Gladiators do battle

Blood, sweat, and tears

It is never enough

Gladiators do battle

To avenge past wrongs

It is never enough

As the past remains unchanged

To avenge past wrongs

Futures are forfeited

As the past remains unchanged

But the blood never ends

Under the floodlights

Futures are forfeited
Blood, sweat, and tears

But the blood never ends

To kids who happen to run fast

What if they can’t count accurately

Greed capitalizes on the smallest separation from her older sister Morality. Usually Morality is there to keep Greed in check but every so often, Morality has to see her therapist and Greed runs wild.  She is at her worst when other people are involved. Greed worms her way into the cracks between friends and makes room for her cousins, Distrust and Hostility.  Greed always had to share with Morality as a child and Morality was so high and mighty about everything that Greed rebelled. Greed was caught trying to shoplift a sofa and her excuse was that she had already stolen the perfect side table and rug for it. Greed has an unhealthy obsession with her pet, Money. She will not let anyone else take her or even rub Money behind the ears. 

We lost a lot of good kids this year. These shining young people were in the prime of their lives, with bright futures ahead of them until they were met with untimely demise. The entire town of Odessa mourns for the families of the departed, who devoted so much time and effort into making the best football players possible. Poor Mike choked to death. Brian’s heart finally gave in to the stress of his goals. Ivory’s apathy and Don’s partying finally caught up to them. Jerrod worked himself to death trying to achieve the impossible. Boobie got what he deserved, wasting away without a friend or teammate anywhere near him.

Let’s look back on what great accomplishments this team had. Our quarterback could throw a pass so perfectly it would bring tears to your eyes. Our running back was as fast as a spooked deer and as strong as an ox. Our linebackers hit so hard, they worked part-time as battering rams for the Odessa PD. Our receivers had hands so soft, they could catch greased lightning in double coverage. Our lineman were as big as cattle, with twice the appetite and a mean streak four miles wide. Our safeties could cover the entire state of Texas and still blitz Mexico if they needed to.

But they are dead and gone now, so we close the book on this year and get to work for next year.

Now what?

There is no “next one”

And what do I have to show for it?

A high school football championship.

My dream

Is to go to college

But,

All the hours of practice

Made me who I am,

The worst student.

Wipe the slate clean

I have to refocus...

I have to forget that

If not for you

I wouldn’t have lost.

On to the next one

A High School Football Championship!

That has always been 

My dream.

All the hours of practice

Made me who I am

The best coach

Restart for next season,

Wipe the slate clean

I have to refocus.

I will never forget that

If not for you,

I wouldn’t have won!

To understand the problem, recognize that Michigan, arguably the best team in college football history, makes about $152 million dollars from athletics, north of $50 million from licensing and rights, and around $85 million from football alone. Texas A&M, about 330 miles from Odessa, the setting of Friday Night Lights, is the highest grossing program in the country at $192 million in 2016 (businessinsider.com). Now consider the effect of more success. There are more prime time games, television money, free advertising, and usually an increase in donations. In this climate of greed and exploitation, "student-athletes" have to work 40 to 50 hour weeks when classes are in session (money.cnn.com). This is a strain that by itself eliminates some possible college paths, as Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter found out when he was advised to drop his pre-med courses because they interfered with football (money.cnn.com). 

Over the last decade, the NCAA, the overseers of college athletics, have leveled punishment against more than a dozen colleges for academic fraud (insidehighered.com). These statistics do not take into account the colleges that punish themselves in addition to the many cases that go unreported or even exist today under tacit approval. Even when the NCAA punishes programs, they say the issue is one or two rogue staff members that cannot control the compulsion to do math homework for star football players. Maybe the students without critical thinking skills believe that, but everyone else can see what is happening across the country and connect the dots. 

Schools argue that the time invested in sports is compensated by the scholarships that athletes receive. They also contend that athletics gives kids educational opportunities they would not have otherwise. These are fair points, and in a perfect world, athletics would open doors that are traditionally closed to many students. However, in the imperfect world we live in, these sterling ideals are shoved aside for profit. Student athletes go along with this system because they think that making it big in the NFL will provide for them and their families so they do not need an education. This attitude is epitomised by the tweet, “We ain’t come here to play school” (washingtonpost.com) from the third string Ohio State quarterback, Cardale Jones. 

Student-athletes think of themselves as athletes and the student part can fall by the wayside, even for Richard Sherman, who went to a little school in Palo Alto called Stanford. He was a communications major and at Super Bowl Media day, he launched into a diatribe against the system he lived and breathed for four years. “Show me how you’re going to get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so, you’ve got a test the next day, you’re dead tired from practice and you still have to study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all the same work done” (si.com). This is a powerful condemnation from someone who could be considered a shining example of the student-athlete model. Sherman grew up in Compton, California and attended one of the most academically rigorous universities in the country with an athletic scholarship. He graduated and was drafted and has blossomed into one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL (nytimes.com). However, even Sherman struggled to manage his time and classwork at Stanford because of the demands that athletics make on life and time. 

Richard Sherman is the best-case scenario. This system has serious impacts for the players like Boobie Miles, the star tailback in Friday Night Lights, who lose their physical talent due to injury. They are stranded without a proverbial, and sometimes a literal, leg to stand on. All the missed classes result in the decimation of Boobie’s college dreams and any hope of future education. One bad step or low hit can ruin careers but athletes do not realize how ephemeral their playing days are. The average NFL career is 3.3 years (statistica.com) so even if a player makes it through high school and college without injury or scandal, at 26 they are likely to be out of a job and without necessary education to get any other job.

The answer to this problem may be found in Friday Night Lights. Not explicitly as the citizens of Odessa see nothing wrong with the system, but implicitly through their attitudes towards sports. The culture of the lights is passed from generation to generation, with kids dreaming of one day being a football player. If this same reverence can be applied to education, then student-athletes would truly live up to their title. If a program is caught cheating, they should lose their athletics so the students can concentrate on their studies. That program should lose scholarships so schools that do right by their athletes have a greater capacity to take in more student-athletes. This system incentivizes balance and it would result in a generation of athletes that understand the value of academics as well as athletics. Imagine the crazy Friday night scene transported to a spelling bee or a speech and debate tournament. On second thought, maybe it is not the best idea to include rabid fans in these events. However, student-athletes would have better lives after sports if their education was prioritized. The Friday Night Lights would be dimmer but the players on the field would be brighter.

Works Cited

Bissinger, Buzz. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, a Member of the Perseus Group, 2015. Print.

Bonesteel, Matt. "Cardale Jones Didn’t Go to Ohio State to ‘play School.’ Now He’s Graduating." The Washington Post. WP Company, 15 Apr. 2017. Web. 21 May 2017.

Gaines, Cork. "The 25 Schools That Make the Most Money in College Sports." Business Insider. Business Insider, 13 Oct. 2016. Web. 21 May 2017.

Isidore, Chris. "Why Being a College Athlete Is a Full-time Job." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 21 May 2017.

New, Jake. "An 'Epidemic' of Academic Fraud." More than a Dozen Athletic Programs Have Committed Academic Fraud in Last Decade, with More Likely to Come. Inside Higher Ed, 8 July 2016. Web. 21 May 2017.

Shpigel, Ben. "Seahawks' Richard Sherman Is Much More Than Just Talk." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Jan. 2014. Web. 21 May 2017.

The Statistics Portal. "Average NFL Career Length | Statistic." Statista. The Statistics Portal, n.d. Web. 21 May 2017.

Wire, SI. "Seahawks Cornerback Richard Sherman Discusses College Athletes' Time Constraints." SI.com. Sports Illustrated, 29 Jan. 2015. Web. 21 May 2017.
Photos credit Google Images

“You are actually turning into a good writer” said my mother when I asked her to proofread my genres. This is an encouraging statement because my goal for this project was to stretch myself with unfamiliar writing styles. I normally leave poetry to my brother, so it was an interesting experience for me to write poems, especially pantoum and two-voice poems which I have never written before.

It all started with my book. I chose Friday Night Lights and I thought I would end up researching sports which would be a welcome change from school. However, as I read, my research topic turned into school or the lack thereof which may say something about me. As I dug into what being a “student-athlete” really entails, I was really surprised by the treatment of these young people. My expository essay expressed some emotion which is uncommon for an essay of mine. What makes me upset is people abusing their power and hurting others with less power. In this case, the players are being hurt  by athletic directors and deans and others who are exploiting these athletes for their own gain.

From this outrage, I decided to write about the quality greed. I really enjoyed inventing Greed’s family tree and I tried to capture some unexpected relationships. Then I wrote a two-voice poem to highlight the differences between a coach and a player after a season is over. These pieces were a way for me to identify the problem, the attitude that a player is only as good as what they can give you between the lines. To this end, I wrote a satirical obituary from the perspective of a crazed fan to show how football players can be imagined as dead once they graduate. In the obituary, I also exercised my simile muscles to imitate the author of Friday Night Lights.

I wrapped my genres up with two more poems, a clever (if I do say so myself) haiku and a pantoum poem. I had to say a lot with very few words which was challenging but helpful. I knew that poetry would be difficult but I am glad I chose to do it, if only so my poems can be used as examples of what not to do next year. When writing the poetry, I tried to think about all the work we did with poetry and incorporate elements like rhythm, word choice, punctuation (especially two-voice) and line breaks. 

Throughout all my genres, the golden thread is light. Whether it appears in the imagery of a quality or a description like "shining" or in the title of a poem, I tried to incorporate light into every piece. Lights are a symbol of the harmful pressure and the focus that society has on sports. The gigantic floodlights illuminating a football field and leaving every other part of town in the dark is a representation of the culture that causes the problems I researched. The lights shine brightly on Friday night and I wanted to reinforce that symbolism.

Besides my golden thread, the pieces are all related to my book and to each other. I started with the idea that every piece would be a part of a larger story so that made me emphasize different aspects of student-athletes in order to paint an accurate picture. This idea drove the content of my genres while the idea of getting out of my comfort zone drove the format of those ideas.

As I look at my project, I am proud. It is not perfect but I followed a passion and wrote differently than I ever have before. Doing this project made me grateful for the school I attend and the teachers that would never treat me like some of these student-athletes. I am thankful that I could end on a happy note.

Best,

Joey Chafetz