The trial is over, the national spotlight will soon be gone and the city of Steubenville, Ohio, will be left alone with its scars and, hopefully, lessons learned. The city has lived through the investigation of a rape of a teenage girl, a case that ended Sunday with convictions of two young men who are already in juvenile custody more than two hours away. Monday will be a work day, a school day, the first day after the trial. It will be football season again.
It's always football season in Steubenville.
Football was not on trial over the last five days; two teenagers who made terrible decisions were. But football is Steubenville, forever and now, for better and for worse. Reno Saccoccia has been the head coach since 1984. The Big Red is a brand name throughout the Ohio Valley and beyond, and Big Red home games are played on Reno Field at Harding Stadium, capacity 10,000.
Kids wait, watch and train for their entire young lives to play for the Big Red, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's clear that this incident -- and the way so many involved handled it -- was part of a culture of that included at least some entitlement and clearly some arrogance. Football is culture in Steubenville; it's status, too.
You're not just a Big Red football player for four years. You're a Big Red football player for life.
Again, there's nothing wrong with that -- and there's nothing about that tied directly to the way Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond acted on that night last August. But how Steubenville football will be judged, both from close and afar, has forever changed. Most importantly, the next generation of kids needs adults, and now, to ensure they know that growing up to play for the Big Red is a privilege, one that must be earned by doing right.
A little dose of "football isn't the most important thing in the world" wouldn't hurt, either.
Football didn't drive those terrible decisions made not just by Mays and Richmond, but by so many of their friends. Football didn't make so many kids boast about a highly-intoxicated young girl who was dragged from party to party, and football neither took nor mass-shared any pictures of that girl and that night's activities.
When the details finally came to light and a case against Mays and Richmond was built, "football" kept popping up. Not just because the guilty were local stars, but because it was in the texts, in the testimony and in the context. During the trial it was revealed that in the days after the incident, Mays texted friends that Saccoccia would "take care of it."
Even if he was jumping to conclusions or just trying to get a laugh, that's a scary thought. And Saccoccia reportedly threatening a New York Times reporter in November was the epitome of making a bad situation worse.
Mays and Richmond did wrong, and their friends did wrong in not doing more to stop it. The ugly truth is out there now, in the tweets and text messages, in the disgusting Michael Nodianos video and now in the testimony. They bragged. They joked. They acted as if there was no reason to fear repercussions and, worse, as if they'd done nothing wrong.
Steubenville has a problem, and not just with its reputation following the trial. The testimony from the trial points to a need for better education for teenagers on adult situations, better supervision by adults and some perspective. Someone -- many actually -- could have done something to stop what happened, and many people failed.
Whether Saccoccia should coach again is a decision the Steubenville schools superintendent, school and community leaders and Saccoccia himself must make. The Ohio High School Athletic Association shouldn't punish the people and groups in Steubenville who benefit from Harding Stadium hosting multiple state playoff games each year by taking them away. Future Big Red football players should still get to live out their on-field dreams, if they conduct themselves like solid young men, too.
What Steubenville should do, at least for the 2013 season, is play all of its home football games on Saturday morning or afternoon. In the daylight. There should be no Friday night games, no capacity crowds under the lights with the fire-breathing horse atop the scoreboard lighting the night sky.
Less sizzle. Less spectacle. A subtle statement about allowing all things to be seen in the light.
A strong statement that whatever level of cover-up, secret-keeping and hero treatment actually took place was wrong.
There are good people in Steubenville. There have been great Big Red football players who are great people, too. And there's a next generation of kids coming who will grow up faster now for what happened last August and what's come out since. They need to grow up better and smarter, too. There's going to be football in Steubenville and there's no reason to punish innocent football players in Steubenville by taking it away, but something can be done to serve as a reminder of what happened and the importance of decision-making in the future. Somehow, perspective, decency and the moral sense of what is right and wrong was lost. Maybe eight empty Friday nights can be one small step to restoring it.
