Tribune Chronicle/Vindicator Editor Ed Puskas...by R. Michael Semple

There used to be a television show called, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”

Adult contestants were quizzed on information from elementary school textbooks. As you might suspect, the adults sometimes did not prove to be smarter than the average fifth grader.

But guess what? Sometimes — in my experience — fifth graders have more book smarts than, say, common sense.

Take it from a former fifth grader. Our decision-making skills in the late 1970s were not great. That’s how we found ourselves playing kickball IN OUR CLASSROOM one morning before the first bell of the day.

Mr. Camp, our teacher, was taking care of some task in the office and that left his students — I was one — with a few too many minutes of unsupervised time on our hands.

So … kickball. Did I mention this was IN OUR CLASSROOM?

A few of us — all boys — cleared some desks out of the way and a game broke out. It was all copacetic until one kid — NOT ME — kicked that familiar red, 1970s rubber ball directly into the face of the clock perched high on the wall above the chalkboard and the pull-down maps.

The glass face of the clock shattered into a billion or so micro-pieces and scattered everywhere. There might have been a collective “Oh, crap!” (remember, this was the late 1970s and I was personally still at least a couple of words from my first swear words) and we set about rearranging the desks. Someone might have even swept up the bits of broken glass, but I can’t say for sure.

Then we all sat at our desks and held our collective breath and awaited Mr. Camp’s arrival. Looking back, I’m sure walking in and seeing his entire class sitting silently at their desks was probably a dead giveaway that something bad had just happened. Mr. Camp was sharp, and it didn’t take more than a moment to figure out that someone had destroyed the only clock in the classroom.

At that point, the interrogation began. Mr. Camp wanted to know exactly what happened and exactly who had been involved.

You could have cut the overbearing silence with a knife. No one said a thing. The entire class made like Sgt. Schultz from “Hogan’s Heroes.”

“I know nothing! I see nothing!”

Mr. Camp was a patient man. Much more patient — and much smarter — than the average fifth grader. I can’t remember exactly how he put it, but he made it clear that nothing was going to happen in that classroom until someone talked. No lesson, no witty banter, no passing of notes and — this was the killer — NO RECESS until someone talked.

Mr. Camp could have been a Baltimore detective on “Homicide: Life on the Street.” He had us in “the box” and we were the perps he was sweating out in that interrogation room.The wait seemed to take all day, but someone finally broke and ratted out the culprit — a kid named Donny.

As far as I know, no one but Mr. Camp ever knew who eventually told the story of the impromptu kickball game. Only a handful of kids were directly involved, but as Mr. Camp explained, everyone in the room was complicit in the crime. We all paid the price, whatever it was, for the sins of a select few.

Which, in a meandering sort of way — from the late 1970s at old Rock Creek Elementary School to today — brings me to the inglorious and sad end of the Youngstown City Schools’ middle school football season.

The common denominator is that a few bad apples always seem to ruin things for everyone. A series of fights between middle school players from East and Chaney broke out after a game at Rayen Stadium last week. Youngstown Police Department officers had to intervene in the fracas and as a result, the Youngstown City Schools announced Monday that it “game over.”

The district pulled the plug on the rest of the season “due to concerns and conduct that do not align with the district’s mission and vision.”

“We are committed to the development of well-rounded scholars who exemplify the highest standards of conduct both on and off the field,” said YCSD Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor. “This decision underscores our resolve to ensure that our programs reflect the very best of our district’s values.”

It’s too bad that the district had to make that call, but sometimes a dose of old-fashioned discipline is necessary to deliver a lesson that won’t soon be forgotten.

The cops did not have to intervene when we went off the rails a bit in Mr. Camp’s classroom that day nearly 50 years ago, but some of us learned lessons that still resonate today:

Don’t play kickball indoors and if you do, you sure as heck don’t let Donny kick it. The kid’s a menace!

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. Write him about your kickball escapades at epuskas@tribtoday.com.