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I thank Jack Clark for renewing my anger regarding the cheating scandal involving the academic decathlon team at Steinmetz High School a few years ago [May 19]. Having worked in college admissions for the better part of the last decade, and having visited both Whitney Young and Steinmetz High School on numerous occasions, I was particularly interested in seeing how HBO would deal with the scandal in the movie Cheaters. I was appalled then to see that Cheaters turned the scandal into yet another story of a ragtag group of goofball “rebels” who take on the privileged elite and are supposed to gain our sympathies despite the fact that instead of fighting the good fight, they steal, cheat, and lie to overcome the odds. Coach Plecki’s subsequent justification that cheating is simply a normal part of life is succeeded in stupidity and venality only by HBO’s attempt to give this concept validation by turning this group of pathetic liars into heroes.
Chuck Walz
