YOUTH WATCH : Devilish Doings

Defiance seems to come with the territory in adolescence. Hasn’t anybody ever told officials at Mission Viejo High School that one way to ensure that teen-agers will want to do something is to tell them they can’t?

In this case, the issue is over the high school’s mascot, which was changed seven years ago from a devil to a bulldog because some parents objected to a satanic image being used to symbolize school spirit. Even so, school sports teams still are called the Diablos, which is Spanish for devils, primarily because it cost too much to change school logos.

For that and other reasons, a lot of students never took to the fierce canine that replaced their previous mascot. Recently, some of them have been donning caps and T-shirts with devilish visages on them, and school officials have been pressuring the students not to wear them. More seriously, head football coach Mike Rush said he resigned March 5 because the school wanted him to sign an agreement making him responsible for what his players wore.

School officials say they haven’t suspended or even threatened to suspend any student caught wearing a devil insignia, although one football player maintains that he was threatened with suspension.

Obviously, enough of an issue has been made of it that students and some faculty and parents are upset.

What’s next? Banning devil’s food cake from the cafeteria? Among Webster’s dictionary’s definitions of devilish are these: “mischievous; energetic.” Now that’s giving the devil his due.