>when i was a kid, if your school had a soccer team it was because your
>school was too poor to afford football.
Where I grew up *everyone* had a football team. For schools that had, say, eight people in their graduating classes, Nebraska created six-man football! On the other hand, only the hoity-toity, big city, affluent schools had soccer programs. At that time, and in that state, soccer connoted a sort of cosmopolitan, "European" sophistication and charm, and it certainly signified a status separation between the suburban schools and the inner-city and boondocks schools. That division seems to be wearing away now, at least in regard to soccer. It's a good thing the upper class still has golf and tennis. And if those should happen to break down, they can always retreat to the ultimate conspicious-consumption sport: polo.
Eric