Perhaps you misunderstood the assertion. "Yeah, the south has the 'advantage' in culture if we think it is a good think for larger numbers of young athletes to be playing football. The 'advantage' for football is a disadvantage in life, but it does lead to more quality football players in the south."GBear4Life said:The assertion was "an advantage in football is a disadvantage in life", for which I have read no good argument for in this thread.Cal8285 said:
My son is entering his senior year of college, and he has really enjoyed his 4 years of high school football and his 3 years, soon to be 4, of Division III football. But I think it is way better for him that he went to a high school and a college where football didn't rule. We can never know the road not taken, but knowing him like I do, I think he will come out of college better for those 8 years of HS and college football. I'm not sure, however, that he would be able to come out better if he had been at a high school or a college where football ruled.
And what I'm saying isn't the same as "Don't like Beyonce as much and support the local choir as much as you support Beyonce." I do think it is better to balanced in life, and not be too obsessed with Beyonce. As a singer in a local choir, however, while I appreciate people who come to our concerts and enjoy them, I don't want anyone to cut back on Beyonce to go to more local concerts they will enjoy less. But I think people overly obsessed with Beyonce would be healthier if they would go out for more hikes or bike rides or spend more time in community service. Or spend more time with their kids or parents. And certainly don't cut back on Beyonce just in order to spend too much time posting on Bear Insider, which I say as someone who certainly spends too much time posting on Bear Insider.
But it is even more important for a community, for the culture, to be balanced than for individuals. In the community, in the culture, it is OK if some people are obsessed with Beyonce, like most of us here are probably too obsessed with Cal football. It would be bad if it felt like the entire community was overly obsessed with Beyonce. Just like it is bad if it feels like the entire community is obsessed with high school football, or if it feels like an entire college campus community is obsessed with its football team (and in some respects, that is worse than being obsessed with Beyonce, because she is an adult wanting a career where some people are obsessed with her, as opposed to being a high school football player who just wants to have fun). Where the community is balanced, then the individuals have more options and are more free to follow their passions.
In the places where football rules, football will rule until it doesn't, but I believe it is healthier, I believe life is better, in the places where football doesn't rule, but exists with a more appropriate role in the community. I think that in most places in California, football doesn't rule and has an appropriate role in the community, and I think that is frequently not true in the south.
I think dedication to an activity (sports) and supported culturally by the community and region is a positive thing, particularly compared to the alternative (a community that isn't passionate about anything, with time left idle). Team sports help build all sorts of life skills. Not all of them will take advantage of those aspects but that's not really an argument in support of the original assertion.
In context, this is saying that having a culture that is overly obsessed with football is an advantage for football, not an advantage in life.
I don't think it is an advantage in life for there to be dedication to one activity (football) and supported culturally by the community and region far too much to the exclusion of other activities, and the arguments for that have been made. And it isn't an advantage in life for kids who just want to have fun and build life skills to have too many people being too obsessed with what they are doing.
Team sports build all sorts of life skills, but intense community focus on one particular sport over other sports and other activities isn't so healthy for the kids who play that sport, the kids who want to play other sports, or the kids who want to play both that sport and other sports.
I'm not talking about passion for football versus passion for nothing. I'm talking about reasonable life balance, and if the community is too passionate about football, then it is harmful to both individuals whose opportunities to be passionate about other things are more limited, and to those who want to participate in football without the community obsession that kids shouldn't have to deal with.
I truly appreciate the life skills my son has built in his many years as a member of a football team. I believe it has been a great benefit to him, and when he graduates college next May, assuming he doesn't sustain any injuries he can't recover from, he will come out a better person for the past 8 years of football. But I truly believe he would be worse off if he was in a place where the passion for football was incredibly high as it is at many SEC schools and at way too many high schools in the south. Yes, the "advantage" in culture that makes the quality of football be better in the south is a disadvantage in life.
