Adult toxic rhetoric to blame for antisemitic incident at Ohio high school football game

Like every sport, football has a language that's all its own.

Everything, from field goal attempts to passes completed — and not completed — is categorized with jargon that can only really be learned through immersion, namely watching games while listening to the play-by-play experts talk about said game.

Part of football's appeal for its fans is its complexity. A lot can happen when an oblong-shaped ball hits the ground. A diagrammed play can look like an abstract drawing that would make Picasso weep from envy.

The language can be otherworldly. For example, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning was known for shouting "Omaha! Omaha!" at the line of scrimmage, meaning that the play had changed.

(There ought to be a "Thank you, Peyton" sign hanging in Omaha somewhere.)

At Ohio State University, the Buckeyes' sideline coaches are known to hold up a large picture of Beyonce to transmit a play, perhaps the message being "Get this right, and you, too, can become rich and famous."

But in all of the hundreds of thousands of games that have ever been played in the history of the sport, no team, no one has ever used the term "Nazi."

Until now. And why did it have to happen in Ohio?

Last month, Beachwood High School threatened to pull its team from a football game after its opponent, Brooklyn High School, repeatedly used the term "Nazi" to call plays.

Seriously?

Brooklyn High School head coach Tim McFarland, who admitted to using the term, did the right thing and resigned.

Coaches are not just responsible for wins, they're also standard-bearers. Though they certainly can't be held responsible for every player's misdeed, the power and influence they have over a young person can't be over-estimated — or squandered.

Of all the words available — like Omaha — that was the one chosen to call plays while competing against a majority-Jewish school?

There will be those who will argue that we've become too sensitive, that the Brooklyn-Beachwood controversy was an isolated case of poor judgment and not an indication that neo-Nazis may be getting comfortable in Ohio.

How many incidents are acceptable before we should be concerned about it?

Earlier this year we learned that Ohio is home to a neo-Nazi homeschooling group which has more than 2,400 subscribers, and their own broadcast channel.

The Nazi Blood Tribe, a white supremacist group that started in Maine, has announced it has opened a new chapter in Columbus.

There was a time when you had to go underground to find such people.

Now they issue press releases.

Anti-Defamation League: Is Ohio becoming a magnet for Neo-Nazism?

No child came up with the idea of referring to a football play as "Nazi."

We adults have got to stop poisoning kids with our toxicity.

They pay attention to the media we consume and they listen to what we say at the dinner table, on the phone, in the car and especially online.

They're aware of the jokes and memes that denigrate another person's basic humanity.

They watch how we react to people who are different from us, even if we never say a word.

They take note of our politics, who we support and who we don't — and why.

Aimenn Perry of Alliance was only 20 when he was indicted earlier this year on federal hate-crime charges after the self-avowed white supremacist was accused of firebombing a church in Geauga County for hosting a drag show.

How many churches have to be firebombed? How many synagogues have to be shot up before it's deemed a problem?

There have been suggestions that some of the Brooklyn players didn't understand the negative connotations attached to the word.

If that's true, no one should be surprised, not when you put the kibosh on history.

They may not have known better; however, someone did.

Some kids don't have the luxury of ignoring history because they were born in its wake. It echoes throughout their lives, in faded photographs and in the family stories which make their way around the table on holidays.

They know that at any moment, they could be challenged, even attacked, for their race, their religion, their sexuality, for simply existing.

They don't dare forget.

Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Charita Goshay: Adult rhetoric to blame for antisemitic remark