In defense of High School football and jocks and nerds! (A best of)

[Vagabond]

Logical defends football to DU masses

Logical  (1000+ posts)     Sun Nov-13-11 09:34 AM
Original message
In defense of High School football and jocks and nerds!
 Why so many posts about how people hate football. And how people hated the football players in High School. And how people hate Jocks. I don't get it.

I went to HS in the late 70s. I was a nerd and a computer geek even back then. It was punch cards initially but still computers.

I played football all my life as a kid growing up. I LOVED football. I loved playing it, I loved watching it, I love all there was about it.

My BEST memories of High School are playing on the football team. It was great to be part of the team. To celebrate wins and to regret losses. It was fun to work hard and push yourself to do better. And build up bonds with your teammates.

Some of the guys on the team were idiots. Some were great kids. Since high school, I know one of the guys on our team is in prison and one of them owns 7 hospitals. All this proves is that the make up of the football team was like the rest of society. A mix of good and bad.

But my memories are wonderful and I cherish those years playing. At our last class reunion we sat around and talked about our "Glory Days" and we had fun doing it.

Yep, Most of the kids I knew playing sports were a represenative of the student body, except for maybe the stoners.  The thing is a lot of your fellow DUmmies didn't participate and didn't have "Glory Days" that was their choice, their loss, and one of their cherished things that embitter them.

DrDan  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-13-11 09:46 AM
Response to Original message
1. have to agree - it is one thing to sit behind a keyboard and be strong in anonymity - and
 another to put it on the line in front of hundreds, if not thousands of fans with that big number on your back leaving no doubt as to who you are.

Same for the debaters, the cross-country runners, the chess players. These activites all serve a purpose.

Yep, it was about being willing to put yourself out there.

Bluenorthwest  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-13-11 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
2. In my High School the 'niche' was called education.
 We had no football team at all. We had other priorities. 

My guess is that your niche was sitting home alone on Friday nights.

Bluenorthwest  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-13-11 10:04 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. Not really a point, just an observation...
 Your entire HS experience seems to have revolved around a dynamic that did not exist in my own. Cliques and 'niches' were not the way at my school. That culture is a created culture, and some schools create another one. The paradigm you were raised in 'nerds and jocks' was created for you to live in, it is not the natural state of things it is a choice. The question becomes is that the right choice? Does 'nerds and jocks' and the status implied in that really prepare young people for the real world? Is it the best preparation? What is taught within the athletics that does help a young person move forward in life? Will they be asked to catch a long pass at a job interview? No. Perhaps it is the 'team work' and the sense of honor in sports? If that is the case, then events such as those in the current news do call that presumption to light, you know? If it is about honor or loyalty, then clearly some sports programs fail deeply in teaching that.
In a school, any activity needs to teach useful skills. If team sports teach 'protect powerful people at the cost of weaker people' they are not teaching anything, and thus have no place in education.
I think the main problem in sports culture is that it is seen as beyond reproach or examination, any flaws, even such flaws as Penn State displayed, are not to be brought to light, out of service to a paradigm that many of us do not see as worth protecting to that extreme.

You didn't even read his post, did you?  He had fun doing more than one thing and hanging woth more than one group.  Things like teamwork, accountability, and communication translate readily to almost any workplace.  He didn't mention Penn State, and what you speak of is the exception, not the rule.

Fumesucker  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-13-11 09:58 AM
Response to Original message
5. Yes, you loved it..
 Not everyone did, particularly those who are built more like a jockey than a linebacker.

Why is that so hard for some people to understand?

The smallest guy on my varsity team weighed in at 150 lbs (soaking wet) and stood 5'2" (With an afro).  He was fast and if we could get him to the flank, watch out.  What is your excuse again?

Iggo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-13-11 10:12 AM
Response to Original message
7. Since you weren't the target of bullying jocks, I'm not surprised you don't get it.
 Try a little empathy. Get outside of yourself for a couple of minutes and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine what it's like to be bullied, not by some social outcast, but by a protected class of favored sons. Imagine what it feels like when a few "idiots" in team jerseys are kicking the crap out of you while the rest of those "great kids" in team jerseys stand by and do nothing. Imagine what it's like to go to the authorities, and they end up protecting the bullies instead of the bullied. Then imagine how someone can hate jocks. It's really not that far of a stretch.

Why is it that a highly inordinate number of DUmmies claim to have been bullied by "the jocks" in high school?

shraby  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-13-11 10:24 AM
Response to Original message
12. The beef I have with high school "jocks" is that in many
 cases, the "jock" is let off the hook on chores and responsibilities around his home because of constant practice time and time for games while the other siblings have to pick up the slack. It's not fair to either side of the equation. He's adulated far beyond what is healthy. 

Says the sibling that sat around the house and smoked pot in the basement everyday.

[GOBUCKS]

Bluenorthwest  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-13-11 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
2. In my High School the 'niche' was called education.
We had no football team at all. We had other priorities.

 
Like a significant percentage of the DUmpmonkeys, DUmmy Bluenorthwest attended one of those "alternative" schools.

No teams, no smiles, no metal utensils in the lunchroom.

[Celtic Rose]

At my first high school, the football coach was a bit of a jerk (he was my English teacher and he didn't seem to like me for some reason) by the players tended to be nice. 

My second school was an all girls schools, and the sports players tended to do really well in class as well, and most of them were very nice.  I don't ever really recall any major bullying going on.

[franksolich]

Like a significant percentage of the DUmpmonkeys, DUmmy Bluenorthwest attended one of those "alternative" schools.

No teams, no smiles, no metal utensils in the lunchroom.

You know, I've often wondered about something, with these anti-athletic primitives.

For the record, I never participated in sports in school.  All four of my brothers and all three of my sisters did, but I never did myself.  And my parents when younger were in sports.  In fact, my mother was still hitting a tennis ball, despite her age and weight, the summer she died.

That I never did, doesn't mean I have a negative attitude about sports; it's simply that it wasn't my thing.

I fail to see where sports are not part of an educational experience; in fact, I think they're a pretty damned good educational experience.

And to blow the anti-athletic primitives away, franksolich was never left out of, never excluded from, doing so many other things with "jocks"--associating with them, learning with them, hanging around with them, and finally when 17, 18, years old, even drinking beer and going to parties with them.

I've stretched my memory, and can't recall a single time I was ever made fun of because I didn't do sports.

Too bad for the primitives.  People don't always act the same way the primitives think they do.  

[NHSparky]

shraby  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-13-11 10:24 AM
Response to Original message
12. The beef I have with high school "jocks" is that in many
 cases, the "jock" is let off the hook on chores and responsibilities around his home because of constant practice time and time for games while the other siblings have to pick up the slack. It's not fair to either side of the equation. He's adulated far beyond what is healthy.

Really?  I seem to forget that.  Come to think of it, I was told my priorities were, in order: 1--schoolwork, 2--housework, 3--extra curricular activities.  1 and 2 didn't get done, no 3. 

Granted, one of my coaches was my Algebra II teacher (and a booger-eating moron to boot) and was fired for sending a guy back in with a different jersey after he'd been thrown out of a game, but most of the guys I played with were a pretty fair representation of our school.

[Chris_]

Why is anyone above the age of 18 still concerned with high school cliques?

Grow up, DUmmies.

[NHSparky]

Why is anyone above the age of 18 still concerned with high school cliques?

Grow up, DUmmies.

Strangely enough, I went to my 20-year reunion.  For about 10 minutes, everyone mingled, and then everyone gravitated back to the same exact cliques they were part of in high school.  All I needed to know I learned in those few minutes.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

In my high school, there wasn't the stereotypical dision of jocks vs. Nerds.  We all pretty much got along with each other.  That's what it's like to be in RW fundie hell where the coach, a legend in Texas football, was also the lead singer in a country gospel band.

[GOBUCKS]

Strangely enough, I went to my 20-year reunion.  For about 10 minutes, everyone mingled, and then everyone gravitated back to the same exact cliques they were part of in high school.  All I needed to know I learned in those few minutes.

It seems to me pretty normal for people to prefer the company of their friends, regardless of age.
That's sort of what "friend" means, I think.

[JohnnyReb]

I got along with everyone, the good, the bad, the ugly, everyone. And I never played sports and wasn't a genius nerd either. Hell, we were required to take P.E. classes but my dad went to the school and told them to skip that and just let me out an hour early. He told the school that I would get all the exercise I needed on the farm...and I did...

[jtyangel]

I don't know...I was in honors and AP classes...but I hung out with skaters and punkers. This bullying(probably more like poking fun at someone else) I saw from just about every group, including the flamers in the drama club(who seemed to delight in everyone else's flaws, but would get their knickers in a tizzy if someone pointed out their overly femmie ways--kinda like the gay SS is still). I would hazard a guess that most DUers poked fun of others too, but it was ok when their group did it. What they objected to is the group they saw as the 'power' center as having the same ability they did to make fun of others. It's much like how a word uttered from the mouther of a white European is oppressive and racist, but uttered from the lips of an African American is some kind of ethnic truism. *shrug*

[Evil_Conservative]

Why is anyone above the age of 18 still concerned with high school cliques?

Grow up, DUmmies.

h5

[I_B_Perky]

Why is anyone above the age of 18 still concerned with high school cliques?

Grow up, DUmmies.

I was wondering that myself.

[JBevel]

I don't know...I was in honors and AP classes...but I hung out with skaters and punkers. This bullying(probably more like poking fun at someone else) I saw from just about every group, including the flamers in the drama club(who seemed to delight in everyone else's flaws, but would get their knickers in a tizzy if someone pointed out their overly femmie ways--kinda like the gay SS is still). I would hazard a guess that most DUers poked fun of others too, but it was ok when their group did it. What they objected to is the group they saw as the 'power' center as having the same ability they did to make fun of others. It's much like how a word uttered from the mouther of a white European is oppressive and racist, but uttered from the lips of an African American is some kind of ethnic truism. *shrug*

I was mainly involved in the drama and music clubs at my school and even I was annoyed by how overly emotional some of them could be. That's why I mainly hung out with the tech crews and the show choir band. They knew how to chill out.

[Chris_]

High school bored me.  The only thing I was interested in was computers, and there were only four or five of us.  We tried to get a PC club set up at the school my senior year but it never went anywhere, so I mostly hung around the astronomy club at the planetarium.