The Point of High School Sports

Recently there's some talk within high school sailing that's gotten me thinking about what high school sports should be focused on.  The debate is on whether or not small schools should be allowed to compete in combined teams to increase their success and make them able to compete in bigger events.  Some people believe these joint teams should be allowed because they give students at small schools a more equal opportunity to compete.  Others don't believe joint teams should be allowed because they are unfair to the bigger schools who can field successful teams by themselves.  So which one is more important in high school sports, giving every individual an equal opportunity or rewarding the "best" teams.

As a member of one of the largest teams in the midwest, it's certainly better for me and the success of my team if joint teams are not allowed, but I also have some friends at much smaller schools.  It seems somewhat unfair to me that just because of their location and the way their school is organized that they get different opportunities in competition.  At New Trier, if you are one of the top sailors, you are pretty much guaranteed an opportunity to compete every weekend, but some friends from a smaller school were telling be that they are struggling to get enough people to be able to enter the next regatta.

While the current system without joint teams means I can have a lot of fun competing, thinking about it from other's perspective makes me realize that maybe it's not the best option.  I think high school sports would be more fair if they focused on everyone being able to compete instead of finding out which school is the best.

Helmet Rule

All the way back in first semester I wrote a blog relating football in America today with gladiator fights in ancient Rome.  I said that only a significant change in morals would be able to cause change in the violence of football, relating to how it was the general acceptance of Christianity that ended up dooming gladiator fights. After some recent events I'm starting to think that this is not entirely accurate.

The NFL recently instituted a new rule, the "helmet rule", which can be read about it more detail here.  I wouldn't consider this a rule change that will be remembered as a turning point if football or one that will have a large impact on game play, but I do think it shows a larger trend.  In twenty years, I think that we're going to look back and think how crazy it was that these little rules didn't exist.  Just like right now it's generally accepted that playing professional football in leather helmets with no pads would be crazy.  The game hasn't really been affected by one specific change in thinking, there have been small rule changes throughout the years that cause it to evolve.

So my opinion now is that violence in American football will eventually end, but it wont be because of some major change in public beliefs.  It will happen slowly over a long period of time because of small rule changes like the new helmet rule.  Maybe still someday people will look back on today's NFL and see its violence like we see the violence of the Roman gladiator fights.

NCAA picks

So I was filling out my bracket this morning and got thinking about how people pick upsets.  Every year there's a few surprise teams that shock everyone and win a few games, and if you can be lucky enough to pick the upsets correctly, you're looked at as a college basketball genius.  I use the word lucky here very purposefully, because I honestly think there's way more luck involved than skill in picking the right underdogs.

Talking to people about their brackets, I hear things like "Bucknell is gonna pull of the upset victory, I'm sure of it".  Really?  You're sure?  When people say thinks like that it sounds to me like there saying they think they're smarter than the selection committee that watches these teams all year puts hours of work into deciding which teams make the tournament in which seeds.  Personally I think this is a little ridiculous.

Now I do pick a lot of upsets in  my bracket, but when I do so it's not because I think I'm smarter than the selection committee.  When people pick upsets I think it's more reasonable to understand that your going out on a limb, and that your team probably wont win but it would be cool if they did.

Optimism or Delusion?

I recently was on an airplane when this public service commercial was played on the TV.  In general I like the Values billboards and commercials, but I cringed at this one the first time I saw it.  Now, I'm all for optimism, I think it's one of the things that makes our country strong, but personally I think this video is more representative of delusion than it is of healthy optimism.Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence in future success, but this kid keeps saying "I am the greatest".  Not "I can be the greatest" or "I will be the greatest", but I "am" the greatest.  There's nothing future about the word "am".  This kid isn't being optimistic, he's just dreaming in his own little fantasy world, which isn't wrong, but certainly isn't a core value I would want to advocate.  The phrase "the greatest" also bothers me because only one person can be "the greatest".  If optimism is confidence in future success, then it seems like this video is equating success with being "the greatest".  The fact that this boy's inability to be the greatest hitter causes him to fall back on being the greatest pitcher makes it seem as though he has to be the greatest at something.  If we pass on the value to 300 million people that they have to be the one greatest to be successful, we can pretty much guarantee that most of them are going to end up disappointed.

Also, look at the kid's expression, along with his "wow" at 45 seconds, right after he strikes himself out.  His eyes open wide as if he has just been enlightened.  As if this truth has just washed over him.  To me it seems as though the video is trying to say that greatness just miraculously comes to you.  And that you can just realize you're the best without any consideration of the lifetime of work it would actually take to get there.  I would consider anyone who actually thought like that to be severely delusional.

On a final note, the music at the end:  Celebrate Good Times? Really?  Has there ever been a reasonable parent who says to their kid at the beginning of a school year "I'm optimistic that you're going to get straight A's, so lets go celebrate now"?  You don't celebrate being optimistic, you celebrate later after you actually put in the work and achieve success.  If you agree or if you think I'm overreacting please comment.

The Joy of Upsets

Last night I watched and cheered as 8 seeded Robert Morris closed off an upset victory against 1 ranked Kentucky.  I also saw a barrage of Facebook statuses praising the Colonials for taking down the Wildcats.  Why is it that people liked the underdog so much in this game.  It seemed to me like even more than usual, the little guy was the fan favorite.

I think that a lot of this bias comes from the difference in how these two teams are constructed.  The Kentucky basketball advertises itself as the place for talented high school basketball players who need to get one year of college in before they go pro.  This means their team is generally full of extremely talented but also pretty young players.  It also means that pretty much every year all of their starters leave and they have to completely rebuild their team.  The Robert Morris team on the other hand is made up of much less individually talented players, but much of their team has been playing together for four years.

I think we generally like teams similar to Robert Morris better than those like Kentucky because they fit in better to American values.  It's like following the American dream; players on Robert Morris aren't anything exceptionally special when they join the team but through four years of work they build themselves into a successful group.  Members of the Kentucky team, while I'm sure they also work incredibly hard, don't have to build themselves into anything after they join the team, they already have most of it.

Alice from Dallas

Last weekend I had the privilege of being able to go to Dallas on a school trip.  For some of out trip we were on a bus with a tour guide that was helping us get around the city and giving us short tours in our spare time.  I remember the first thing she said to us when we all got on the bus for the first time was, in a heavy southern accent, "Howdy y'all, I'm Alice, you can call me Alice from Dallas".  I almost laughed at how much of a stereotypical southern response this was.  For the entire weekend she continued to speak simply in her southern drawl.  Near the end of the trip someone in my group found a video that showed her, apparently the president of the tour company,  speaking very academically with almost no southern accent while receiving an award for success in entrepreneurship.  It made me think that maybe she was very purposefully acting like the stereotypical Texan that many northerners would think of.  On the All In One Tours website, they make a point of providing "Texas Friendly Hospitality".  I think that "Alice from Dallas" and her tour company realize that as northerners we have such strong stereotypes of about people from Texas that it would be weird for us if our tour guide did not fit them.  To get a tour guide that spoke academically without a southern accent might even be a disappointment.  If you disagree please comment, but it did seem like our tour guide was certainly going out of her way to give more that the usual Texan accent.

Thrift Shop

So by now the new song popularity rush for Macklemore's "Thift Shop" is pretty much over.  I think it's effect however, is still very visible;  Going thrifting is still a popular activity for a lot of New Trier kids.  This past weekend, a few friends and I decided to drive out to Rogers Park to go to a thrift store we had heard about.  And just like the song suggests, we got some absolutely ridiculous clothes for almost no money.

The song suggests that getting old clothes will make you even cooler that spending a lot more money to get some designer brand.  All admit, I did feel pretty cool rockin' my two dollar bright green blazer, but as I looked around the store I noticed something interesting.  The vast majority of shoppers were not there to try to get something cool and funny, like the song talks about.  Most people seemed to be there because they really didn't have any more money to spend on clothes.  This got me thinking about what kind of message we were sending as eight wealthy white kids holding our smartphones and laughing at the clothes as we shopped.  I started to feel almost guilty.  After this I think wearing thrift shop clothes to be cool may be a way of flaunting your wealth even more than designer clothes do.  If you have a 50 dollar Gucci T-shirt, all that says is you have 50 dollars to spend on a T-shirt, but if you're wearing some ridiculous second hand coat, I think it sends the message that you're so wealthy, when you wear second hand clothes people will know its a joke and think its funny.