News item: Some students at Plainfield High School, not merely a collection of football players, ran afoul of behavioral guidelines recently, sharing sexually explicit photos and videos during a group chat, according to several published reports.

The headlines, however, read: “FOOTBALL TEAM SUSPENDED AT PLAINFIELD.”

And once again, the lesson is reiterated.

The reality dramatized.

Prominent varsity high school athletes are beholden to almost intimidating levels of responsibility.

Indeed, the same kids whose positive exploits make the papers before all the other kids in the school are the first to make the papers, too, when the news is less flattering.

Have we heard much about the regular Janes and Joes who participated in the aforementioned photo swap? Not at all. Not when there are football players involved.

Hence, this is a story that applies to high school athletes throughout the country, not just Plainfield. It’s not even about the act itself. It’s about understanding your responsibility to a team, accountability to your teammates and even the challenges of life as a public figure.

That’s right. High school athletes are public figures. They are veritable celebrities in their own schools. Everyone else knows who they are. Everyone else watches them. Everyone else waits. And they wait for them to make a mistake, thus turning the blessing of celebrity into a curse.

Yes, they wait. Lurk. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they’re just pathetic. It doesn’t matter. The prominent high school athlete must understand the meaning of Luke 12:48 in the Bible: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

And so when your coach stands before you, as all coaches do, begging you to have a deeper sense of obligation to things that are greater than your own self-interest, an obligation to think the consequences all the way through, he or she isn’t hurling clichés. It’s the deepest truth.

Here’s why: The kid who gets on the bus after school and goes straight home, the one who isn’t involved in any extracurriculars whatsoever, has nobody else relying on him. His behavior affects nobody else. He sends the same photos. He gets caught. He gets punished. Nobody else does. But the athlete? He or she could imperil an entire season for teammates and coaches with one bad decision.

Plus, there’s the idea of an athlete’s standing within the school as a means to teach lessons to the rest of the student body. Example: A prominent, two-sport athlete at a local high school, a kid I really like, got a detention last year for walking through the hallways wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up. It’s likely the same anonymous kid who gets on the bus right after school wouldn’t have been in trouble for a relatively minor violation. Nobody knows the kid. The message gets lost.

But the athlete? The message: If he gets in trouble for not following the rules, you’ll all get in trouble for not following the rules.

It is not a complaint about the unfairness of it all.

It is a fact.

If you are a football or basketball player in your school — or if you play on one of your school’s marquee sports — you need to understand, above all else, that there’s always somebody watching. And waiting.

Finally, a word about Plainfield High. I’ve seen too many “here we go again” storylines in and out of social media in recent days. Seems a few dim bulbs want to tie last season’s racial incident after a football game between Plainfield and New London to this latest flap.

Stop. They couldn’t possibly be more mutually exclusive. Know what happened last year? A few townies felt the need to broadcast their views on race relations. A group of Plainfield kids, sounding considerably more educated then their elders, made a video condemning hate speech. I met many of them a few days later. I left thinking Plainfield High was a pretty cool place.

Know what happened this year? Some kids — not merely football players — did something dumb. They got caught. They’ve been punished. The entire football team has to forfeit a game for the actions of a few.

There’s no “here we go again.”

There’s just a bunch of kids who get to learn the concepts of responsibility and accountability the hard way.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius