<p>The community service they did was the captains idea. They fundraised for it themselves. They had to convince the coaches to let them miss practices during preseason because they felt it would be more important to help out.</p>
<p>And also I do have an article about an innercity high school lacrosse team that made it really far into a championship. </p>
<p>And there actually were posts that suggested that many students at prep schools and lacrosse players were elitists. I could link them if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t have posted in this thread if I had not seen as many posts as I did.</p>
<p>There aren’t that many top lacrosse high schools. The top colleges recruit heavily from a few schools. I don’t know where your school ranks, but if it’s not one of the top lacrosse schools, then you have not been exposed to that culture.</p>
<p>I saw this on a Facebook group “RIP Yeardley Love,”, so I went to the Westboro Baptist Church website (you can google them - I won’t post a link) to confirm their ‘picket’ schedule. Sure enough, they plan to protest at Yeardley Love’s funeral on Saturday. Have these people no shame?? Have they no decency??</p>
<p>That is just sickening!!! I don’t see how these people can call themselves christian while inflicting such unnecessary pain on those already enduring great suffering. Shameful!</p>
<p>Emily Silverstein was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend when both were Gettysburg College students. He was not a Lax player (can’t blame that), he was not from a wealthy, powerful family (can’t blame that). He was mentally ill. Can’t blame that though - it’s not politically correct and might hurt the feelings of some mentally ill people. We all know that being mentally ill does not equate with being a murderer.<br>
Where was the outcry? Where were the warnings? Why was Gettysburg College not held accountable for his actions? Was Yeardley Love’s life more valuable than Emily Silverstein?</p>
<p>IMO - Yeardley Love will do what Emily Silverstein could not. She has catapulted this issue into the limelight and folks are taking notice. Maybe some good will come out of that. Maybe more high schools and colleges will take bad behavior by boys/men seriously and empower girls/women to take action against it.</p>
<p>Rant over - back to your regularly scheduled program of piling the blame on everyone but the murderer.</p>
<p>^^^yes, agree with one caveat. As a woman, yes women need to be empowered to move away from abusive relationships, the apparently on again off again relationship of the two at UVa is disturbing and a story as old as time, but hopefully the lesson to learn is not simply about the women it is also about the men and their relationships and where the social limitations of “men will be men” needs to end and empowering men, - men, coaches, teachers, authority figures - to feel like they can interceed if they know they have a buddy, student, athlete, on a destructive path. Too often that doesn’t occur with male buddies until much later in life and coaches and teachers sometimes turn a blind eye.</p>
<p>JustAMomof4…I agree with you. In a tragedy like this, there is a tendency to what to blame someone or something. And the full responsibility is on the young man who committed this crime. It could have taken place at any college, with kids from any socio-economic background, and in any sport or EC activity. </p>
<p>I do think that these kids belonged to a smaller social circle that is sort of like a club…their teams…and that a contributing factor to nobody speaking up when some warning signs MAY have been observed in the nature of the relationship speaks to how there is a sense of protecting one another. The guys may have looked after this guy. The girls were also friends with these guys. We don’t know yet if there were written or oral threats or previous violence and which friends, if any, knew about it. Did the girl tell confidantes of any threats or incidents? </p>
<p>It is a teachable moment in any setting like this about speaking up if you are a victim and also speaking up if you feel a friend is a victim or in danger, and speaking up if a friend is doing bad things (the last one is hard for young people to do as they feel they are getting a friend in trouble).</p>
<p>At many colleges, there are required sessions at orientation about drugs and alcohol. Added to that, should be required sessions about relationship abuse/violence.</p>
<p>JustAMomof4, I agree with you and with soozievt.</p>
<p>I happen to think that the focus, the fascination, the outcry in this case has similar overtones to “The Preppy Murder”, where Jennifer Levin was murdered by Robert Chambers in NY. Remember that case?</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to write that Shoe. As a second year at UVa it is important to me that we look for solutions to this problem. The very best thing we can do for Yeardly is to take whatever steps we can to prevent this from happening again. We need to stop being politically correct or pretending not to see.</p>
<p>Listen to The Virginia Gentlemen singing On The Turning Away on YouTube.</p>
<p>Northeastmom - my mind is going back to Robert Chambers too, I had just graduated when that happened and one of my sorority sisters knew Jennifer Levin. I just hope they don’t try to smear Yeardley like they did Jennifer.</p>
<p>vistany–thank you for your thoughtful response and the suggestion to listen to On the Turning Away. </p>
<p>As a mom of two college students my heart also goes out to each of you students struggling to make sense of this tragedy. I imagine the loss of innocence each of you is experiencing is quite difficult…</p>