Sports I lustraded

Today I found the Official Website of the Brian Deneke Memorial Committee, a group committed to keeping the memory of this non sports loving teenager alive. He was brutally killed with a Cadillac during an old fashioned rumble by a Texas high school football star who only got probation for his crime. In a state that kills more murderers than anyone, the bungled trial and laughable sentence outraged many and fueled the fires against the jock attitude and how we as a society let them literally get away with murder because they can throw a ball well. This site makes sure we never forget what happened that fateful winter night.

After a long battle between the jocks and the punks in Amarillo in 1997, Brian was run down during a large fight by a football player who said his car slid because it was icy. This story held until the girl in the car with him told of the horrible way this sports "hero" intentionally ran down another person after saying "I'm a ninja in my Caddy" and then joked "I'll bet he liked that" as he drove everyone home. Confessions were never presented at trial and allegations of special treatment still abound today while he walks free to enjoy the rest of his life.

But hate and dwelling on the past will get us no where and this site has the right idea in trying to find something positive in something so terrible as the death of this young man and the injustice served up by the courts and our sports-centric society in it's wake.

Brian did not die because he deserved to. Brian did not die because he asked to. Brian died because he was different. He was a nonconformist. He was an Individualist. He was a free spirit. Brian was also a thoughtful and caring young man, a good son, a good friend. His life was full of promise. His murder deprived this community of someone who had already begun to make a difference to it and no doubt would have made an even greater difference in the future. Brian Deneke is gone. His death has left a divided city, a shocked city, a hurt city in its wake. It has also left us a memory of who Brian was and what he stood for. That memory can serve either a negative purpose or a positive one.

Visit Brian's site today and help make a positive future for all our children by lustrating the evil from modern youth sports.