Sour grapes

Some things are as seasonal as strawberries. Like (to continue the fruit theme) sour grapes.

And so right on cue, one day after Bishop Luers won its seventh state football title, an e-mail popped up in my box, reeking of bile. Three paragraphs long, it was the usual tiresome screed about parochial schools and how they recruit all their players and how it's not fair because the public schools have to dance with who brung 'em, and blah, blah, blah.

"Who cares about high school football for the lower classes," the writer whined. "It no longer has any meaning. It's just a private school playoff and means nothing to the public schools anymore. A state championship in those divisions no longer has any meaning, just who can cheat the system most efficiently ... They have cheated and lied for so long they actually believe what they are shoveling."

To which all I can say is, it figures. Just when I have some faith that the general public has half a brain, some dim bulb comes in a quarter lower than that with this kind of drivel.

OK, one last time: I'm sure some parochial schools do "recruit." I'm sure some public schools do, too. In fact, I know for a fact they do. But if you're going to slam Luers in particular, you need to at least make a passing attempt at getting your facts straight.

A few points:

1. Ninety-five percent of the players on Luers' roster, probably more, came up through the south-side parochial feeder system. The same surnames have appeared on those rosters over and over again through the years, which suggests that Matt Lindsay isn't roaming far and wide to pull in stray talent. It is a family thing there. It always has been.

2. If Luers and schools like them are "cheating," specify how. If they're "lying," specify how. If you can't, then shut the hell up.

3. There's no secret to why Luers has had the success it has. Look where it plays, first of all. When you're playing in a big-school conference that's usually one of the state's best, you're facing much better competition on a weekly basis than most 2A schools ever face. And for a second reason, go back to No. 1: The feeder system. It's as good here as it is anywhere.

I don't expect any of this to do anything but go in one ear and out the other, of course. It's amazing to me how ingrained is the "parochial schools recruit all the best athletes and that's why they win" mythology. Even people I know to be intelligent buy into it.

In other words, I just wasted my breath and a whole lot of words. But it was worth it.

-- Ben Smith      

Comments

[J English]

One word for your sour grapes writer: Sheridan. I expect they've enjoyed all nine! Did Bud Wright recruit, hmmm? I recall FORTY years ago he walked into a barbershop on Main in Sheridan and while I was captive ask, "why aren't you coming out for football?" He recruited one of the baddest dudes in town, a drop out, got him back in school and turned him into a very Bad A@@ defensive lineman. Kept him in school too. Built a program with surnames I see over and over. They don't whine about private schools, they beat em.

[randy]

finally! someone who regognizes that almost everyone on luers' roster went to a south side catholic feeder school. and some even went to north side catholic feeder schools. and most of the ones who didnt go to a parochial feeder school came to luers, not because they were recruited, but because their parents wanted them to go there. sure there is a little recruiting, but public schools do it just as much. thank you for this blog entry.