Post by Luca on Mar 16, 2019 12:40:20 GMT -8
I used to be fascinated almost to the point of obsession regarding parochial football. My father played, my brother played, I played, 3 of my kids played. I coached briefly. I was officially or otherwise a team physician for Loyola, Santa Margarita and JSerra over the last 35 years. I used to make a 150 mile or more round trip drive on a Friday for Loyola games and then follow it up Saturday with Saddleback College.
There were overly detailed summaries of the games that I would stay up until 2 AM writing for the various FB message boards that have been active over the last 20 years. I was familiar with players on all the different local parochial teams from Alemany in the north to Santa Margarita in the south.
That’s because I valued HSFB so much. I saw and experienced how it changed and molded kids. How it used the carrot of something fun - playing football - to instill hard to learn values that might otherwise have required a stick, like loyalty, hard work, friendship, team work, continuous effort even against all odds, humility, the realization that things don’t always turn out your way despite your best efforts, etc. How to win, how to lose gracefully.
We all want to win. But eventually you learn that winning was never the purpose. An adult should see that merely competing and the lessons learned from it are the real value.
IT'S NOT THE DESTINATION. IT'S THE JOURNEY. Ultimately I understood that’s why I was so drawn to it.
Tragically, there were those coaches, parents and school administrators who never learned that. For them it was always about winning, self gratification and perhaps a degree of narcissism, even if they didn’t understand how small that pedestal was. And with time these programs have ruined parochial football, at least in Southern California. There is no longer competition and there certainly is no loyalty or an emphasis on the traditional values, from either the coaches/programs or many of the players. Although winning was never the purpose, competition was. That was the sine qua non.
But we all know that either Bosco or Mater Dei are going to win their titles this year and the year after that and the year after that, as is now the case in basketball. Latecomers to this game like JSerra might give the illusion of competition, but it’s false. And without the competition there is no longer the same value in the sport. How to you teach kids loyalty when teammates are leaving for rivals that welcome them gladly, if only for a semester? Why work so hard when you know you are doomed to lose because you will not or cannot play by the same rules? Cynicism trumps integrity.
So, it’s an odd feeling to have lost all interest after so many years. You read the current high school message boards and all your read about is what prima donna kid is transferring to which program and who’s ranked where in the team or individual Internet ratings, etc. etc. It’s a strange feeling not to care anymore. I may or may not go to a few games next season. Nothing lasts forever but I had hoped that at least parochial schools would stay true to their principles. My naïvety never ceases to amaze me.
There were overly detailed summaries of the games that I would stay up until 2 AM writing for the various FB message boards that have been active over the last 20 years. I was familiar with players on all the different local parochial teams from Alemany in the north to Santa Margarita in the south.
That’s because I valued HSFB so much. I saw and experienced how it changed and molded kids. How it used the carrot of something fun - playing football - to instill hard to learn values that might otherwise have required a stick, like loyalty, hard work, friendship, team work, continuous effort even against all odds, humility, the realization that things don’t always turn out your way despite your best efforts, etc. How to win, how to lose gracefully.
We all want to win. But eventually you learn that winning was never the purpose. An adult should see that merely competing and the lessons learned from it are the real value.
IT'S NOT THE DESTINATION. IT'S THE JOURNEY. Ultimately I understood that’s why I was so drawn to it.
Tragically, there were those coaches, parents and school administrators who never learned that. For them it was always about winning, self gratification and perhaps a degree of narcissism, even if they didn’t understand how small that pedestal was. And with time these programs have ruined parochial football, at least in Southern California. There is no longer competition and there certainly is no loyalty or an emphasis on the traditional values, from either the coaches/programs or many of the players. Although winning was never the purpose, competition was. That was the sine qua non.
But we all know that either Bosco or Mater Dei are going to win their titles this year and the year after that and the year after that, as is now the case in basketball. Latecomers to this game like JSerra might give the illusion of competition, but it’s false. And without the competition there is no longer the same value in the sport. How to you teach kids loyalty when teammates are leaving for rivals that welcome them gladly, if only for a semester? Why work so hard when you know you are doomed to lose because you will not or cannot play by the same rules? Cynicism trumps integrity.
So, it’s an odd feeling to have lost all interest after so many years. You read the current high school message boards and all your read about is what prima donna kid is transferring to which program and who’s ranked where in the team or individual Internet ratings, etc. etc. It’s a strange feeling not to care anymore. I may or may not go to a few games next season. Nothing lasts forever but I had hoped that at least parochial schools would stay true to their principles. My naïvety never ceases to amaze me.
