Mark, a former student of mine who signed up before high school graduation to attend Highlands and possibly play football for the Cowboys, made a mistake.

With several buddies the night before a big final game in the capital city, he partied, got drunk, got caught, got busted and got sent to the principal’s office the next day. At issue was whether anyone involved in the party would play that day, even though hangovers may have made the question moot.

Assuredly, Mark and the others faced issues with their parents, the school itself as well as their status on the team. According to Mark, who’s now raising three football players of his own, one by one the players reported to the head football coach, who asked one question: Were you drinking last night?

His penchant for honesty made him say, “Yes, Coach, I was.�

“That’s all I want to know. Turn in your uniform. You’re off the team.�

That fall, as a non-football-playing student at Highlands, totally disillusioned by anything resembling a pigskin, Mark told me he could live with the consequences: he messed up; he paid for it.

But what rankled him were the lies some of his teammates told.

And got away with it.

The coach asked each of them, privately, the same question. Mark, a three-year starter, said several of them admitted being at the party at which all got busted, but several said, “No, Coach, I didn’t drink anything at all.� They got to play in the final game. Mark said he attended the game but watched from the bleachers.

Now I don’t believe anyone should be rewarded just for telling the truth, but I wonder about others who “Play the Game� in order to play in the game. In retrospect, Mark told me, “The coach wanted all of us to tell him we hadn’t been drinking. Once some of us told the truth, Coach couldn’t very well keep us on the team.�

So lying apparently earned some players the privilege of playing in one last game. Though he forfeited the transitory glory of playing in the season-ender, Mark was a bigger man for having told the truth.

I’ve puzzled over this issue for years. I admire Mark’s veracity and wonder about the simple attribute of accountability — the lack of which was glaring among some of his former teammates. Does accountability exist anymore? Do people own up?

Anyone who’s been reading this column since it began in 2003 knows how readily I drift into that when-I- was-a-child mode. It’s true, I seem preoccupied with how things used to be. And things have changed.

For example, this week, an administrator for the Albuquerque schools, Elsy Fierro, is scheduled to have a hearing regarding charges that she exerted excessive influence to raise a grade that allowed a Rio Grande High School senior to graduate. She could receive a simple reprimand or even lose her administrative license. She wants the hearing to be open to the public, but the state is so determined to keep the hearing closed that it might drop the charges altogether.

The senior, with politically powerful parents, had missed a couple of dozen English classes and was headed for a big fat “F.�

What kind of parents don’t even know when or whether their kid ditches classes?

Rather than have a serious talk with the kid, the parents — the mom a county commissioner and the dad a former school board member — chose to blame the system: “This is the first we’d heard about his being absent. Why didn’t you ever notify us?� Yeah, right.

Over the English teacher’s protests, Fierro exercised her power to change the “F� to a “D.� The kid walked, but the fallout continues.

And recently, middle school students in Albuquerque damaged an expensive aquarium in the museum during a field trip. The vandalism amounts to several thousand dollars.

But not to worry: buying a lot of good will, a real estate firm in the Duke City offered to pay for the repairs. That way, the students get off without the inconvenience of being accountable.

• • •

Over the years, Las Vegas has been known by various chamber-of-commerce-type slogans. The earliest one I remember was “The city of blanket nights.� Temperatures were much cooler then than in other similar-sized towns. I still don’t know whether the slogan meant that one needed a blanket every night because of dipping temperatures, or that Mother Nature herself provided the blanket and we therefore didn’t need it.

Later, this part of God’s Country carried the saying, “Las Vegas: a breath of fresh air.� Still with the climate motif, that slogan lasted a while.

More recently, we self-identified as having “Smiling faces, enchanting places . . . and the rest is history.� Unless climate issues are implied by the enchantment, boosters of this town got away from weather allusions.

What should be our slogan now? Got it! Consider “Las Vegas . . . a four-way stop at every intersection.�

• • •

Almost daily in the Optic you can read articles about the Colorado Rockies’ performance in the World Series. The bylines generally belong to Arnie Stapleton, who’s been with the Associated Press for 20 years and now is its sports editor.

He e-mailed me last month to ask if I were the same person who drilled him on the AP Stylebook back in the ‘80s during his time at Highlands. I’m proud to say he was my student.

Arnie (we used to call him Arnold) covers the Denver Nuggets, Broncos and the Rockies. Before that, his beat was the University of Wisconsin and the Green Bay Packers games. Must be a tough life for Arnie.

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