From Broad and Pattison to Disney: Bullies Are Nothing to Laugh At

When I was a kid, the Philadelphia Flyers earned the nickname “The Broad Street Bullies” for their brutally physical style of play. Their bloody knuckles and toothless grins won hearts of championship-starved Philadelphians who had watched all their teams get bullied around for years.

Playing street hockey in those days, I felt first hand how the Broad Street Bullies inspired my friends.  We didn’t have too many fistfights playing, but our games were as much about checks and bruises as they were about passes and shots. Our goalie was the only one who wore any kinds of pads, so I didn’t finish many games without black and blue marks covering my arms and legs.

I wonder how many pro teams would be comfortable with a bully nickname today? Sure, the players and coaches might not mind it—they might even revel in it. Bullying, when it comes to sports, conjures images of hard-hitting play. The marketing and advertising departments, on the other hand, would scramble away from that image.

A bully label is the kind of thing most people ought to shy away from these days. When we take the word bully lightly, we minimize a crisis that effect millions of children every day. Accurate bullying statistics are hard to obtain because victims are often reticent to report it. However, stats from the Centers for Disease Control show about 25 percent of American kids have been bullied. That’s one in four. Watch the kids in your neighborhood get off the school bus. Pick out four kids. One of them got bullied in school that day.

For years, we told kids to suck it up when they complained about getting bullied. We considered bullying a natural part of growing up, a right of passage. Dealing with bullies was supposed to teach kids courage and inner toughness.

Problem is, it didn’t exactly work out that way.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among American teenagers and bully victims are two to nine times more likely to commit suicide than other teens. Here’s another frightening statistic: 160,000 kids stay home from school everyday so they don’t have to confront a bully. Over a hundred thousand kids…kids living on every street, every block…your neighbor’s kid…your friend’s kid…maybe even your kid…afraid to go to school.

Bullying is not just “getting picked on.” It’s not having a little fun at another kid’s expense. Bullying is violence and intimidation. It’s physical and psychological torture. It’s assault.

So, how much bullying should we accept? Bullying on the ice in a pro hockey game? Bullying on the neighborhood soccer pitch? Bullying on the playground? Bullying on the bus? Bullying on TV?

Those are questions worth thinking about. The easy answer is, of course, none. We shouldn’t accept any bullying. Unfortunately, reality isn’t that simple.

Here’s what I mean:

Buford Von Stomm is a character on the popular Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb. Buford is a bully who routinely targets a nerdy smart kid named Baljeet. Buford, who wears a black T-shirt with a skull, comes off as bully with a heart of gold. He’s got his own fears—like little Suzy Johnson. He’s got a soft spot for his teddy bear, his gold fish and even his nerd Baljeet. But Buford is a bully. He makes no secret of it. He even lives by The Bully Code.

We can get crazy with political correctness in this country. Criticizing an otherwise charming and intelligent cartoon like Phineas and Ferb because of one character is a bit obsessive. Disney walks a fine line with Buford, but walks it well. We can laugh at a cartoonish bully…

But we can’t laugh at bullying itself.

Which brings us back to Flyers. I’ve met a number of the guys from team that won two Stanley Cups in the 1970s. Off the ice they were good guys, pleasant with fans and fun to be around on the golf course or in a sports bar. They could get a little crazy off the ice, but they weren’t bullies. They didn’t need to be. They were champs.

Real bullying is what people resort to when they can’t win any other way.