This kid got a pretty stiff punishment for this, but I think it was a clever, awesome prank:
Student tricks rival fans into raising cards
HILLIARD, Ohio (AP) -- A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival school into holding up squares of construction paper at a stadium that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for the prank, students said.
Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube.
Garchar said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.
At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 parents, staff and alumni from Hillard Darby High School who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday's game played at Crew Stadium, home of Columbus' Major League Soccer team.
"It couldn't have been done without you," reads the closing frame of the video, which had been viewed more than 4,400 times by Thursday.
Garchar, 17, first went to Crew Stadium to take a picture of the seats. Then he created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.
Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read "Go Darby."
"It was tedious," Garchar said. "I didn't really think it was going to work."
But it did, and everyone at Hilliard Davidson has been talking about the trick, said Jordan Moore, a junior.
"That was the ultimate in-your-face," he said. "I think it was ingenious."
Davidson Principal John Bandow had told students that he expected them to show sportsmanship at Friday's football game, which Darby won 21-10 in the first meeting between the two schools.
Bandow called Garchar to his office Monday morning, and gave him three days of in-school suspension and also banned him from participating in school activities for a semester, students said. Two other students who helped organize the trick received the same punishment.
Hilliard schools spokeswoman Michelle Wray couldn't confirm the students' punishment on Thursday because the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act forbids the release of student disciplinary information.
But Jen Trimmer, 17, one of the students involved in the prank, said the suspensions for the three students began Wednesday and were to end Friday.
"We weren't expecting it to be such a severe punishment," she said Thursday. "We just thought it was all in good fun."
Stephen Bell, a Darby freshman, was at the stadium but missed the big moment.
"It was sneaky, knifing and down right clever," he said Wednesday. "But we'll get them back."
Maybe this is the young person in me talking, but I don't think they should have gotten suspension for that. I mean, its not like it was harmful. It was a harmless fun prank and will spark a great rivalry between the schools probably. IDK, but I think that it shouldn't have been that big of a deal.
Oh and thanks for the video link. I was fixing to go search for it.
I'm with Madison - it's necessarily the three-day in-school suspension that bothered me, it's the semester ban on activities that I thought was too much. While the three-day suspension is still really stiff for that "offense" banning him for a semester is beyond the scope of the "wrong" he did.
Even guys from the "victim" school were posting on YouTube saying it was funny.
In other news, Joel and Madison, what is wrong with Texas? Why is everything there broken? My cousin lived there for ten years and he was always telling me how people were "fixing" to do this or "fixing" to do that. I had hoped that you guys had gotten that stuff cleared up since he moved back to Chicago five years ago, but today Joel says he was "fixing" to search for that video.
Don't they sell duct tape in Texas? Or super glue? All this fixing that needs to be done - I think I'm quitting my state job and I'm going to open up a hardware store in Dallas. I'll be a millionaire in a week!
knapplc wrote:Great video! Thanks for the link, Sox!
I'm with Madison - it's necessarily the three-day in-school suspension that bothered me, it's the semester ban on activities that I thought was too much. While the three-day suspension is still really stiff for that "offense" banning him for a semester is beyond the scope of the "wrong" he did.
Even guys from the "victim" school were posting on YouTube saying it was funny.
Worst part is it's not just him. 3 of them got the same punishment.
knapp wrote:In other news, Joel and Madison, what is wrong with Texas? Why is everything there broken? My cousin lived there for ten years and he was always telling me how people were "fixing" to do this or "fixing" to do that. I had hoped that you guys had gotten that stuff cleared up since he moved back to Chicago five years ago, but today Joel says he was "fixing" to search for that video.
Don't they sell duct tape in Texas? Or super glue? All this fixing that needs to be done - I think I'm quitting my state job and I'm going to open up a hardware store in Dallas. I'll be a millionaire in a week!
Well listen here sonny. Ima pull up dees heer boots, grab mah fitty gallon hat, hop in me truck, grab me shotgun, crack open my 2nd case of dis heer beer, then hop on up thar and give yous a Texas sized whoopin redneck style!
I am the Reaper of Men, The Chaser of Souls, The Weaver of Nightmares, I am The Heart of Darkness. I now, and ever will be, The Purity of Evil.
joelamosobadiah wrote:Maybe this is the young person in me talking, but I don't think they should have gotten suspension for that. I mean, its not like it was harmful. It was a harmless fun prank and will spark a great rivalry between the schools probably. IDK, but I think that it shouldn't have been that big of a deal.
Oh and thanks for the video link. I was fixing to go search for it.
Nothing against you at all joel, but you gotta realize how overreactive high schools are today. I'm a junior now, and it gets ridiculous at times.
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by knapplc » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:24 pm 
