As someone who grew up in a house full of attorneys, I've always found them to be much more lovable than most lawyer jokes would imply. While not every attorney is as dreamy as Jimmy Smits on "L.A. Law," most of them aren't nearly as bad as "The Wire's" Maurice Levy, either. Still, every once in awhile, some jerk with a law degree -- and a capacious vocabulary -- manages to drag down the entire profession with his blockheaded pov.
In the case of George Atis (esquire, natch), he tried to turn a hockey rink into a courtroom and make an innocent 12-year-old -- the only girl on an all-boys team -- feel like a defendant. Take it away, Toronto Star:
The controversy that seized the Toronto Ice Dogs PeeWee "A" club -- minor hockey's lowest level of competitive play -- emerged last month at a parents' meeting called by George Atis, who has a child on the team, but is not part of the coaching staff.
The Thornhill lawyer drafted the agenda, which included this item: "Kayla Watkins -- Player Ability Limitations and Suggested Options."
"It is now 14 games into the season and I have noticed that Kayla's play has not improved," the agenda reads. "It is at the point where many of the team members do not want to play on this team if this situation is not addressed."
Atis then details two possible options for consideration, either moving Kayla from defence to forward and keeping her off of power plays and penalty kills, or playing her every second shift on defence and again keeping her off special teams "until her skating and shooting improves."
"If Kayla is NOT amenable to the above options, the coach should find Kayla a new team to play on -- commensurate to her skill level -- for the balance of the season," the agenda reads.
Never mind that the player in question was a girl; writing an "agenda" to your child's coach about the shortcomings of another player on the team is just despicable. If the coach had taken issue with the girl's play, then it would have been his job to take action. Second, only a pompous jerk would write said agenda as though he were addressing a judge in a landmark case. Congrats on learning such big words, guy. Now, how's about you learn how to be a compassionate, levelheaded human being?
After underscoring the reasons he believed Kayla to be sub-par on the ice, Atis also mentioned that "there have been many 'near miss' incidents where the boys have almost been exposed to Kayla" in the locker room. Wait, it gets better. When word got out about his little stunt and public opinion was not in his favor, he blamed Kayla's mother and grandmother for accidentally allowing the girl to find the agenda. "As a parent," he said, "my heart goes out to her. If Kayla truly read this agenda by accident, it is very unfortunate ... I am mortified that Vanessa or Sheree or whoever shared this agenda with Kayla would actually do so ... I believe Kayla's feelings could have been spared. That, to me, is the great shame in this process that Kayla would feel as she did."
Yes, the greatest shame is certainly that she found an agenda -- where an adult childishly and heartlessly degraded her. It's right up there with the fact that this offensive missive was written in the first place.
In the end, Kayla felt so uncomfortable returning to the team that she quit and joined the all-girls North York Storm. She told the Toronto Star of her new team, "Everyone's nice to each other. It doesn't matter if we win or lose. If we lose a game, it's okay because everyone picks each other up."
Sounds like those little North York Storm hockey players play like a bunch of girls.
