From the Charlotte Observer’s Langston Wertz, Jr. :
When Charlotte Catholic’s boys’ soccer team got to Forestview High School in Gastonia on Saturday night for an N.C. 3A playoff game, the Cougars heard something over the public address system they never would’ve expected:
A 90-second portion of a speech from Adolf Hitler.
“We were warming up,” said Catholic coach Gary Hoilett, “and all of us stopped and looked up at the booth. We were just real shocked. It was obviously a Hitler speech. The voice was coming across clearly. Everybody knew.”
Forestview’s players took the field after the speech ended.
Monday, Forestview Principal Robert Carpenter (above) met with Gaston County Schools Superintendent Reeves McGlohon, Gaston County athletics director Butch Adams and Forestview soccer coach David Shearer. After that 40-minute meeting, Carpenter faxed a letter of apology to Charlotte Catholic officials.
In the letter, Carpenter confirmed that a CD containing a Hitler speech was played over the PA system. He called it inappropriate. He said he was at the game but did not hear the clip. Carpenter said that it was the first time it had been played and that Shearer was not aware of it.
“Sometime back, coach Shearer and the team started using `On to victory’ as a slogan,” Carpenter wrote. “We have a German exchange student on our team. He taught our students to say it in German. Some of our more zealous students sought to capture this slogan in German and to play it on the PA. They copied it from a speech by Hitler but could not just copy the `On to victory’ and got too much of the speech.”
There’s no truth to the rumor that Ron Atkinson has been invited to take over Forestview’s soccer program.
Just so everyone knows, and im sure that more will be revealed later, but the voice heard on the audio was not even Hitler’s voice. Common people, these kids are good kids, none of them are going to go out and deliberately insult or make rasist remarks to anyone, especially a member of the oppisite team in a soccer game. That would be unsportsmanlike, and these boys are some of the most respectful guys when it comes to high school soccer teams. You all are blowing a mistake, or even a misinterpretation, way pout of preportion just because you can twist the names involved to say something about a high school soccer team and Hilter in the same sentance.
which part of the above passage from the Charlotte paper is blowing something “pout of preportion”, Brandon? If the Forestview soccer team dislikes being publicly associated with Hitler, here’s a wild idea : maybe they should recite someone else’s speeches over the PA?
I’d like nothing better than to spend my entire afternoon smearing high school soccer teams I’ve never heard of with completely ficiticious stories that link them to Hitler. In fact, you could say it’s my dream come true. There’s probably thousands of people just like me in the legit news media looking for any opportunity to couple Adolf and h.s. soccer players in the minds of the public.
So this story was kind of like Christmas come early. Except I don’t celebrate Christmas.