Prom King Gives Up Crown To Save Classmate From Disgrace (Congratulations on Being A Good Human No. 4)

(Last week I missed a day of posts due to server issues so I’m delivering those via a couple rare Saturday posts.)

High School Cruelty

Last year, in Michigan, a high school class used Homecoming nominations to cruelly platform and mock an unpopular student. She took it hard, telling the Detroit News, “I thought I wasn’t worthy. I was this big old joke.” When word leaked out about the teens’ antics, the community raised money and effort to try to redeem the girl’s experience.

Something similar just happened in Corpus Christi, Texas with similarly table-turning results. Tyrell Clay, an undeniably well-liked quarterback for Corpus Christi High School, was jokingly nominated for Prom King against Adam Chadwick whose high school social experience revolved around being bullied and called names.

When he heard he was nominated, Adam responded, “Obviously some people were just messing with me.” But even though he was anxious about it, Adam decided to stick with the crowd and represent his class.

I’d like to say that the class grew a collective heart and voted Adam in as king (or that they did away with the concept of Homecoming court altogether maybe), but what happened wasn’t a storybook ending. At least not right away.

Tyrell won, as expected…most assumed by a landslide.

But the instant after winning, when Tyrell glanced over at Adam who clearly felt awkward and embarrassed, Tyrell immediately walked over to Adam and gave up his crown to his classmate. As Tyrell stepped back, the attenders then followed his lead and applauded wildly…for Adam.

Adam says being crowned king by the most popular kid in school has improved his self-esteem.

While I’m not–like many of you–a fan of superficial contests adding or subtracting self-esteem from anyone…and while this small act of vigilantism clearly won’t right all things shallow in American subculture…and while many of us wouldn’t assign much validity or seriousness to a high school context, I don’t deny what happened there was a to-scale act of social courage in the best interest of the vulnerable.

After all, we all know people’s hearts are still damaged and salvaged in the most temporary and skewed sorts of contexts. And opportunity doesn’t always have to be world-changing to still be meaningful and rescuing to someone.

That’s why I’m featuring Tyrell Clay in this week’s Congratulations on Being a Good Human.

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