service and moved the family back to his native home of Colorado .
From most accounts, it was hard for Eric to leave his friends behind each time he moved. Ken Caryl Middle School in Littleton would be the seventh school he had attended since kindergarten .
Eric and Brooks never spoke at Ken Caryl, although Eric and Dylan became friends. Both loved computers, video games, and baseball. However, it would not be until their high school years that Eric and Dylan would become inseparable. Both were computer-savvy, both felt like outcasts, and both knew the pain of bullies and rejection .
Also, both were quickly rejected by the establishment at Columbine .
Eric's older brother Kevin was a kicker for the Columbine football team. Kevin had always been friendly toward us. He was technically the “jock” in the family, and he'd give us a hard time about being freshmen,but it was always good-natured. Kevin was on the football team because he loved the game. It wasn't about status.
I've always enjoyed sports, but not the mentality that seems to go with them. I played basketball in junior high and enjoyed going to professional sports games with friends. Sometimes Dylan would talk to me about the fantasy football leagues he played in. The games themselves are great—I can relate to the excitement and the competition. But what I don't relate to are the people who equate sports with status. “I am a football player, and therefore I'm better than you.” “I am a basketball player, and therefore I deserve to make out with all the cheerleaders. Pathetic geeks like you are not on my level.” I couldn't understand that. I didn't see any reason to play a sport other than pure love of the game. Too many people at Columbine seemed to be playing for other reasons.
I don't mean to imply that all jocks in the world are jerks. I've known athletes who are good people. The thing is, Columbine's culture worshipped the athlete—and that unconditional adulation had a pretty bad effect on many of the jocks at our school.
Eric shared my opinion on that. That's why he didn't play for the Columbine soccer team, even though he loved soccer.
Yet Eric loved his brother, and he loved going to games during our freshman year to watch Kevin play. Some have suggested that there was some sibling rivalry there, since Kevin was a football player and Eric hated football players, but I never noticed any problems. There we were, cheering in the stands—and Eric was cheering as loud as the rest of us.
During freshman year, we formed a circle of friends that included Zach Heckler, Nick Baumgart, Eric, and Dylan. Our favorite place to hang out was the Columbine library.
The library was a great place to trade jokes, or sit and talk about how much we hated the school. Conversations like those were nothing unusual. But we'd have fun, too.
Nick earned himself a reputation early on as the clown of Columbine's Class of 1999. We quickly discovered that he would do virtually anything for money, no matter how stupid or humiliating it was. Once we paid him to make an ass of himself in the library by hitting on a girl he liked.
Usually this money would be no more than the couple of quarters that we could scrape together at the time, but for Nick, it was the principle of the thing. He didn't really care about the money; he just knew that he could make people laugh, and that it was his “designated role” at Columbine to be the clown. So he filled that role with a flourish.
Sometimes we would get so rowdy with our jokes that we'd get kicked out of the library for the rest of the day. Most of the time, though, we did our best to avoid causing trouble. After all, our favorite thing was using school computers to surf the Internet, and we didn't want to lose that privilege.
Freshman year was the best, because there were relatively few restrictions. In 1995 the Internet was still a relatively new trend, and school officials didn't know that much about what was on it. So
From most accounts, it was hard for Eric to leave his friends behind each time he moved. Ken Caryl Middle School in Littleton would be the seventh school he had attended since kindergarten .
Eric and Brooks never spoke at Ken Caryl, although Eric and Dylan became friends. Both loved computers, video games, and baseball. However, it would not be until their high school years that Eric and Dylan would become inseparable. Both were computer-savvy, both felt like outcasts, and both knew the pain of bullies and rejection .
Also, both were quickly rejected by the establishment at Columbine .
Eric's older brother Kevin was a kicker for the Columbine football team. Kevin had always been friendly toward us. He was technically the “jock” in the family, and he'd give us a hard time about being freshmen,but it was always good-natured. Kevin was on the football team because he loved the game. It wasn't about status.
I've always enjoyed sports, but not the mentality that seems to go with them. I played basketball in junior high and enjoyed going to professional sports games with friends. Sometimes Dylan would talk to me about the fantasy football leagues he played in. The games themselves are great—I can relate to the excitement and the competition. But what I don't relate to are the people who equate sports with status. “I am a football player, and therefore I'm better than you.” “I am a basketball player, and therefore I deserve to make out with all the cheerleaders. Pathetic geeks like you are not on my level.” I couldn't understand that. I didn't see any reason to play a sport other than pure love of the game. Too many people at Columbine seemed to be playing for other reasons.
I don't mean to imply that all jocks in the world are jerks. I've known athletes who are good people. The thing is, Columbine's culture worshipped the athlete—and that unconditional adulation had a pretty bad effect on many of the jocks at our school.
Eric shared my opinion on that. That's why he didn't play for the Columbine soccer team, even though he loved soccer.
Yet Eric loved his brother, and he loved going to games during our freshman year to watch Kevin play. Some have suggested that there was some sibling rivalry there, since Kevin was a football player and Eric hated football players, but I never noticed any problems. There we were, cheering in the stands—and Eric was cheering as loud as the rest of us.
During freshman year, we formed a circle of friends that included Zach Heckler, Nick Baumgart, Eric, and Dylan. Our favorite place to hang out was the Columbine library.
The library was a great place to trade jokes, or sit and talk about how much we hated the school. Conversations like those were nothing unusual. But we'd have fun, too.
Nick earned himself a reputation early on as the clown of Columbine's Class of 1999. We quickly discovered that he would do virtually anything for money, no matter how stupid or humiliating it was. Once we paid him to make an ass of himself in the library by hitting on a girl he liked.
Usually this money would be no more than the couple of quarters that we could scrape together at the time, but for Nick, it was the principle of the thing. He didn't really care about the money; he just knew that he could make people laugh, and that it was his “designated role” at Columbine to be the clown. So he filled that role with a flourish.
Sometimes we would get so rowdy with our jokes that we'd get kicked out of the library for the rest of the day. Most of the time, though, we did our best to avoid causing trouble. After all, our favorite thing was using school computers to surf the Internet, and we didn't want to lose that privilege.
Freshman year was the best, because there were relatively few restrictions. In 1995 the Internet was still a relatively new trend, and school officials didn't know that much about what was on it. So
Similar Books
