Not just another Friday night. A chance to set a new goal.

It had all the makings of a memorable high school football game.

The smell of concessions cut through the cool, fall air.

Students and cheerleaders were dressed in a Hawaiian theme.

A crowd, comparable in size to the one gathered just down the road at the biggest public high school in Wayne County, showed up to support the home team.

Sure, Wayne Christian doesn’t have nearly the setup of Charles B. Aycock or Goldsboro High School, but there is a certain charm in seeing hundreds of fans in lawn chairs lining the rope separating the field from the “stands.”

It feels familiar — instantly taking you back to the days when sports were fun, before teenagers were competing for bragging rights, championships and scholarships.

Wayne Christian has something, right there on display for everyone to see, that other schools seem, at times, to have lost.

They are a community.

And it’s a special thing to witness.

Friday night could have seen the most competitive game in Wayne County unfold within that environment — a local team that’s on a roll squaring off with a recent state champion from Kinston.

But that isn’t what happened.

And it’s a shame.

Bethel Christian Academy jumped out to an early 14-0 lead on two explosive plays, but the young men from Wayne Christian made their fans proud — fighting back late in the first quarter with a drive that looked like it was going to result in a touchdown.

And despite being down two scores, the Eagles had swagger.

But then, senior Addison Johnson took off down the field on a quarterback keeper.

He made several Bethel defenders miss. And then, after absorbing two big hits that forced him out of bounds, he kept his feet, looking back at the two physically bigger young men who failed to take him to the ground.

That’s when the wheels came off.

Bethel players started throwing punches.

Members of the Wayne Christian team jumped in to protect their teammates.

Helmets came off and were used as weapons.

Even coaches got involved in the fray.

Read that again.

Coaches.

A brawl ensued.

And this was no minute-long affair. In fact, every time it seemed the coaches and referees had gotten control, another player would charge one of his opponents.

Somebody could have gotten hurt.

A fan.

One of the little girls shadowing the Wayne Christian cheerleaders.

A ball boy.

So how did this happen? 

If you watch football, you likely find nothing wrong with how Addison Johnson responded when he got popped by those two defenders. You see NFL stars do it every Sunday.

“Think you can tackle me?” they say with their body language. “Think again.”

So how did a seemingly routine football play lead to chaos?

It started days ago, when members of these teams found each other online.

They began going back and forth on social media.

It lasted all week — with students using rhetoric that crossed the line of typical pre-game banter.

Then, add in, as one reader pointed out, the egos and hormones coursing through the bodies of teenage boys, and it starts to make more sense.

But it doesn’t excuse the behavior of the Bethel players.

Not even a little bit.

And it doesn’t excuse how the Eagles responded, as practical as it might seem to stand up for a teammate and friend.

As parents, teachers, coaches and mentors, we have a responsibility to ensure our children don’t go unchecked on the ever-growing social media landscape.

If we don’t, we’ll read more headlines about post-rivalry game shootings, like the one that unfolded at Cookout after the Goldsboro High School/Southern Wayne game a few weeks ago.

And despite the fact that Bethel forfeited the game — and its team clearly started the melee — Wayne Christian families and staff should use this as a teachable moment, too.

We are sure those conversations were started last night in the locker room and continued at homes across the county.

But one reader’s suggestion that this story shouldn’t be told misses the mark.

This was not an in-house altercation.

This was public. 

So, every coach and player — no matter the sport — should confront what happened as the sun was setting off Patetown Road.

And we, as the grown-ups, have a responsibility to acknowledge that some of us don’t always have complete control of our children.

We leave them, often unchecked, to engage with each other on social media.

We are eager to blame the other kid and argue our child has the right — even the responsibility — to defend him or herself because it’s more difficult to teach them how to turn the other cheek.

And we cheer on Sundays when fights break out during professional games.

We need to be better.

Several readers — including my teenage daughter — know that we were in the middle of that melee. Naturally, many have asked to see our photographs.

But publishing them would only perpetuate the notion that there was something worth seeing beyond the wonderful athletic tradition Wayne Christian is building.

The Eagles have so much to be proud of. And for a few minutes, the warm, inviting, community environment they have created took us back to those childhood days we wish we could relive.

But the game, itself, should only be revisited to teach those under our respective wings what true sportsmanship looks like.

And that wasn’t it. 

What happened Friday cannot be laid solely at the feet of any one school, one inappropriate action, or one bad decision by a parent or coach on how to react.

A lot contributed to what unfolded on that field. 

But it was a jolt, a realization that the qualities that make us worry about social media, interactions between teenagers on it and the message it sends about conflict resolution and peer interaction, can slime into any school environment, any home — even ones that openly talk about how to live a principled life.

And that is scary.

As a community, we look to schools like Wayne Christian — a thriving academic environment where parents are clearly involved in the lives of their children — as a beacon of hope, because we know that many students attending the schools around them are raising themselves, joining gangs and committing crime.

So, if we cannot keep the consequences from how we live our lives these days and the influencers that set our standards online out of an environment like Wayne Christian, what hope do we have of preventing its intrusion into schools with at-risk populations, where some students are armed with more than just a helmet or fist?

That’s why we don’t need to excuse this one away or let ourselves slip into judgment without a good, hard look at how easily that could have happened anywhere on any given Friday night in this county.

It is not the fact that incidents like this happen that is the shame.

The real tragedy is not taking responsibility for them and figuring out how to create an environment where they don’t happen anywhere.

So let’s talk, not just about this Friday, but all the Fridays.

Let’s examine what our children see, hear and read.

And then, let’s figure out how to do better.