Five More (domestic) High School Fight Clubs
April 11, 2008 – 3:57 pm by
Glen
Yesterday, La Vernia High School in Texas made headlines across the country about a fight club involving the high school students. Everyone is up in arms. Each story written, including this one, includes a reference to the Brad Pitt/Ed Norton movie.
Here’s the deal; this is a serious matter. So is the glorification of this violence by sharing video clips on the web.
However, high school fight clubs are by no means a novelty. That’s the sad truth. La Vernia is getting a ton of media scrutiny over this. That’s fine. Awareness is important.
Here are several other high schools that have had fight clubs:
1) In February 2006, in De Soto Kansas, cops bust a caravan of eight carloads of teens driving to a fight club location. The fights involved students from De Soto High School.
2) In September 2006, in Warren Michigan, students at Lincoln High School are involved with a fight club.
3) In July 2006, police in Arlington Texas learn about a fight club involving students at Arlington High School.
“after school programs”
4) In March 2008, in Murrietta California, two former students who organized a fight club are sentenced to jail. The perps were students who attend Murrieta Valley High School.
5) In March 2008, cops in Fairview Colorado bust a high-school fight club. Involving…you guess it; students at Fairview High School.
As you can see, high school fight clubs haven’t been invented yesterday. If you have time to spare, feel free to check out the profile pages of the schools involved. Perhaps you can discern a pattern of sorts. (private/public/test scores etc.)
Another thing; HS fight clubs are NOT relegated to US schools. A high school in Auckland New Zealand also had a fight club.
Final note; based on the above, it’s clear that this is NOT YouTube’s “fault” like some would like to blame. YouTube wasn’t on anyones radar back in 2006!
3 Responses to “Five More (domestic) High School Fight Clubs”
I read a lot of these articles saying ‘oh no, another high school fight club.’
Truth be told, its a very small percentage that even gets uncovered.
This isn’t the fault of youtube or Pitt, Norton, or Palahniuk.
As a matter of fact, I can recall from my own school days organizing such events well before the movie brought the concept to the forefront of media attention.
We did it a little bit differently. They weren’t ‘fight clubs’, we just called them boxing matches, as we usually had gloves. You still had to be invited, more or less, because they were always held in private residences.
Fights went until someone said stop, or couldn’t continue.
It helped that I lived immediately across the street from my high school.
People would come, we’d put on some music, eat some food and eventually, you’d have two guys knocking each other around while trying to avoid breaking the TV.
If you want to protect your kids, I get it, it’s a lot easier to protect them from movies and books than it is to protect them from themselves. The truth is, though, people have been doing this for, quite literally, millenia. People will continue to do this for millenia to come. You’re never going to stop it, and it’s probably better that you don’t anyway. I mean, what would the alternative be?
By Kyle on Jul 25, 2008
I think that fight clubs help more than anything. I mean for instance I’m a teen and I have been in various fights. I always feel better aftetrwards, even if I lose because people look at you with a different kind of respect. That and I also think that it builds up self confidence because of the respect that comes from fighting. It’s dangerous yes but what isn’t. Skating, Football and hockey are dangerous but those don’t get shut down. So I say let us have our fun.
By Travis Hoffman on Aug 27, 2008
hey i think dat fight clubs are ok u gonna get hurt and yeah possibly broken bones but u get stronger n people will fear u so yeah i think fight clubs r iight and more nd more people should join fight clubs
By chris toranzo on Dec 4, 2008