A high school football player in Ohio was suspended and kicked off the team after a poem he wrote about his squad's season was deemed hazing and harassment by the school principal.
Nick Andre, 16, was a defensive end on the Rittman Indians, who have one win and seven losses on the year. So when Andre was recently assigned to write a poem about something that made him angry, he didn't have to look too far.
Andre read his poem, titled "Stupid," in front of his class and it ended up getting him kicked off the team and suspended from school. According to Fox 8 Cleveland, Rittman's principal said Andre “wrote a mean and disrespectful poem about another student and our athletic director/head coach.” The poem was deemed "hazing/harassment."
Andre was suspended for four days and kicked off the football team, which has two games remaining.
“It’s like wow, just over doing my school work," Andre told Fox 8 Cleveland. "I get in trouble, get thrown off the football team, you know get suspended for four days, which could potentially really mess up my grades."
The superintendent of the Rittman School District and the school's football coach declined to comment to Fox 8. Andre's mother, who met with the school principal, said she refused to sign the suspension letter.
“All he could refer to was bullying," Julie Andre said. "This poem was bullying, and my comment was, ‘why would the teacher entertain this assignment because you know, you don’t know what you may get from teenage kids? So to me, I couldn’t understand bullying.”
