>Where I grew up *everyone* had a football team. For schools that had, say,
>eight people in their graduating classes, Nebraska
type no more! nebraska. lord, eric, how can you even pretend to generalize about anything whatsoever--save, perhaps, for the superiority of nebraska sweet corn. you'll appreciate this, though: i once told a city slicker from the bronx that the big storage bins of corn [for feed] he saw were easily converted into fresh sweet corn by throwing them in boiling water. he believed me!
created six-man
>football!
now that's a kneeslapper! [btw, the school my son formerly went to had a total of 25 students in the graduating class--had they not merged with a school in the "city". heh.]
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,
this is such a laff-riot. in upstate ny, soccer was a poor man's sport suitable for the tiniest and poorest of school districts. was the watergirl for the team once and we were told to clean the storage room once. we found tons of soccer uniforms and equipment. when we asked about it, we were told by the coach, with a sniff, "that was back before the school got it together and raised funds to start the football program. i sure hope that these budget cuts don't set us back to the stoneage." paraphrase, of course, but that was the gist of what he said.
off the cuff, i'd say this: the importance of football and basketball teams for the parents and kids in school districts rested, at one time, fairly heavily on their perception that football and basketball offer kids a way out--scholarships and possibly a chance at the big leagues. though realistically, only 25% of the collegiate players in a division one uni go on to the pros and even then i think they count *everything* that's paid as the pros. collegiate sports are thoroughly tied into pro-sports: they do their scouting while the kids are in jr and sr high school and guide them through the selection of a uni which serves as a kind of 'minor league' proving ground. baseball's different precisely because it emerged and gained it's basic structure relatively autonomously from the uni's.
that said, soccer wasn't, til recently, a viable opportunity for kids looking for scholarships or a chance at the big leagues which was generally most important anyway. so suburban schools, well-funded ones, supported by fairly well-to-do families and their property taxes *do* go for sports that aren't seen as "a way out". it becomes, in other words, a status symbol, a sign that voters in the school district will spend money on superfluous programs simply so that their kids will have extracurricular activities, outlets for their adolescent energies, etc --and reasons for parents to cart their kids around 15bizillion times per week 'cause no one carpools!
put it another way: every class i teach i do a survey in which i have them tell me their top three dream jobs and their top three realistic jobs. kids who are from affluent backgrounds see their dream jobs as owner of the ny rangers and sometimes even see that as a realistic goal--and it might just well be! kids from working and lower middle class backgrounds never consider the possibility of owning or managing a team. their dream jobs are to be pro-sports players.
all just speculation, of course.
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
>
hey! i sure didn't grow up anything but working class but we played golf and tennis. <nyah> the parking lot across the street worked quite nicely [it helped that wilson had a plant in the town too] and the neighbor's 2 acres with overgrown field at the bottom of hill was nice for driving dead golf balls into the weeds. they were hell on his lawn tractor though! golf interests me insofar as, while once a sport associated with the rich, it is increasingly accessible to yer avg joe with the rise of public golf courses and club houses. of course, the status markers remain clear because there are still the private clubs with outrageous membership fees and a requirement to spend X amt at the bar/restaurant/pro shop.
kelley, going to smash her 'fuser because this dang web page maker software is a pain in my butt.