Texas HS football goes on. Slap in the face to NYers?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m watching Nightline as I type this. They just ran a segment about how, despite the tragedy that just shook the nation – and particularly the city I call home – Texas Friday night high school football went on as usual. “The kids need some release from the sadness of the recent events,” was the excuse the adults tendered.

Now before I get into MHO, let me say that I have spent a lifetime enduring subtle and not-so-subtle insults about my home town from non-NYCers. Generally, I have suffered these slights with humor, tolerance and grace.

But the Nightline segment seemed like such a rude slap in the face. Is the death of thousands of innocent fellow citizens, not to mention the instantaneous and total destruction of an American icon (the WTC), not worthy of their respect? Would they have played their games after Pearl Harbor? Would they have had the stomach for it?

The sense I got from the piece was that those Texans view us NYCers as “not really Americans” like them, therefore not worthy of their genuine remorse or respect.

2

Or, maybe “The kids need some release from the sadness of the recent events,” I don’t think it’s a slight.

3

God Himself speaking out could not stop Friday night football. Should the aircraft have crashed into the sidelines and obliterated half the teams, they would have delayed the game only long enough to find more players. High School football is a religion in Texas, in the old sacrifice-your-sons-to-Baal-and-Nurgle sense, and it makes the Old Testament Yahweh look easygoing. I don’t agree with that, and I’d like to see the games at least postponed, but these people believe in this thing like nothing else. They also don’t see anything outside their insular little world as mattering. You are right that to some, this might as well be happening in Afghanistan, except that they have a chance now to wave the flags even harder, and their patriotism is suddenly in vogue.

4

Speaking as a New Yorker – born and raised on Long Island, residing in Manhattan – I can honestly say that I don’t give a blood-infused shit whether they play football or not.

There’s some value to putting recreational activities like this on hold in NY, as well as in DC. Certainly professional sports should be postponed. But one of the most important things is to not become perpetual victims, letting ourselves shut down the country over these attacks. For the most part, it’s business as usual in unaffected parts of Manhattan – why should high school kids in Texas have to give up their sport for a candlelight vigil that won’t fix anything?

We all need some fun, even those of us who are up to our elbows in sorrow and the labor of clearing wreckage. Especially them, in fact.

5

If they didn’t already cancel the school day, I see no reason why they shouldn’t have played the games.

Why punish the kids? It would help take minds off of the tragedy for a little while.

Take care.

6

I’m in Syracuse and they had high school football as scheduled tonight. I think if any sports were to go on this weekend it makes sense for it to be high school sports, since that’s the most family-oriented, as opposed to college or pro sports. I think the right thing for the kids to do is to play.

7

We had some HS games here in Mississippi as well. While it’s not a religion, we do export more football players than Texas, last time I checked. :smiley:

8

Why single out Texas high school football players? Over the past week, ALL of us have done MANY things besides mourn for the victims of the terrorist attacks.

Have all of America’s movie theaters closed down? No. In fact, millions of people all over the USA have gone to the movies. Is it a “slap in the face” to victims’ families that people were going to see “American Pie 2” while this tragedy was still fresh?

Is it a “slap in the face” that millions of people still went out to restaurants during the past week?

Heck, is it a “slap in the face” that people are posting trivia questions on the SDMB while there are still people trapped in the rubble of the WTC?

No, no, and no.

I don’t know EXACTLY what sympathy, respect and decorum call for. I understand why major league baseball and the NFL saw fit to shut down for a while. But the real question is, does EVERYTHING people do for enjoyment have to shut down? And for how long? If tose kids in Texas had played NEXT week, would that STILL be unacceptable?

9

Yeah, this doesn’t bother me a hell of a lot, either.

Nathan Lane or Matthew Broderick or somebody involved in The Producers stated, after a recent performance (Broadway theaters were back in operation what, TWO DAYS after the tragedy?) “We won’t let them take away our right to have fun!”

While I won’t be attending any musicals or football games for a while, I don’t give a damn if others choose to do so.

10

I didn’t see the piece, so I can’t speak to the portrayal, only to your remarks but let me tell you how the people of Texas in this city feel about NYCers and this weeks tragedy.

I shook violently, cried and vomited repeatedly for hours and it did not subside until I heard word that my favorite New Yorker and his family and friends were ok.

Sixteen search and rescue units from Houston, left for New York and the Pentagon on wednesday morning.

The children at those high schools that you are so angry with at the moment were told over the loud speaker that the WTC and Pentagon had been attacked. In several classed the kids saw the events replayed on television, as the horror and silence settled over the student body the kids approached the administration about having prayer before days end. (Here in Texas prayer in schools has to be student initiated and student lead.) All extracurricular activities were cancelled for three days.

The next day, tiny twists of red, white and blue ribbons began appearing on backbacks. The student vehicles in school parking lots have small tufts of red, white and blue ribbon on the antenna’s. In three days the kids collected nearly $3000.00 in lunch money and change to donate to the Red Cross. On friday, instead of school colors and game day clothes they worn red, white and blue. Last night at the game there was a pre-game speaker, three minutes of silence, and many tears. Instead of opposing half-time shows the marching bands performed patriotic songs together. When the game ended, they didn’t leave, the players gathered on the field while cheerleaders and drill teams passed out candles and they held a candle service before heading home. They didn’t arrive home until almost midnight in the case of our kids since it was an away game, and this morning my son was up before 6am to put out flags through the neighborhoods in our community.

Additionally, there are cities in New York state and many other states in this country that played high school football as well. That you are offended by and angry with the youth of Texas for a decision that clearly had to be made by adults, is a bit baffling to me. That you choose to put words to print on their behalf, like the people of New York are “not really americans” speaks not to their bigotry, but you yours towards them.

11

Believe me when I say, as a Texan, that we take this whole thing as personally as if they had crashed into reunion tower in Dallas. The blood banks here have been having to turn away people all week because of the huge turnout. The radio station here inteviewed a man in line the other day who and given blood the day before, and was standing in line again hopeing that they would catch his name and would let him give blood a second time. School was dismissed early on Tuesday, and many businesses, including the malls closed thier doors and shut down out of respect and mourning. In all sincerity, you have our support, our prayers, and our sympathy. I wish that we could do more.

Punishing the high school kids, howevever, by cancleing the games, would serve no purpose. (personally, I could care less about football). Theyre High School kids, and they do need a release.

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NOTE: I wrote this reply after Elwood’s post but I could not get it posted because the board was closed for maintenance. Sorry if it seems a bit stale in light of newer posts.

Captains:

I write this with the full understanding that it is entirely possible that the subtext of the Nightline story was skewed by the reporting or editing, but…

Based on the piece, I did not get the slightest sense that there was any real remorse going on in the Texas towns they reported on. When the coach (or whoever) said “The kids need some release from the sadness of the recent events,” I would have been a little more convinced if anyone appeared in the slightest bit sad or grieving. (And no, he was not actng like some other individuals I’ve seen who have insisted that we “carry on just like before” to show we will not be beaten by the terrorists.) He was wooden, unconvincing and insincere – as if he was thinking Hey, we slipped a few more patriotic tunes into the halftime repertoire and broke out the flags… that should be enough.

Don’t get me wrong, CC I am not advocating victimhood. Nor am I suggesting that the lack of a football game or the presence of a candlelight vigil will “fix anything,” as you worded it.

What I am suggesting is this. Because everyone who wants to help others can’t always dig through the rubble, as it were, human beings create symbolic gestures of solidarity that allow us to stand and be counted – as freedom-loving people, as Americans, as NYers or Texans, for example. These gestures can be the ties that can bind total strangers across the world. In essence they say, I don’t know you, I’ve never met you, but I support you. And I will proclaim my support to the world through a gesture or sacrifice even though you may not know about it, and even though it may never even help you directly, and even though it may even subject me up to ridicule or harm. It is a three-way dynamic: the supportee, the supporter and the world.

These gestures are valuable, not because they really “fix anything,” but, in part, because they define who we are in the eyes of the world. And that value should be taught to our children; so when we ask them to save hard-earned pennies in a coffee can for disaster relief or skip the fun of a football game as a gesture of respect for grieving fellow citizens, they realize that we’re doing it for bigger reasons than being misers or spoilsports.

13

WellIm a New Yorker and I think it is good that they played.

The pro teams are scattered around the country like a lot of other tourists and getting those teams to the city that they are supposed to play in is not that important.

But NY is trying to get back to ‘normal’ and so should the rest of the country. We have reopened the museams and brodway shows and movie theatres. I went to work and Thursday and Friday for full days. High School football should go on as well.
Now of course if they said a prayer before the game then we have a different thread. :slight_smile:

14

I went to a high school football game, here in Minnesota, last night.

Slap in the face of NYers? No, everybody knows what went on Tuesday, and we all know this is serious stuff, but we have to start trying to get back to some normalcy in our lives, if we can.

I went because I had to get away from the constant reminders of Tuesday’s events, not that I will ever forget, but rather, I just needed a break.

I was getting rather depressed, with all death and destruction, images of planes crashing into buildings, the walking wounded, distraught family members looking for loved ones. My eyes were constantly welling up with tears.

So, as previously planned, I went to watch my daughter be a cheerleader, and to see people smile again.

There was moment of silence, and again my eyes welled up, along with many others. It was a reminder that, we’re all in this together, and together, we’ll get through it.

15

I too went to a high school football game last night here in rural Colorado. It was a homecoming game. But it was about more than just homecoming this year.

Both the homecoming king and queen wore black arm bands in respect to the dead in New York Washington and Pennsylvania. I saw no one in the stands that was not wearing a red, white and blue ribbon.

At the beginning of the game, following the National Anthem and a moment of silence for the dead in New York Washington and Pennsylvania, someone in the stands with a beautiful young voice started singing “God Bless America” and everthing stopped and the song was sung and tears flowed.

At half time, it was announced that both teams had voted and agreed that whichever team won, they would dedicate the game to those people who had lost their lives in the disaster.

I know these are all little things especially coming from a town of less than 2,000 people, most of whom have never been further than 50 miles from their small hometown (which city-dwellers would say is in the “middle of nowhere”) for anything other than a high school athletic contest. But please don’t say we don’t care because we played a football game. We do.

TV

16

I can not speak for the residents of Washington and Pennsylvania, but I can speak as a New Yorker who has travelled through a great many of those “middle of nowhere” places that TV time describes. I’ve done it often on a bicycle – alone or with one or two others – where I’ve met people in tiny package stores, diners and bars; as any long distance bike tourist will tell you, people are eager to chat with you when you’re on a bike.

I am always polite and respectful when I travel (hopeful at other times too), and yes, most strangers are friendly, helpful and considerate. But others, when they hear I am from NYC, are not – often in the most blatantly insensitive and insulting ways.

That’s the thing that always surprises me: the blatantness of it. When, say, a clueless tourists comes up to me for directions in NYC, I stop, focus and try to politely help regardless of the absurdity or niavite of the question. I may smile to myself after they’re gone, but never, never in a mocking way. However, when I’m out of town and I encounter someone who doesn’t think very much of me or my hometown, boy they don’t hold back – right in my face. One woman, not content with letting me know that she thought NYC was a shithole, insisted on grilling me over and over and over as to how I could possibly choose to live in a cesspool like that.

There is a deeprooted disdain for NYCers across this land, let me assure you. John Rocker merely put into words what many, many others truly feel.

17

I agree with you, but I think it’s reciprocal. I know that I feel a deeprooted disdain for all those goofballs over there on the wrong side of the Hudson.

So I don’t give a damn if they want to entertain themselves with football games. I feel a deeprooted disdain for football games, too.

18

I still don’t understand the intensity of your irritation here, it seems like you are implying this horrific thing happened only to New Yorkers and that only New Yorkers have the right to dictate how to mourn and go on living. That’s crap. Not only were there people in those planes, towers and the pentagon from other states, including Texas, but there are people from other countries too. Your insistance and implication that Texan’s have a deep rooted disdain for NY’ers based on an interview with a high school football coach who did not have the emotional response you think is appropriate is farfetched and demonstrates your own prejudice unnecessarily devisive at a time when so many are obviously mourning, sympathetic and reaching out to the physically and emotionally wounded as a result of these attacks on OUR COUNTRY. (Not just your city.)

19

**

Well I’m sorry that not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve. Other then an hour or so Tuesday you can’t really tell my mood by the way I look or talk. In fact I even smile and crack jokes from time to time. Is that slap in the face to New York?

**

Maybe he’s always wooden and unconvincing?

**

I think Texas did more then make meaningless gestures. As someone else pointed out they sent money, blood, and rescue workers. Of course they did the pointless support things with ribbons, moments of silence, and other things.

I’m not offended that they played football. Have you ever thought that in moments of turmoil that people like having familiar events to look forward to?

Marc

20

OK and yes the run on sentances, poor construction, and fragments are noted and demonstrate my ingnorance, due I am sure, to the fact that I was educated in the south.