What message are we sending?

I don't know Matt Zuppo. I don't know his family.
I don't know all the details that led to Zuppo, a senior at Girard High and a pretty good quarterback, to be ejected from a football game.
I don't know what motivation his family had in taking the Ohio High School Athletic Association to court, seeking an injunction which would have allowed Zuppo to play in his team's last game of the season Friday night.
I can understand how Zuppo's father might have felt as he watched his son being sent to the sideline.
And I can sympathize with the family during the course of the past week.
I'm not even sure this is about Matt Zuppo.
Or his family.
Authority figure
I don't know the referee, Len Holman, who worked the game in which Zuppo was ejected.
I don't know anything of his reputation as an official.
I do know, however, that the rules are quite clear.
I know an ejection means a one-game suspension.
I know there's no avenue for an appeal.
I know that, as a voluntary member of the OHSAA, the Girard school system agrees to abide by those rules.
I know, having attended rules meetings, the OHSAA's message goes something like this: "The last thing you want to do is eject a player or coach."
I don't know what Zuppo said to Holman.
I know there's words considered "magic" that warrant an immediate response -- a penalty or, as a last resort, an ejection.
I also know there's an accepted way to speak to another person, whether it's someone in authority, like a game official, an acquaintance, or a friend.
I'm positive this isn't about Len Holman.
We are role models
It's about the message adults are sending to our kids.
Once, at a major league baseball game, I sat near a father and his young son. When the opposing team came onto the field, the father cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled a disparaging remark at one player, using a vulgarity.
As if on cue, his son did the same, using the exact same words.
The father laughed. I cringed.
We have become a society that instead of respecting authority is encouraged to defy it.
College students are permitted to swarm onto the field after a football game, trash-talk players or coaches from the opposing school, and then we're outraged when the player reacts with a forearm shiver.
Vince Lombardi never said winning is the only thing. His exact words were, "Winning is not a sometime thing ... you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time."
Lombardi wasn't talking so much about winning and losing, but rather, how one goes about preparing for the task at hand, whether it's a sports event or interacting within society.
A story of hope
The following story was related to me by a reporter who was at Thursday's football game between Woodrow Wilson and Canton Timken. Both teams began the game without a win this season.
"Following the game, Chris Scott, a junior player from Timken, walked by himself to the entrance of Wilson's locker room. He shook at least 10 players' hands and said, 'Hey guys, keep your head up because you all played a great game and even though you lost, none of you are losers.' I learned later, that in the last two years Scott's sister had been murdered and his father committed suicide.
"Then I went to Wilson's locker room. Chet Nelms, an assistant coach, led the entire team and coaching staff in prayer. It was a lengthy prayer about the season and about every young man's contributions, not only in football, but also in life. Then the entire team closed with The Lord's Prayer."
I don't know Chris Scott.
I've never met Chet Nelms.
We could sure learn a lot from them.
XRob Todor is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write to him at todor@vindy.com.