If you haven't read J.D. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, do so, and you'll understand why you keep seeing this behavior in football players. For me, Friday Night Lights was a horrible flashback to my high school days: my old high school was considered to be one of the Texas schools most likely to be affected by the "no pass, no play" restrictions on extracurricular activities instituted in the Eighties, and it was the first to get caught at cheating to allow football players to continue playing. Actually, that's unfair: it was the first to get caught at teachers being threatened with physical violence by coaches if the teachers didn't pass star football players, and the principal who tried to cover up the whole thing now has a junior high named after him.
My only joy from that time came from watching many of those stars fail to make the pros: one such character in my school had grand plans to play for the Cowboys, and he was literally without sin as far as the school administration is concerned. Well, he got signed to play college ball with Baylor, where he rapidly learned that he wasn't allowed to show up drunk to class or assault fellow students the way he had at Lewisville High, and he didn't understand why they just didn't give him automatic "A"s on all of his classes whether he showed up or not. After all, that's how he was used to being treated, his being a football star and all. He was promptly sent back to Lewisville before he'd finished his first semester, and he had a bit of a disconnect when he discovered that he was now a former high school football star. After more than a few drunk and disorderly and aggravated assault arrests, he finally settled down enough to get a job, and he now spends his time selling used cars on the edge of town. Quite literally, he spends the rest of his time as a completely unironic Al Bundy impersonator: all of the beatings I received by his hand remain unavenged after the sight of him openly bragging to a waitress at a class reunion "As you know, I used to play high school football."
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Date: 2007-08-21 02:26 pm (UTC)My only joy from that time came from watching many of those stars fail to make the pros: one such character in my school had grand plans to play for the Cowboys, and he was literally without sin as far as the school administration is concerned. Well, he got signed to play college ball with Baylor, where he rapidly learned that he wasn't allowed to show up drunk to class or assault fellow students the way he had at Lewisville High, and he didn't understand why they just didn't give him automatic "A"s on all of his classes whether he showed up or not. After all, that's how he was used to being treated, his being a football star and all. He was promptly sent back to Lewisville before he'd finished his first semester, and he had a bit of a disconnect when he discovered that he was now a former high school football star. After more than a few drunk and disorderly and aggravated assault arrests, he finally settled down enough to get a job, and he now spends his time selling used cars on the edge of town. Quite literally, he spends the rest of his time as a completely unironic Al Bundy impersonator: all of the beatings I received by his hand remain unavenged after the sight of him openly bragging to a waitress at a class reunion "As you know, I used to play high school football."