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Where do they get the money for this? It can’t be state funded, can it? Can it?
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Guess I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it were privately raised funds.
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I do NOT get the High School level of sports enthusiasm. I do get sports. I do. I can enjoy it. Personally I don’t like college level because it is too amateur. I can’t see High School level kids being any better and to be honest while I can see enjoyment, I can’t see rabid support - much less $70 Million dollar support. I remember the booster club having bake sale. Pretty sure the most they ever raised was a million.
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No cost is too high to be READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL
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Most of these stadiums are built with government issued bonds approved by local voters. Texas schools are almost entirely funded by local property taxes - only a very small portion comes from the state general fund.
Some of these Texas high schools are on-par with colleges in terms of size and student body. Not unusual to have 30k+ attendance at most games. Alumni associations are big business. I still get letters from my high school alumni association 25 years later asking for donations.
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It really is like a whole 'nother country.
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Will 100 new teachers help us beat the town next door at football? Checkmate, libtard.
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Because Texas!!
F’kyeah, football!!!1!11!
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How do you figure fencing is an expensive sport? The gear is cheaper than football or hockey padding, it doesn’t require much space, it doesn’t require specialized facilities. Hell, you could practice in a tenement hallway.
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It seems that these stadia are shared amongst five or six different schools.
Go home Texas. You’re too drunk to operate your wallet. Let someone responsible spend that money on something actually useful. Like clinics, and homeless shelters.
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That’s an interesting sense of obligation you’ve got there, at least RE: professional teams. Sadly every local government in the country seems to share it.
As a former high school fencer, a full set of basic gear circa 2000 would cost you on the order of $800 (not sure about now), and you’re likely to need to replace your blade and body cord once or twice per season. Is that actually cheaper than the basic gear you need for football and hockey? In any case, I think the bigger reason they’re seen as elite is that there are few places to learn them, so if you can’t afford to start early and have your own gear and travel pretty far for year-round lessons and tournaments, you’re going to be at a big disadvantage by the time you get to high school. When I was a senior after 5 years on the team (and taking classes year-round), I would still sometimes get trounced at tournaments by 13 year olds that started at age 5. Agreed about space though - we were generally relegated to the cafeteria for practices.
I went to an east coast high school with a terrible football team but award winning varsity cheerleader squad and competitive marching band (of which I was drum major). I can assure you that all of those other activities serve just as many students and are at least as much fun when done for their own sake. Football games were the least fun marching band events, because we only got to do an abbreviated version of our show and people were there for football and not us.
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It’s probably not an apples-to-apples comparison. Playing in front of 10-20 thousand people every Friday (I’m not exaggerating) is a rush and the chance to do that is why the band programs are so big in many Texas high schools.
Did you continue in band through university?
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Very good point, and no, I didn’t.
The teams even get contracts that give them a cut from concerts etc. It’s an amazing scam.
[quote=“MikeKStar, post:32, topic:84630”]
This is called the “Robin Hood Plan” - something that came into effect after I graduated from another nearby rich Dallas suburb district. It was a huge topic of discussion among my parent’s social circle at the time. None of the parents wanted their “white” money going to support some poor “colored” district.
[/quote] This is similar to the controversial “Abbott” program in NJ. Problem is, between entrenched corruption and poverty, throwing money at urban districts has not had obvious success. But the failing high schools in my city do have football teams though the well regarded magnet HS does not, and claims there’s no money for a fencing team.
As you note the cost of the venue is dramatically different from a field sport, or even basketball. You can roll out a piste anywhere. A former Olympian who runs a large club tried to start a fencing program at the HS I mentioned when his son went there, and was rebuffed. They wouldn’t even let the kids raise the funds themselves and arrange parental transport. Yet they budget buses every day to take the track team across town for practice.
My son was one of those kids you mentioned, started in 2nd grade. It’s a whole different world than starting in HS. But in the fencing club scene he was just middling. A local private HS recruited a few kids from his club and dominated their league.
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I know you say that like it’s something wonderful, but I for one am not impressed with the idea that a large percentage of students in each school are spending the vast majority of their non-academic-class time practicing so that they can play some part, any part, in the Most Important Activity In Life every week.
Virtually 0% of those students will go on to a professional career in musical-performance/football/gymnastics/tumbling/baton-twirling, and meanwhile, because they spend their free time NOT studying (and usually with academically inferior/outright wrong textbooks) they’ll have fewer choices when it comes to finding a career path that will do more than barely pay the rent.
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Thanks, Obama!
/s-in-case-not-perfectly-clear
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so basically: no pressure on the students or the coaches to perform?
while being able to fund so many programs is laudable – to me it seems a bit like the lottery. entice people to part with their money in a way they never would for taxes. but don’t worry too much about the consequences.
i dont even understand the hyper-commercialization and commodification of college athletes. but we’ve got highschool football, and little league insanity.
when a community invests in structure – not just physical structures at 70 million, but the kind of organizational structures you’re talking about – they’re not just reflecting their current feelings, they’re directing future feelings. they are shaping their community and their kids.
this kind of sole emphasis on sport ( and one kind of sport at that ) broadcasts that nothing else is as important. not only that, it eats up space and time and money for alternatives: be that music for music’s sake, academics, civic engagement, whatever.
yes: we can create community where head-to-head male aggressive competition is our focus – obviously many communities do. the question i’d submit is whether it’s good to do so.
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I do think it’s pretty great. The community and social parts are pretty wonderful.
they spend their free time NOT studying
You say that like it’s a bad thing. IMHO, they spend far too much time on academics.
Well something has to be #1. At my high school, it was volleyball. At the other high school in town it was theater arts.
You’re questioning a strawman. The dynamics of high school sports, finance, and community support are a little more complex than you make them out to be.
Late-stage capitalism.
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Those better be some Top o’ The Line Friday Night Lights. DAMN.
I guess 70 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Texas. Football is like a religion there. This price tag does not shock me, because it is true that there are several high school stadiums that have been constructed recently with similar budgets. Texas. Everything’s bigger…
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