You couldn't miss Lynn "Gordie" Bailey on his high school campus. On fall Saturdays,
he captained the football team. On spring afternoons, he hustled as a lacrosse
player. In between, he could be seen starring as a Puritan leader in "The Crucible,"
or emceeing a dance show, or performing stand-up comedy.
In his free time, he strummed his guitar, surrounded by friends, or oversaw
the "hug club," which he founded to boost morale during the long winters in
western Massachusetts. Gordie graduated from his boarding school amid a welter
of hugs and tears - and promises to return frequently from the University of
Colorado.
Instead, his family came back last month for a memorial service. Gordie, the
perpetually grinning 18-year-old from Dallas, died while pledging for the Chi
Psi fraternity. News accounts say he and 26 other pledges were told to down
six bottles of wine and four bottles of whiskey in a half hour. Then, with Gordie
in a coma, his supposed brothers scrawled a racial slur, drawings of male genitalia
and other slogans on his body.
While the police, Chi Psi and the university sort out what happened, Gordie's
death should inspire parents and students at high schools and colleges in Colorado
to change their attitudes about underage drinking. The Boulder campus has taken
some steps but needs to lead the way. The campus medical center and fraternity
presidents can start by holding forums on drinking. And the administration should
crack down on frats that measure commitment by the ounce or shot glass.
Many college administrators have adopted a don't-ask-don't-tell attitude toward
drinking at frats. They justify it by saying that a drink now and then is no
big deal, especially if those who drink avoid driving.
But it is a big deal, and it's getting bigger. About 44 percent of college students
binge drink, according to a survey of 14,000 students in 39 states by the Harvard
School of Public Health. That number has increased since the survey was first
published 10 years ago. (At the other extreme, the number of students abstaining
has also increased, meaning campuses are sharply divided between drinkers and
non-drinkers.)
We all pay for the excesses of binge drinkers. They are responsible for a disproportionate
share of sexual assaults, beatings, vandalism and car crashes. There are all
sorts of victims, including people like Gordie, who tried binge drinking just
once, under pressure. In his speech to an auditorium full of crying students
at last month's memorial service here, Gordie's stepfather, Michael Lanahan,
summed it up in two words: "Alcohol kills."
I don't know the details of Gordie's death, but in his brief life he made an
impression on all of us who met him. I worked as a teacher at his boarding school,
Deerfield Academy, last year - the year that many dubbed "the year of Gordie."
He was ubiquitous: He wrote a column for the student newspaper I advised. He
starred in the plays and dance showcases. High school is often a time of splitting
into cliques, but Gordie crossed all groups. He befriended jocks and shy audio-visual
kids, whites and blacks, musicians and computer nerds.
It's time that all of us - parents, fraternity members, teachers and taxpayers
- show outrage. We need to fight against binge drinking and the campus culture
that makes it acceptable. Do it for your children, for your friends. Do it for
that smiling kid who had so much promise when he pledged at Chi Psi.
David L. Marcus (teenbook@hotmail.com) is the author of ``What It Takes To Pull
Me Through: Why Teenagers Get In Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out" (to be
published by Houghton Mifflin in January).
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