Oct 25 2006
Principal suspended for giving kid a âwedgieâ
The principal of Park High School returned to school Tuesday after a six-day suspension for giving a student a “wedgie.” The District Board held a special meeting Monday and approved Superintendent recommendation that Principal Eric Messerli be allowed to return to work.
Messerli was suspended for two days without pay and four days with pay for grabbing a Park High senior’s soccer jersey and pulling it over his head and giving the student a “wedgie” by pulling up on the waist band of his underwear. The incident happened on Oct. 5 at a junior varsity soccer game. Read about it here.
What do I say? I’m just grateful that none of my youth when I was a student minister turned me in for giving “wedgies.” 
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15 responses so far
Youth ministers have to be careful with those practical jokes. One time at church camp they set it up where the sound speakers were under some black cloths so you couldn’t tell they were speakers. Then they brought in the new youth and had them sit down on the “chairs” as part of an “induction” ceremony to camp. After a few minutes of some random speech, they would send a slight shock through the speakers to make the kids jump. Nothing much, just like static electricity but it was funny enough by the surprise on their face. Unfortunately one girl had a pin in her hip (or something like that … it was metal) such that the electric shock caused severe pain, made her scream, and more than anything, it humiliated her. She ran up the stairs of the cabin to the girls dorm and wouldn’t stop crying for hours. What had been fun just seconds before turned into quite a “bad idea” after all.
No moral to the story, except maybe we have to be careful to be sensitive while we are having some “good clean fun” I guess.
wedgies are a mainstay…the school board is just acting out years of repressed anger. They were probably victims of countless wedgies.
but then again it was the principal of the school you’d think he’d been grown-up enough
This incident gives me hope for the children of today… maybe they don’t have it so easy!
Perhaps the incident shows in some little way that adult leaders feel they have to be “one of them” to reach them. I disagree with that on principle.
A principal giving a kid a wedgie? Would you do that, as a pastor?
It’s a ludicrous as it sounds.
It says something about “girls soccer team” - was it a girl? That would really not be good…….on several levels.
However, if it was a male soccer player, then this pales in significance to what we saw happenned to George Kostanza in High School in the “Bookman, Library Cop” episode.
We learn via a flashback sequence that Kostanza got an “atomic wedgie” (waste band pulled over head - yikes!) from his HS PE teacher.
So hey man, the conventional wedgie is nothing.
Bob,
I can honestly say I have never given a wedgie as an adult! Now in High School….
Bob - I have thought about giving a wedgie a time or 2
Back when I was a youth director, I never gave a kid in my youth group a wedgie… I just used the ancient method of saying wishfully that so and so really needed a wedgie and then walking out of the room… the guys in my youth group took it from there.
Having been principal of a middle school, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have given a kid a wedgie. One of the biggest sources of conflict in our school was the boys locker room prior to the 7th and 8th grade P.E. period. In private, Christian schools these days, you have a lot of parents who are very overprotective of their kids and we really had to crack down on that kind of thing after having a couple of families, with Dad as a lawyer, make noises about lawsuits.
There’s been a major paradigm shift in child-rearing these days, and a lot of parents are extremely sensitive about anything that might be considered humiliating or belittling. Adults must be very careful.
Tom and Kevin,
Makes me glad that I was NEVER in your youth groups…LOL
Couldn’t fathom doing such a thing…or allowing anyone else to do it.
Youth Group Member’s Attorney: “Did you order a wedgie on the youth group member?
Tom Bryant: “I did my job!”
Youth Group Member’s Attorney: “DID YOU ORDER A WEDGIE ON THE YOUTH GROUP MEMBER?”
Tom: “You’re *** **** right I did!!!!”
If you think wedgies are bad. There’s a new technique that is often more volating. It’s called the credit check. It involves using your hand like a credit card an “swiping” it between the cheeks of the ass-aliant. It’s necessary to make sure if someone’s credit is good or not. I hear it’s the new wedgie.
That’s far beyond a wedgie or a swipe stuart. That’s full fledged prostate exam territory there.
you guys just can’t handle the truth…
stuart… not without double thick plastic gloves and a full hazmat suit …
Thankfully I didn’t face any of these! I can’t think of an equivalent thing that happened to the females of the youth group. I recall two youth ministers talking about giving “swirlys” to the guys though. So hated learning what those were!
[...] Messerli was suspended for two days without pay and four days with pay for grabbing a Park High senior’s soccer jersey and pulling it over his head and giving the student a “wedgie” by pulling up on the waist band of his underwear. The incident happened on Oct. 5 at a junior varsity … IMHO Good articleLink to original article [...]