By 1998 the four year old Valencia High School had suffered mightily at the athletic dominance of Hart High School, so a recent resident and politically active head of Associated Student Body (“ASB”) named Frank Ferry decided to pull a prank on the uptight institution.
The prank only worked because Hart, like many demonstrably dominant institutions and their partisans, possess a brittle self esteem that can really brook no criticism. In other words, they must be good at EVERYTHING or that calls into question their goodness and dominance.
The ASB purchased two full page ads in the Signal to run after the Valencia home basketball game against Hart that winter. The “ads” were made to look like a news story with lots of photographs, “reporting” on Valencia’s win of the “Spirit Award” as the result of fan and student body behavior at that game.
The compeition had been judged by unnamed parents from Saugus and Canyon, who concluded that the Valencia fans showed more good sportsmanship and enthusiasm than the Hart fans, and thus had the best “Spirit.” (There was also some indirect implication that this was a Foothill League award, so Valencia was the best in the conference.) My favorite photo was of the president of ASB accepting a six foot tall “Spirt” trophy on behalf of the Valencia fans.
Guess what! This was a complete sham and satire. There were no judges, no contest and no trophy! Hart fans reacted predictably by sending in a raft of letters to the editor complaining about the fairness of the competition but mainly about they fact they were not notified of a competition (with the implication that they would have acted differently).
Now the Valencia fans could REALLY laugh because the uptight Hart fans had bought the grift hook, like and sinker. A second raft of letters nearly accused the Signal of treason for selling the ad and thus conspiring in the prank.
I must confess that like any good American I enjoy when the powerful are made to look ridiculous. Since Frank Ferry was the inspiration for this great prank (he was running for City Council for the second time and would succeed in April of that year) I pledged my vote to him FOREVER!!!
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Thank you so much for the indepth explanation.
I did not know this about Mr. Ferry (his antics/behavior) during that time period, however it confirms my first (and current) opinion of the man and how I felt when he pratically had a tantrum during a public meeting…some MEN will always be BOYS!
NickelDIme, as usual, you are correct. As I’ve stated before, the Devil said “it’s a deal” and forever after, the Valencia Vikings have been cursed. They will never win a CIF Football title because of this.
But I do admire this prank. This is impressive. But as in other facets of his life, Mr. Ferry thought he could accomplish things by screaming and making a fuss.
I personally think the best prank by a Council person or council wannabe occurred just two years ago when TBB advertised a book burning by the Citizens Literature Commission.
It was a hoax, of course, timed to coincide with the City’s Read week (in which we were supposed to read F451).
People got outraged about the book burning, which was a good sign for our Democracy, I think.
Here on SCVTalk Petz got wood and had loaded up the Aztek with books by Obama/Clinton etc. But he too was fooled.
True story.
No. I think he stole them from the County library