth year of my life. But why tell them now? I am now fifty-five years old. In the past thirty-eight years of my life, since the passing of my 17th year, not a week has gone by that I don’t relive the shame of what I said that day on the soccer field. On a rare occasion I will remember Chris and smile. One story of good and one of bad. Both with me at the center.

This is what I believe. We all have the potential to do the right thing. The cruel in us subverts the kind, the good keeps the wicked at bay. In most of us, the honorable person lives beside the bully as we move through a life of choices. My advice to all, if I can be so arrogant, is this: If you are the biggest kid in the fourth grade or the prettiest girl in school. If you are the football star or the girl most likely to succeed. If you are the boss at work or the captain of the team. The coach, the teacher, the parent or the cop. Choose to not be the bully. Choose the higher road, the kinder path. By doing so, you can look forward to the occasional smile that history affords you from having taken the righteous path. By keeping your bully inside, you can avoid the unrelenting and perpetual shame of the unchangeable harm done.