The Pincher Creek Voice may not exactly be the Calgary Herald in terms of delivering the day’s top news to the fine people of Alberta, but it has provided us with a sports story that’s sure to keep the hot take machines rolling for another day or two. A teenager named Liam Nazarek was the subject of a Voice article last Friday, as it was revealed that he’d been benched and then booted by his coach on the Junior Dust Devils baseball team because of his long hair. An easy setup for the obvious Simpsons joke, Nazarek’s story is just a little more complicated than some punk ass 16-year old refusing to cut his hair while cranking the volume on his favorite Rush record.
According to his mom, Nazarek has been growing his hair long since last summer so he can cut it off in September and donate the scraps to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer. His coach, Bryan MacKenzie, agreed with most people that the idea is commendable, but there’s simply no place on his team for uncivilized rapscallions with their long hair and nipple rings (I assume). Nazarek’s mom, Kimberly Jorgenson, took the next logical step and cornered Mackenzie with a hidden camera, so she could upload the video to Facebook and watch it go viral.
[protected-iframe id=”a4678fff5311c0f8773419a995780cf3-60970621-60085469″ info=”https://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=9ba4b1e5e090″ width=”650″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””]
It’s hard to hear everything that’s happening in this video, between the wind blowing on the microphone and Jorgenson and her ex-husband bickering, but it seems that MacKenzie firmly believes that there’s no room for good intentions within the rules of his team. This is a matter of building character by making kids have short hair, and not by letting them do good things for other people. Additionally, Jorgenson is the person we should be wagging our fingers at, according to the Pincher Creek Minor Baseball Association.
“The parent in this situation manipulated the situation using social media,” said the league in a statement. “This is totally unacceptable if not only because it sets a terrible example for our children. There was no respect in this situation whatsoever.” (Via Opposing Views)
I will update this story as soon as I figure out what kind of example the Pincher Creek baseball league believes is not terrible for children. At this point I assume that it’s “Whatever Bryan MacKenzie says, all right?” followed by a stream of tobacco juice being spit on my face.
