Editor’s Note: This is one of two columns about the Lincoln High School girls’ basketball controversy. Opinion Editor Aaron Gott’s column can be found here.

Team pictures, boastful local businesses and a jam-packed game calendar – that is what is expected from a high school girl’s basketball team poster. The Des Moines Lincoln girl’s basketball team decided to spin its promotional poster in a different direction.

No sooner did the New Year get underway than this local school came under fire.

Ten girls posed around the words “Mission: Impossible” with toy guns. Their mission is to win the metro conference, but all they got was media attention for their use of guns in a school-sponsored promotional poster. The photo was taken, mounted and a finished product produced, but was then turned down by principal Al Graziano.

In order to be allowed in school halls, a flier or poster must be approved by the principal. Graziano looked at this poster and saw the ramifications of it. He refused to allow such a poster in the halls and informed the coach and team that they could not be sent out to local business. The businesses now must be refunded and the girls must either redo the poster or find a way to change the guns to something else.

Toy guns are obviously unacceptable for a school poster. You wouldn’t allow such things in a school, why would you allow them in something pertaining to school-sponsored events? It is against most school policies, including Lincoln’s, to display weapons- toy or otherwise- in school environments.

These posters usually contain a simple team photo, but lately there has been a surge in creativity and use of themes. Coaches use their discretion when producing these posters. They can decide the themes and layouts without prior approval from principals or other school officials.

Jerry Schartner, coach of the girl’s basketball team, has made the decisions on these posters for the past 15 years with no incident. Graziano’s only justification for Schartner’s lapse in judgment was that he “did not foresee the ramifications [of using guns in the poster].”

Last year’s school shootings should have been a very large indication of the outcry that the use of guns would produce. They should not be allowed just because they are used to portray a theme. There are other perfectly acceptable ways to get the point across and if they could not find one, the team needed to change its theme.

Schools across the country make these posters, and this has not been the first incident. Underwood High School also had a similar experience with the use of toy guns a few years ago. Those posters were also collected and went unused.

Somewhere along the line someone should have stood up to say, “this cannot be okay.” From the conception of the idea to the finished product, a coach, ten varsity team players and at least one photographer saw the picture and knew the plan for the poster. Did no one down the line think that the use of guns would be wrong?

If a student brought an inappropriate flier to school and asked that it be put up, they would get detention at the very least, if not a suspension. This crime seems to be going unpunished. The team and school lost over a thousand dollars and all anyone seems to be saying is “whoops.”

People have no problem condemning a losing coach and losing team, but when it comes to a winning coach they get nothing more than a slap on the wrist, if even that.

There is no question that the poster was wrong, and Al Graziano did the right thing by not allowing them to release the poster. The removal of the posters should not be the end of the story. Coach Schartner should be disciplined for his actions in all of this.

Lincoln’s mission this year will not only be to win the Metro Conference, but also live down the controversy they started so early in the new year.

– Emily Garringer is a junior in marketing from Williamsburg.