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.