York runners charged with arson, update

How a couple kids behave shows nothing about what kind of man Newton is. He has like 200 kids on the team and 3 f*** up. Yeah it MUST be his fault. You f***tard.

runnnnnnner wrote:

How a couple kids behave shows nothing about what kind of man Newton is. He has like 200 kids on the team and 3 f*** up. Yeah it MUST be his fault. You f***tard.

Agree 100%

I am no big fan of his, but to claim this is somehow his fault is either the opinion of:

1) an extreme idiot or

2) someone who is very very jealous of him.

or maybe both.

Does anyone know what ended up happening with this case?

Any updates?

Unfortunately, this type of incident isn't as uncommon as people like to believe. In certain communities/schools where such an emphasis is placed on sports, it's easy to create an aura of invincibility among young kids. They're on top of their little worlds and believe they can get away with a lot.

Remember that high school football team from Dallas in the late 80's? They won the State championship and had like 10 blue chip recruits...4-5 of whom got convicted for armed robbery. It was a middle/upper-middle class community (like York) and they did it because (their own words) they thought they'd get away with it. There was also an incident about 2 years ago where some runner in Indiana got sent up for dealing drugs. I'm sure there's a lot more but the specific incidents aren't my point.

The point I'm getting at is that York seems primed for something like this. Being a member of such a noteworthy team in a community that places such a strong emphasis on running would really make a young kid's head get bigger. It breeds a bad combination of ignorance (of how important they are in the grand scheme of things) and arrogance that leads them to do stupid shit like set a house on fire or steal stuff.

Published September 8, 2006, 10:30 AM CDT

Two former members of York Community High School's cross-country team received one-year sentences today for burning down a $1 million home under construction in a prank.

Justin Jones and Brian Marchese, both 18 and from Elmhurst, pleaded guilty in July to setting fire to the home as well as to a school bus several days later. They could have been sentenced to 7 years.

"This will disrupt their lives but not more so than what they did to their victims," said DuPage County Judge George Bakalis in sentencing each of the teens to nine months of work release in the county jail plus a straight 90-day sentence.

"Before this, they were model teenagers and both came from good families. But neither can explain their actions. Maybe just bored teenagers," Bakalis said.

Under terms of the sentence, the teens can be released from jail only for school or work. Bakalis also placed them on 36 months probation and ordered them to perform 250 hours of public service and to register with the state as convicted arsonists.

Bakalis also ordered the teens' families to pay restitution of $1.3 million. The families have pledged to pay $100,000 each, and the remainder will likely be regarded as an unsatisfied judgement.

Both defendants had been members of the school's highly ranked cross-country team as juniors in 2004, but were dropped from the team and expelled after the July 2005 fires. The team later won the state championship.

Those children /criminals caused an unbelievable amount of pain and suffering. One year is hardly enough of a punishment and the families pledging to pay $100,000 doesn't start to cover the damages even done to the neighboring homes, let alone the the one that burned to the ground. Those who think that insurance pays for everything is sorely mistaken. One needs to fight tooth and nail to get the insurance company to pay for things. They will never cover all of the losses sustained by these families.

it is true that runners tend to be more well mannered because if we are serious about the sport, we eat and breathe running, we obsess over what we eat and how fit we are and how fast we can go so we tend to keep ourselves too busy to skrew up and we don't do bad things because they are bad for us. especially because skrewing up reflects poorly on who we represent, especially if you are a varsity team member you have your entire team counting on you to place well and not mess up because you have team members looking up to you and depending on you to deliver. oftentimes though, that kind of pressure is the very thing that can make a runner skrew up. A lot of the time runners are SUCH good kids that when they are growing up they don't leave a lot of time for being a teenager. Being a teenager is all about rebellion and the way good runner kids rebel is by f***ing up like these kids did. It happens a lot more often than people know because usually its not this publicized but then again, it usually isn't something this horrible and huge. Im not making an excuse for what they did, it just might explain why..a little.

While much of this may be true, and people do screw up, is there some reason you brought this up more than 2 years after the last post on this matter?

Stacey Bussio wrote:

skrewing up ... skrew up. .

really?

You bumped a 3 year old thread for this?

What are you, one of their sisters defending them around the internet?

Interesting. The recently-released DVD just says three years' probation (plus the restitution). It also say that the two varsity guys are now running at the College of DuPage (or whatever the correct name is).

Oh, I see. A DVD.

Are these 2 little shits making any money on this? Is it going toward restitution?

oftenrunning52 wrote:

How moronic must you be!!!

"be???"

Stacey Bussio wrote:

A lot of the time runners are SUCH good kids that when they are growing up they don't leave a lot of time for being a teenager. Being a teenager is all about rebellion and the way good runner kids rebel is by f***ing up like these kids did.

It's easy to see when a kid rebels, so people think it's part of being a teenager. Just because it's more common in teens than any other age group doesn't mean that rebellion is part of the teenage experience.

Also, anecdotally, I would add that for a lot of runners, RUNNING is rebellion, and SUCCESS is rebellion. We are becoming a culture of fat people with no ambition beyond making the next buck. More muscle! More size! Super size it! When I was in HS, everyone else I knew was all about the big-guy sports; football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer. Running, and succeeding through hard work and many miles, was my form of rebellion against that culture. I can't imagine needing anything more.

The York kids got a bad shake in terms of publicity, but if they were being stupid, then they need to accept the consequences of their actions. Let's not pussy-foot around the issue- they burnt a house down.

These kids are good kids, ya they did something bad but were kids... We do stupid shit. Get over it! Nobody was hurt, so what a house was burnt down

You bumped a thread where the last post was over 2 and a half years ago? What's the point in this?

Ridiculous wrote:

These kids are good kids, ya they did something bad but were kids... We do stupid shit. Get over it! Nobody was hurt, so what a house was burnt down

Certainly, doesn't sound like good kids to me. How would you feel if your dumba$$ kid cost you $100, 000 because he 'felt' like burning down someone's house!? Are you serious?! Then, they clearly didn't feel bad or learn their lesson because they went out of their way to burn a school bus. Yeah, luckily no one was hurt, but, just plain stupid.

love when random threads get bumped from way way back....saw the DVD on these kids, it looked like they knew they did wrong and learned from it. Seemed like normal, nice kid

runnnnnnner wrote:

How a couple kids behave shows nothing about what kind of man Newton is. He has like 200 kids on the team and 3 f*** up. Yeah it MUST be his fault. You f***tard.

Of course if they were black it would damn an entire race of people.