Well, this is a new way to get fired. Unsatisfied with just doing his job at Seymour (Conn.) High School, swim team coach Kevin Quill tried to fire up his team by dappling in the motivational screen printing business. His subject? A member of his own team who had quit after not being named captain.

(Another of Quill’s motivational techniques: Throwing shoes at slow swimmers.)

Hence shirts emblazoned with “The Mascot is a quitter,” a message that sounds fairly benign until you realize that the player in question was actually named Mascot. Even more ridiculously, Quill tried to defend the action, saying that the shirts were, “not poking fun at the student (Mascot), but instead were poking fun at the situation.” How exactly a shirt that is only clever in how it uses the word mascot as a double-entendre is poking fun at the situation, we have no idea. What situation? The fact that the kid’s name was Mascot? That’s a situation?

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They’re not the first, they won’t be the last. Every few years a hazing scandal erupts at a high school athletics program and goes national. This year’s sad honor goes to Robertson High School in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Cardinals were state football champions in 2005 and 2006 and runners-up in 2007.

They’re not going anywhere this year after (via THE BIG LEAD) a hazing incident involving broomsticks at preseason camp led to the dismissal of six players and the entire coaching staff. One coach allegedly walked in on one of the brutal incidents and told the players to “cut it out” before leaving. Read more…