Sports I lustraded

As I look out at the deserted streets this New Year's day, I keep thinking how nice it is to see everyone at home for a change. I know many are watching sports today and I can't help but imagine what if everyone stayed home on Sunday and there were no sports?

Imagine all the giant stadiums empty, all the TV's turned off and sports bars closed all across the land. No tailgate parties to go to or beer bashes to throw and not a potato chip or beer can in sight. I don't ever expect it to happen, but just imagine.

What could we do if we were not off watching the game? How would we spend our time and money if there is no NFL, NBA or hockey game to see on one of the 100 or so cable channels dedicated to this one topic? What would we talk about? How would we know who to befriend and who to call enemy? Wouldn't there be rioting in the streets with the millions of bored fanatics suffering from sports withdrawl?

For starters we could spend some time with our families. Many sports fanatics do little of this. I don't know how many times kids at Sunday gatherings have said something to me about how they don't enjoy the day because no one plays with them or their father is never around on the weekends.

I had a 8 year old boy tell me once at a church function that he wished I was his daddy because I played with him and didn't watch football instead. A few weeks later I was at a party at my sister's when her best friend's 10 year old daughter told me: "I wish my daddy were here to play with us like you do, but he is at his friends house for football. Course, if he were here he would just watch football and drink beer like usual."

How sad. And this is a guy that everyone looks up to and seems like a successful father and husband. He is everything you are supposed to be with a good job and a nice house and a fancy car with his cool sports team license plate and antenna flag. He wears expensive sunglasses, tailored clothes and whips out imported cigars. He has two beautiful children and a wonderful wife. But if you look deeper and start to notice, he is never around except for football parties and sports always come before anything in his life, including his children.

This guy will always tell you about what happened to his favorite team, but you never hear him talk of the accomplishments his children have made during the week. I'm not even sure he would notice if they got an A unless John Madden showed up to announce their report card on ESPN.

I don't think most fanatics realize how much they miss when they spend all of the afternoon on one of only two days they have to spend with their kids, families and loved ones. While the quarterback is making that big touchdown pass, you missed your kid doing something far more spectacular.

Perhaps we could meet our neighbors; Imagine that! People going out into their front yards to entertain themselves and perhaps actually speaking to those who live around them while building lasting relationships? I know this is a totally foreign concept to many, but bear with me here. Wouldn't it be fun to have a block party at least one Sunday instead of a beer guzzling TV fiesta of non stop professional and college games?

Or maybe we could go to church. I'm not super religious but most sports fans tell me they favor the good old fashioned family values and are God fearing folk. But if their favorite teams game interferes with the local churches schedule, well the NFL usually wins out over God. After all, God will be there next week but I might miss the important pass of a lifetime if I don't watch the game!

Maybe we could clean up the country. Seems to me tens of millions of people with nothing to do for 4 hours could clean up their whole town and rid every square inch of our cities of trash and graffiti. Heck, we might even stop some crime since the criminals wouldn't have the streets all to themselves. Where would the drug pushers go if everyone was outside playing football instead of watching it on TV?

What Ideas can you think of?

Contrary to popular belief a study back in 2001 featured at USATODAY.com - Colleges' sports success is not a major draw claims prospective college students don't really care how well the teams are doing when they make enrollment decisions. Art & Science Group of Baltimore did a telephone poll of 500 college bound high schoolers right after the men's national basketball championship tournament. Most of the students couldn't even tell them who won the game let alone say it will affect their college choices.

But don't count everyone out. Winning games does help recruit jocks and the kid's of ex-jock alumni. Michigan State admissions director Gordon Stanley says that when his team won the championship their acceptence rate went up 3% which he called a "significant difference" over their normal rate of 40%. But what does acceptence rate have to do with basketball? Did that many really smart people enroll because of a game or did they change their standards, allow more alumni kids or have some other reason for the jump?

It's a common notion in the collegiate and high school world alike that winning teams attract winning students. It even has a name: The Flutie Factor named after Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie who made a touchdown pass to win the big game. Within two years applications to the college rose 30%. Of course that was back in 1984 and maybe things have changed.

But we may never know because there is a strong lobby of sports supporters who don't want any of this looked into. Don't even question why institutions of higher learning spend millions of dollars and tremendous amounts of resources to teach people how to throw and catch and run and jump. Some anti sports alumni actually had to go to a judge to make the Rutgers University magazine run their ad arguing the university's focus on big time athletics endangered it's academic mission. The magazine refused the ad and would only run it after an expensive court battle. So much for the "search for knowledge and thirst for debate" you should find at such a school.

A faculty group from Drake University handed out flyers at the Final Four NCAA tournament that year urging their colleges to restore academic integrity to big time sports programs. I wonder if anyone listened to them.

Sports supporters claim they must have a top notch sports program or the alumni donations will dry up. Author James Shulman offers evidence this is all a bunch of hooey in his book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (Princeton University Press, $27.95). I may have to get that one.

Here is the story of Marina and how she was brutalized by the jocks at her school while everyone else, including the teachers, just looked the other way or even helped out to go along with the "in" jock crowd. Read it all at Columbine

You all know what she is talking about. We all saw it growing up and the jock attitude is a major theme in our popular entertainment. Everyone knows how jocks act and just about everyone, including the jocks, has some tale of a horrible incident involving someone in a letter jacket brutalizing them horribly.

I think bullying is inherent in the system. Sports kids are trained from day one to scoff at those who are weaker or less skilled and to be overly aggressive and proud of their strength, which is often the only thing they have going for them.

Team sports is a dog eat dog world and only the best survive. Coaches often use the war analogy and train their teams as if they were soldiers out to "kill the enemy". Then to top it all off the kids and adults alike idolize these impressionable children who develop egos that are often destructive to themselves and those around them.

Why is it you never see a group of geeks taunting each other or insulting each others bodies? Why don't find the "freaks" always ganging up on someone because they are different or might wear different clothes?

Marina's sister tells us that:

"She was sorta strange, she read either thick romances or books about witchcraft, though the latter seemed like a response to the teasing she endured. Her family was poor, so she wore cheap, ill-fitting clothes, though she was never concerned about her appearance to begin with, another characteristic that set her apart from her schoolmates."

Whoops, that's just asking for trouble from jocks in high school. What do you mean you don't have the latest fashions or actually read? You are in for a hellish existence anytime you find a group of sports fanatics within 100 feet of you.

Sure enough, Marina has many tales to tell us:

"I could see that no one would pair with her for partner drills, and her teammates did nothing to hide their eye-rolling and snickers when she flubbed a pass or tripped over her own feet. A few times during the season it got so bad that Marina ran sobbing from the gym, and I would find her curled up in a doorway or in the still-dry showers, unable through her tears to tell me exactly what they'd done."

"Near the end of a long season, one particularly spiteful girl, a very cute and popular girl from a supposedly good family, bounced the basketball off Marina's head, and laughed. The girl, Tami, later claimed it was an accident; Marina said otherwise. The school principal sided with Tami, perhaps because Marina's ostracism called her credibility into question."

OH, big surprise there, the principal sided with the rich basketball star over the weirdly dressed strange poor chick. Well that hasn't changed since I was a boy. But this kind of treatment by officials just leads to frustration which often turns to violence as we see here:

"All of it: the cruel taunts she faced in the hallways every school day; the way football player David would sarcastically ask her out on a date every time he saw her; the way his friends pretended to hump her from behind as she tried to hide her red face in her open locker; the times her classmates yanked her book away and tore it up before her eyes; the wrenching betrayal and disappointment she felt after having auditioned fearlessly and brilliantly for the school play, only to have the woman she'd thought of as her favorite teacher allow the other students to persuade her to keep Marina hidden in the chorus; the assortment of degradations she lived through every afternoon in basketball practice, ... all of this and more built up and got pushed down and built up again, until Marina took a step off the deep end:

Marina waited until no one was paying much attention, and then she curled her arm around Tami neck, her slender, white throat in the crook of Marina's elbow, and she lifted her up from behind, trying ever so quietly to throttle her."

I'm not surprised. There is only so much you can take, particularly at that age and it's a crime that teachers and officials did nothing to stop this. In most states what this girl went through on a daily basis would be considered criminal and teachers are bound by law to report it.

Why don't they? Who wants to be the one who got the star quarterback kicked off the team or had the head cheerleader arrested for assault? Nobody. But they will arrest the crazy girl the very first time. Our story finishes with:

"Marina was placed in a juvenile detention center, where she briefly thrived in the classes and quickly made friends with the other "freaks" there."

Gee, she thrived when she was treated with respect and as a valued human being by people who didn't mind her being a little different. Who knew that would work? Freaks knew, we've always known. It's not how well you can run or jump or throw a ball that counts, it's how you treat others around you, especially those who are supposed to be on your "team".

Let's see if we can't start to help the Marina's of the world. Don't stand for the sports fanatic attitude anymore, especially in our schools. We've lost too many good kids already to the anger and rage that builds with the daily taunting by those who society deems better than the rest of us.

Just say no to bullying whenever you see it happening. Perhaps a good new year's resolution for all of us, don't you think?

Down in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area of Texas there is trouble brewing for the administration of Trimble Tech High School. The Star Telegram reports that not only were girls allowed on the football team's bus during a trip to a tournament in Granbury, but they treated the boys to a "Girls Gone Wild" show while one of the players played photographer with another boy's camera cell phone.

Eleven of the boys have been assigned to an alternative campus for 45 days, yet the coach got a one game suspension and some super secret punishment the administration and the coach won't talk about. Some parents and local pastor Kyev Tatum, are rightfully outraged.

"It's discriminatory, if you ask me," said Tatum, a 1984 graduate of Trimble Tech and president of a school alumni association. "All of those boys who were suspended were black, and the coach is Anglo, and he comes right back? What are you saying when you only hold the students accountable? Not everyone involved in the process is looking at the impact this is going to have on those kids."

No one is really sure what role coach Doug Steward in all this was because the administration refused to say and no criminal charges have been filed. The Star-Telegram goes on to say:

"Paul Galvan, the Fort Worth school district athletic director, determined Steward's punishment. Galvan said he considered Steward's excellent record with the school district and at Trimble Tech. Galvan also said Steward was given other punishment in addition to the one-game suspension. He declined to reveal other measures but said options available to him were probation and a reprimand in his personnel file."

Cool. So if I'm the coach and I have a great record I can let the boys run loose and film their own "Girls Gone Wild" with underage teenagers when my team travels and the only punishment I can expect is a day off and a note in my file?

If it was the science teacher or the drama coach they would have been fired. Anyone disagree?

There is more to this story! Oral Sex too!

What? It's not every high school girls dream in life to become a cheerleader? Well, the girls at Cheerleaders SUCK! don't think so. Here is what they think of cheerleading:

"Many people, including the pathetic, attention-hungry cheerleaders, think becoming a cheerleader is the height of accomplishments, the validation of their superiority. We think that if they stepped back and took a look at themselves, they'd realize what surrealistic clowns they really are. "

Ouch. No holding back here! While I think it is sad to read high school girls who have the vocabulary of the roughest navy seaman, they do make some good points and provide us with a fascinating look into the minds of young girls who don't like cheerleading.

This is a collection of links to various cheerleader hating sites, diaries, blogs and even a few pro cheer sites that are here to illustrate the point that most high school cheerleaders are selfish, elitist and a little rude too.

At the cheerleading Rules page, written by a cheerleader, there are more than a few quotes about cheerleading and some look like they were copied from bumperstickers.

• *"First god created man. Then said to himself, "I can do better." And invented women. Then he said to himself, "I can do better." And he invented a cheerleader.* OH, that's how it happened. I see.
• *There are three types of people in this world. The Cheerleaders, the ones who WANT to be cheerleaders, and the ones who want to GET with cheerleaders. Which are you?* Uh, none of the above, just like most people on the planet.
• *All women are created equal, then a few become cheerleaders* I think most women would take offence to this.
• *don't hate me cause im a cheerleader hate me cause ur boyfriend LOVES that I am* I'd suggest finding a new boyfriend, but that's just me.

This page has many more quotes. But my favorite is the one our young author leaves us with:

iM SeXy iM CuTe iM PoPuLaR 2 BooT iM BiTcH'N GrEaT HaiR tHe BoYs LoVe 2StaRe iM SwEEt iM HoT iM EvErYtHiNg uR NoT Im WICKED im COOl i DOMINATE the SCHOOL* *Im MIGHTY i ROAR i SWEAR im NOT a wH*RE* u CaN HaTe Me i DoNt LiKe u EiTheR MaYbe ThAtS B~CaUse iM A ChEErLeAdEr!~

Well, at least someone taught her the important things in life like great hair, popularity and the abilty to steal your friends lovers.

The crown jewel of this sites links is the very fine opinion article by an unknown senior student in the Bay Eagle at ESHS. The good news is that this young person can actually write well organized thoughts and refrain from using the F word every three words. Finally some hope for the future in today's surfing!

This person makes some great points about the need for pep rallies and how antiquated most high school rituals like homecoming and pep rallies are. "Gone are the days where the football star dates the captain of the cheerleading squad while they ride around together in the homecoming parade as king and queen. No longer does the band play a school song to which the student body knows the words." and they do have a point.

But isn't it tradition? What would high school be like without these things. Shouldn't we try and retain something from the past? Isn't tradition important? This young author answers:

"The administration says, "Pep rallies are tradition." So was slavery. Just because something is a tradition doesn't mean that it is a good idea." "The school isn't forced to watch the Biology Club give a speech on water conservation, so why is it forced to watch the cheerleaders?"

And again, they have a valid point. But don't kid's like rallies? Are they not a fun way to get together as a whole school and let loose once in a while? Even the non sports kids must enjoy the pep rallies and sports assemblies to cheer their school to victory, exert a little spare energy and show some pride in the one group they all share in common? Our author responds:

"Senior Jon Dragone said, "I would rather watch a porno starring Oprah Winfrey
than watch the cheerleaders at a PEP Rally." Senior Alex Evers says, "Put me out there and I'll do better." Obviously the poor quality of the cheerleading routines is beginning to become the norm. A cheerleader who requested not to be identified said, "The audience hates us; I don't know why we're even out there."

... I personally do not want to waste my time watching the cheerleaders make fools out of themselves, nor do I care about the football team. And after the last rally before Homecoming I truly would rather have been in class than watch the spirit team roll around in the dirt like swine. "

If you listen to this article most students don't enjoy these events at all and spend most of their time laughing at the people on the field. I guess even some of the cheerleaders are not enjoying pep rallies anymore either while they may be loosing some of their popularity too.

"More evidence proving the indifference of students towards stale traditions such as Coronation is the election of Jose Perez Sophomore year because he was mistakenly put on the girls side of the ballot. This year, John dais was elected to Senior Class Prince by people who didn't want to elect someone who only represents a small, elite group of people otherwise known as the "cool group". I would like to personally say that it was one of the highlights of my high school experience thus far watching John Diaz accept his award wearing an eye patch."

Sounds to me like someone popular on the voting committee decided to humiliate poor Jose and their fiendish scheme back fired. Otherwise how would a Jose get put on the girls side of the ballot? But that's only my gut instinct. Anyway you look at it this is a pretty funny story that shows many, if not most high school kids could care less about sports and that the old power jocks and cheerleaders used to hold in our educational system may be eroding. But in my day we tried such things and it had little influence over the grand scheme of things.

Check out this site for a few laughs and some good things to think about. Let's lustrate the evil out of cheerleading and get back to the old fashioned fun they used to represent.

The Sun Herald - 12/24/04 down in Florida reports a Charlotte county youth gynmasitcs studio owner was arrested for voyeurism after video taping the girls in the bathroom with a hidden camera for years.

It seems the studio sustained damage after hurricane Charley and someone found some video tapes in a dumpster during the clean up. After taking them home and watching them later, he discovered it was a tape of very young girls changing in a bathroom and reported this to police.

An investigation ensued and detectives were forced to have parents watch the videos in an attempt to identify the girls so charges could be filed. One father who had to identify his girl is quoted: "That's something you don't want to see at all, It hit her hard when she found out ... She doesn't talk about it."

There was one room, the room next to the bathroom, that was always off limits. One woman who helped clean and care for the studio for over a year says that the owner never allowed anyone in that room and told her "'Whatever you do, don't go in that door." They now know why. "Who would think to go into a bathroom and look for a camera?" she asked.

Well, I hope everyone would. It's sad to say, but in the modern era cameras are the size of nickels and can be placed just about anywhere. Parents need to be aware of that and watch for things like "secret" rooms in the places they trust to teach their children sports.