Glitz and Glamor of HS Sports

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Well, it's football season now in the United States. And that means the dominance of Friday night football. I know football is king in the south and west. Especially in Texas and California. I'm a huge fan of high school football. Personally, I think it's more exciting than NCAA and NFL. But I recently saw that things are getting out of hand.

After a very successful season (10-0 regular season), undoubtedly Sherrard was excited about this season. But I think they took that excitement a little too far. It's a school tradition at many schools to run throught the big paper circle with the school logo on it when the team comes out onto the field. In previous years, Sherrard has had that where they come from the track entrance to the field, but this year they didn't have that. Nope, they had a BLOW UP TUNNEL! Like one of those you would see at a professional football game. Now, in their defense, they didn't spend a penny on this gimmick. One of the coaches had won it at a football conference he had gone to. But I believe the school took it one step too far by adding a smoke machine and I had heard there was supposed to be fireworks too but they didn't get them approved. Now the tunnel wasn't the only thing I thought was a bit over-the-edge. The boosters also sold posters of, what looked like, just half of the team on a pile of rocks looking intimidating. On the top of the poster it said "Sherrard Tigers" and on the bottom it said "Rock Solid." This is what threw me into a spin.

High school sports are not to be glamorized like this. I was not really irate when I saw this, just dissappointed that the administrators let this go. It is my sincere opinion that the school went way overboard with this.

My question to you is, after reading this, what is your opinion and does your school do something like this?

Now, if you're thinking, how does this relate to FIRST? Then let me express my opinion about FIRST and "celebration." I believe that FRC and high school sports like football should not share the same celebratory things. I think that, in FIRST, teams should celebrate their accomplishments like this. Celebration belongs in FIRST because everyone can celebrate with them. It's entertaining to watch matches where both alliances and all teams are excited and enthusiastic before the match. After the match, most of the time, the teams are still cheering and whatnot. In high school sports, there's usually an intense rivalry that throws hatred and the such into the mix of emotions. There's not many, if any, rivalries in FIRST because teams get the chance to compete with each other.

There's my opinion, now I would like to hear yours.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Budda648

Well, it's football season now in the United States. And that means the dominance of Friday night football. I know football is king in the south and west. Especially in Texas and California. I'm a huge fan of high school football. Personally, I think it's more exciting than NCAA and NFL. But I recently saw that things are getting out of hand.

After a very successful season (10-0 regular season), undoubtedly Sherrard was excited about this season. But I think they took that excitement a little too far. It's a school tradition at many schools to run throught the big paper circle with the school logo on it when the team comes out onto the field. In previous years, Sherrard has had that where they come from the track entrance to the field, but this year they didn't have that. Nope, they had a BLOW UP TUNNEL! Like one of those you would see at a professional football game. Now, in their defense, they didn't spend a penny on this gimmick. One of the coaches had won it at a football conference he had gone to. But I believe the school took it one step too far by adding a smoke machine and I had heard there was supposed to be fireworks too but they didn't get them approved. Now the tunnel wasn't the only thing I thought was a bit over-the-edge. The boosters also sold posters of, what looked like, just half of the team on a pile of rocks looking intimidating. On the top of the poster it said "Sherrard Tigers" and on the bottom it said "Rock Solid." This is what threw me into a spin.

High school sports are not to be glamorized like this. I was not really irate when I saw this, just dissappointed that the administrators let this go. It is my sincere opinion that the school went way overboard with this.

My question to you is, after reading this, what is your opinion and does your school do something like this?

Now, if you're thinking, how does this relate to FIRST? Then let me express my opinion about FIRST and "celebration." I believe that FRC and high school sports like football should not share the same celebratory things. I think that, in FIRST, teams should celebrate their accomplishments like this. Celebration belongs in FIRST because everyone can celebrate with them. It's entertaining to watch matches where both alliances and all teams are excited and enthusiastic before the match. After the match, most of the time, the teams are still cheering and whatnot. In high school sports, there's usually an intense rivalry that throws hatred and the such into the mix of emotions. There's not many, if any, rivalries in FIRST because teams get the chance to compete with each other.

There's my opinion, now I would like to hear yours.

High school sports have taken a disturbing trend to becomming more like college sports with even doping and national polls. It's hard to find whats true high school sports are now (as in local instead of traveling cross country to play top ranked teams).
Rochester NY has a good high school sports scene. There are good teams but nothing on the level of Texas, Ohio or FLorida. ANd the followings are also good but nothing on the fantical level that those states show. I attend alot of football, basketball and track events and I enjoy them alot. They're the best bargain in sports (a couple of bucks compared to almost $40 for a Bills game). I just think the point of high school sports have been shifted from building character to becoming a farm system for major college sports.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Budda648

The boosters also sold posters of, what looked like, just half of the team on a pile of rocks looking intimidating. On the top of the poster it said "Sherrard Tigers" and on the bottom it said "Rock Solid." This is what threw me into a spin.

I'm getting everything but this. Can you explain this part and why it threw you into a spin?

From reading it, I'm seeing it as clever marketing and a fundraiser, selling posters of the team to the students, parents, businesses in support of the team.
Jane

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I hate to break it to you, but just as your opinion is that high school sports should not be glorified like this, the general opinion of pretty much all intense high school football programs is that yes, football should be celebrated like this, and that "nerd programs" are just academic extracurriculars that should work around football season.

I believe that it is complete instinct that leads people to want to justify what they love doing with celebration - the more the better. If you want to change this trend, do a celebration for your team when you guys do well. As for the posters...well, the parent council sells them, and I don't know what they do at your school, but at mine stuff like that generally goes to support Prom and other events. I choose not to buy these bits of fandom, but other people like them, love the spirit. Let them have that chance.

[Koko Ed]

They're showing a high scholl football game on ESPN right now.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

They're showing a high scholl football game on ESPN right now.

Uhh... that's going a bit too far in my humble opinion

But as far as the glitz and glamour of high school sports go, especially football, I think Grand Rapids is a wonderful example of going too far. Their local TV stations often have entire time slots of late night news devoted to the games locally, and even one station goes as far to make it another show after the 11pm newscast.

A bit much.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

Uhh... that's going a bit too far in my humble opinion

But as far as the glitz and glamour of high school sports go, especially football, I think Grand Rapids is a wonderful example of going too far. Their local TV stations often have entire time slots of late night news devoted to the games locally, and even one station goes as far to make it another show after the 11pm newscast.

A bit much.

Well high school sports show aren't all that big a deal or nothing new really.
The USA Today top 25 poll bothers me more.
The top ranked basketball team Oak Hill comes across more as a AAU all-star team than a high school. Made just to get ranked and be an NBA farm team (before the NBA banned drafting kids out of high school).

[santosh]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Well high school sports show aren't all that big a deal or nothing new really.
The USA Today top 25 poll bothers me more.
The top ranked basketball team Oak Hill comes across more as a AAU all-star team than a high school. Made just to get ranked and be an NBA farm team (before the NBA banned drafting kids out of high school).

We were almost tied with them at the end of the 1st half last season. We were down by 2 at the half but lost by 20...
I don't feel that there is anything with displaying a team on ESPN if they are from high school. My high school was on ESPN U last year in a basketball tournament. Look at the McDonalds All American Game (our basketball coach was the East's coach this past game), quite a few people watch those games here.
They are a business. Honestly, lets think about this. I garuntee that if I had the choice of watching one of LeBron James' broadcasted games than a NBA game, I would definately choose watching LeBron.
And what you talked about in your post about the tunnel, I don't think that there is anything wrong with that.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Moline's football program has been around since 1902. Same with Rock Island's. They are, if I remember right, the longest running rivalry in the United States in HS sports. But I could be wrong. Neither of these schools do anything like what I have mentioned. Over 5,000 people come to watch the Moline-Rocky game each year.

I have come to terms and realized that the times are changing and for the most part I love change. But not this drastic and this quickly. I just think that this puts even more added pressure onto the student athletes to follow in the footsteps of previous teams. The expectations are highered even though this is a mostly new team.

And don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not limiting this to football. I have seen a recent trend in most high school sports. Especially the recruiting scandals of the parochial schools here in the area.

I forgot to mention one thing about those posters. They started selling them about 20 minutes before the game and were sold out before the game started. I don't know how many they had for sale, but they were selling them at $5 a pop and they must have made a boatload of money off of them. Great, now I just hope that that money goes towards safety equiptment and not field painting and other junk like that just to attract more people. It is a business, but at some point the boosters need to realize that it isn't good for the kids to do this kind of stuff. If only the smaller sports and extracurricular programs got the attention that the football team has gotten. I mean, heck, the soccer program was cancelled last year and this year they had to merge with neighboring Orion HS for soccer.

[Alexa Stott]

Okay, I have not read every single post in this thread, and as this is the first time I'm seeing it since I returned from vacation, this is really in response to the first few posts...

I think high school sports has gone too far, like many of you have said. It was mentioned earlier that there was a high school football game on ESPN. The home team there had a Jumbotron recently bought for their football stadium.

Some high schools have nicer sports facilities than some Division I-A or even I-AA colleges. It's gone too far.

It just kinda bothers me that schools would rather spend tons of money each year to improve their sports facilities than to buy new textbooks or computers or something. Hey, why not buy a new piece of shop equipment, even?

Rick Reilly, a sportswriter, had a really good article about a month ago. He wrote about how sports are getting out of hand. People are hiring personal trainers, sports psychiatrists, nutritionists, agents, etc. for children as young as 8 or 9.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by AtalanteStar25

Rick Reilly, a sportswriter, had a really good article about a month ago. He wrote about how sports are getting out of hand. People are hiring personal trainers, sports psychiatrists, nutritionists, agents, etc. for children as young as 8 or 9.

It's all about the Benjamins.

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

It's all about the Benjamins.

True, but how many young athletes actually get to a level that the Bens start flowing like water? Aren't most parent pushing a pipe dream?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by AtalanteStar25

Okay, I have not read every single post in this thread, and as this is the first time I'm seeing it since I returned from vacation, this is really in response to the first few posts...

I think high school sports has gone too far, like many of you have said. It was mentioned earlier that there was a high school football game on ESPN. The home team there had a Jumbotron recently bought for their football stadium.

Some high schools have nicer sports facilities than some Division I-A or even I-AA colleges. It's gone too far.

It just kinda bothers me that schools would rather spend tons of money each year to improve their sports facilities than to buy new textbooks or computers or something. Hey, why not buy a new piece of shop equipment, even?

Rick Reilly, a sportswriter, had a really good article about a month ago. He wrote about how sports are getting out of hand. People are hiring personal trainers, sports psychiatrists, nutritionists, agents, etc. for children as young as 8 or 9.

This is torrid in the Quad Cities. There's a company here named "Quad Cities Sports Performance." It's really expensive and all it is is conditioning. Pretty much for the rich families to send their kids to get "better" at any sport. There's rampant usage of steroids here, too.

Also, there was a topic grazed on earlier in the thread about discipline. I don't know how bad partying and drinking is in other cities but it's horrible here. When I was playing at Moline, there was at least 4 or 5 players each week being suspended because they were caught drinking, smoking pot, getting into fights, and for all kinds of other reasons. Illinois just passed a new standard for grades, too. You have to have D's and up... or 2 F's at most... or something like that. It's not tough enough. Our robotics team has a C and above policy and that's the same as Sherrard.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

Uhh... that's going a bit too far in my humble opinion

But as far as the glitz and glamour of high school sports go, especially football, I think Grand Rapids is a wonderful example of going too far. Their local TV stations often have entire time slots of late night news devoted to the games locally, and even one station goes as far to make it another show after the 11pm newscast.

A bit much.

Segments on the 11:00 news devoted to high school football is nothing new in South Carolina. I don't see a problem with it--there's lots of games across the state on Friday nights, and we all want to know what happened at the game across town. (Alright, I seem to recall an occasional one-off special at the start of the season as well...but pre-empting Entertainment Tonight is a relatively common thing around here.)

(Deviation from topic: I used to be the videographer for Irmo High's football team. I believe it was my sophomore year when we were returning from the last regular-season game on the road. The only way that we could win the region title was if across-the-Lake-Murray-Dam rivals Lexington lost their game that night. About fifteen minutes into our hour-long bus ride, someone received the call on their cell phone: Lexington lost! If it weren't for that phone call, it would've been an awful tense ride back from Orangeburg.)

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Segments on the 11:00 news devoted to high school football is nothing new in South Carolina. I don't see a problem with it--there's lots of games across the state on Friday nights, and we all want to know what happened at the game across town. (Alright, I seem to recall an occasional one-off special at the start of the season as well...but pre-empting Entertainment Tonight is a relatively common thing around here.)

(Deviation from topic: I used to be the videographer for Irmo High's football team. I believe it was my sophomore year when we were returning from the last regular-season game on the road. The only way that we could win the region title was if across-the-Lake-Murray-Dam rivals Lexington lost their game that night. About fifteen minutes into our hour-long bus ride, someone received the call on their cell phone: Lexington lost! If it weren't for that phone call, it would've been an awful tense ride back from Orangeburg.)

One of the teams on ESPN is from SOuth Carolina. Byrnes.
From the looks of it their ranked 2 in the nation, I suppose.