Not a fan.
I'm going to do a little hatin', here.
Look, I'm not against sports. I'm not against American football.
I'm just not a fan. Oh, the athleticism can be fun to watch, especially when you know the players. But I don't get the obsession.
I understand the ritualistic warfare aspect of it. I understand that something has to be popular, and if it's not feetball, it's soccer, or baseball, or basketball or... whatever.
But I resent that my mandatorily-contributed school tax dollars, which make up the larger portion of my property taxes, go toward this over-wrought spectacle. I resent that my daughters will benefit, from what I can see, not one whit from this spectacle.
I resent that the same school district that refuses to hold any kind of educational camps or tutoring over the summer has a football spectacle in the first week of frickin' August, when it's 93 degrees at 11PM, according to the sign at the friendly small town bank. Said football spectacle is complete with over-loud P.A., over-bright stadium lights, and rambunctious teens drinking in the parking lot while their more-rambunctious parents cheer themselves hoarse over the exploits of Little Johnny, sweating on the pitch in full pads.
My best friend Scott and some others insist that this is a money-maker for the school, and that my daughters' education will benefit. Bollocks. Show me the figures. I ain't buying it until I see them, broken down.
Labels: crap entertainment, for your own good, Gripes, school, small town, speaking of the weather
posted by Matt G @ 11:23 PM
24 Comments:
Agreed. I'm all for kids participating in sports if they want, but there is not reason it has to administered and funded by schools that are supposed to be imparting knowledge.
Concur.
Indeed. Our local district just forked over millions to clad their football stadium in AstroTurf. For HS football!
Then they raised our taxes.
I'm a school board member for our local schools.
What can I say, when you're right you're right.
Mr Fixit
Matt, your Texas passport is hereby revoked. You will be called in for a stress interview with the Chief. Mothers will call their kids inside when they see you coming. People will talk about you behind your back, and when you turn and look at them, they will be suspiciously poker-faced. The staff will spit in your barbecue sandwich at the restaurant. You'll be lucky to keep your badge.
I do concur wholeheartedly with your sentiments, though. Owhell, at least maybe the bandsmen had a good time.
I see that my previous comment is not yet approved. I have nothing against people getting together to play ball games, no matter how silly said games may be, as long as doing so does not interfere with more important things. (I think of that King of Scotland who tried to forbid his subjects from playing golf on Sundays when they really should have been exercising with their weapons. He was right, IMHO.}
From talking with friends who grew up there, High School football is a much bigger deal in Texas than in the northeast. In Pennsylvania, parents came out to cheer their kids and students came out to cheer their friends, but that was about it. No one was a fan of HS football like people are of college and pro. It seems like this is different in TX.
It was long ago, but my father and father's friends who were adiministrators where I went to school told me that the football program did indeed make money.
But that was Iowa in the 1970s.
(My dad was principal of my junior high, and yes I knew the other principals...)
Not everywhere is Texas.
"Not everywhere is Texas."
Have you ever tried explaining that to a Texan in the Legal section of an internet gun forum?
My personal favorite was the Geometry teacher who admitted upfront that he had no idea what the hell he was doing in that class (his exact words, believe it or not), but football coaches have to be teachers too, and that's what they gave him to teach. I've heard elsewhere that History teachers are typically football coaches in disguise, and if that's the case it's no wonder so many students hate History.
But hey, some dude who went to Brack several years after I graduated now plays for the Cowboys.
"Not everywhere is Texas."
The places that aren't wish they were.
"My personal favorite was the Geometry teacher who admitted upfront that he had no idea what the hell he was doing in that class (his exact words, believe it or not), but football coaches have to be teachers too, and that's what they gave him to teach. I've heard elsewhere that History teachers are typically football coaches in disguise, and if that's the case it's no wonder so many students hate History."
Funny thing...My HS football coach taught calculus and computer science. Not because that's what they gave him, but because that's what he was qualified to teach, and he was pretty damn good at it, too. I was very disappointed when he left to help run the family business down in Louisiana during my senior year, as his replacement was quite literally learning calculus along with the rest of us.
"The places that aren't wish they were."
Not really, no.
It's a nice place, though; I wouldn't terribly mind living there, even if it is all anal with the strict gun laws. ;)
Just remember, figures lie and liars figure... ESPECIALLY in sports related issues...
It's a nice place, though; I wouldn't terribly mind living there, even if it is all anal with the strict gun laws. ;)
Nail? Meet Hammer.
Kind of ironic, too, seeing is how the lesser 49 states;) all think every Texan, women and children included, carry guns and have since we could hold 'em.
On the plus side, our governor carries. How many states can say that?
tweaker
"On the plus side, our governor carries."
Yeah, that incident was worth a few dozen bonus Cool Points. :)
Tam, does the Indiana Capitol building have a special line to let CHL holders bypass the metal detectors and go right in? And does your governor carry?
God Bless Texas!
- Texas Mike
Hey! My governor carries...
...
...
...
...his balls in his wife's purse...
I concur. Sports are a tedious pain in the arse, in my humble opinion, and as a teenager myself, I resented that everyone on campus was merely a supporting cast member to the big stars on the football or basketball teams. What absolute twaddle!
Sports fans can't even properly pronounce favre. Morons.
"Tam, does the Indiana Capitol building have a special line to let CHL holders bypass the metal detectors and go right in?"
Nope.
I guess I'll just have to go sob in my beer while open carrying my pistol in a bar on my $100 lifetime carry permit with no training requirement. ;)
WV: "tatas". Multiple Czech autos.
Lt. Col. (ret.) Kratman had an interesting take on American football. He believes it to be one of our military advantages. No other game teaches squad level tactics so well. I'm no fan of football, but... he may have a point.
CalvinsMom - would that be those Wildcats? Infuriates me - particularly since we have no kids and benefit not one bit from any part of the "educational" taxation.
We at least made off with a large section of the turf when it had to be cut off and new turf RELAID due to some error or another. Call it my own "pound of flesh".
I LOVE HS football. I do. I just think there is no need in making it more expensive than grass seed and uniforms.
They wanted to raise our local taxes "to buy laptops" while they were testing out an $80,000 sound system for the soccer field across the street. Even with their discount, it would have cost at least $40,000.
Mr. B took some action and got ahold of the school board president so that might have put the kibosh on it, but the fact that they were even contemplating it says that priorities are off somewhere (or that they think we'll just cough up more money).
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