Thursday, October 07, 1999
Waging war on teen drinking
Latest incident renews effort to educate kids
BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FORT MITCHELL — A car wreck that has left a 15-year-old Covington Catholic football player lying unresponsive in a hospital bed has officials vowing a crackdown on teen drinking.
But some wonder whether they are fighting a culture war.
“Everything that goes on in our community is celebrated with alcohol — christenings, weddings, funerals,” said Kenton County Attorney Garry Edmondson. “Even high-school football games.”
Mr. Edmondson agreed the Sept. 18 wreck that injured Brad Fritz is a good example of how drinking can tear up lives. Brad was a passenger in a car driven by a 15-year-old Beechwood High football player who was allegedly driving under the influence and without a license.
But Mr. Edmondson recalled a similar call to action in 1995, when CovCath player Mike Caple died in the back seat of a car on his way back from watching Beechwood win a state championship game. He died of alcohol-related asphyxiation.
“We talked about all this then,” he said. “How many more examples do we need?”
Similar sentiments also echoed last November, when former CovCath star Artie Steinmetz was killed when Kentucky football teammate Jason Watts had a drunken-driving accident.
Beechwood Superintendent
Fred Bassett knows how difficult it is to get the anti-alcohol message to students and parents. The students, he said, always think they're bullet-proof, and some parents just don't see the gravity of the issue.
“It only takes one or two parents to have a party,” he said. “That's one or two too many.”
The school already had a year's worth of anti-alcohol and anti-drug programming set up, Mr. Bassett said.
Beechwood football players must all sign a no-alcohol contract, but improper conduct involving alcohol reared its head again at the school just last weekend.
At Beechwood's game Friday, Fort Mitchell officers responding on a tip found adults — some of them parent volunteers involved in the game — drinking beer on school property. Some dropped their drinks when officers arrived, leaving police to try to figure out which ones were drinking, Chief Steve Hensley said.
Both investigations, into the Sept. 18 wreck and Friday night's adult drinking, continue. The chief and Mr. Edmondson are warning that they are serious about catching anyone responsible — teen-agers or parents.
“We just feel like we need to get the message out to some parents,” Chief Hensley said. “Until you're 21, drinking is against the law. That's all there is to it.”
The local scrutiny comes at a time when the problem of underage drinking is getting more attention nationally. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), in fact, changed its mission statement six weeks ago from solely preventing drunken driving to add the prevention of underage drinking. Organization officials are trying to pre pare for an increasing number of new drivers by teaching them about the hazards of alcohol before they get to driving school, said Andrea Rehkamp, executive director of MADD's Southwestern Ohio chapter.
Studies now show that the average age that kids start drinking alcohol is 121/2, down from 13 a couple of years ago, Ms. Rehkamp said. And the younger kids start, the more likely they are, she said, to become problem drinkers.
She voiced what all the officials know — that reaching parents is the key. But that's a difficult proposition, given that some adults think letting their kids drink at home helps them learn how to handle their booze, she said.
“It might not be that they encourage it, but they don't discourage it,” Ms. Rehkamp said. “They don't want their kids to be left out.”
Meanwhile, Brad Fritz's condition has improved gradually from critical to fair. Friends and officials say he remains uncommunicative. He was moved Tuesday from University Hospital to Children's Hospital for rehabilitation.
More charges still are possible in the wreck. Prosecutors won't elaborate, but they and police are investigating the presence of another teen-ager in the vehicle. Brad was in the back seat when the car hit the tree. Mr. Edmondson has not decided whether the driver will be charged as an adult.
Just the night before the wreck, Beechwood football coach Mike Yeagle stopped long enough after his team's win over CovCath to remind his players that winning the big rivalry game shouldn't be a reason to drink alcohol.
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