Dethroning King Football
If you listened to some school officials in San Gabriel Valley, you’d think students had abandoned a basic pillar of education. The educators must fight, you see, to overcome a cultural barrier to -- football?
At some of the region’s high schools, students of Asian descent make up a hefty minority, or even a hefty majority, of the enrollment. With a dominant culture that has gotten by for centuries without a Super Bowl, these schools have watched football languish for lack of kids to play it, parents to support it and interest by the community. There’s more devotion to tennis, badminton, volleyball -- and, especially, top-flight academics. What’s so bad about that?
Yet, as reported by Times staff writer David Pierson this month, school officials are pushing to interest Asian families in the sport, saying it builds teamwork and leadership. So does choir. More likely, educators in a region once noted for its pigskin victories are grieving the loss of an all-American tradition. They’re careful to frame their worry in terms of declining sports -- even though these students are active in volleyball and basketball -- but say privately that nothing builds school spirit like football. That’s true of the culture they remember, anyway.
There are other principals and superintendents who -- very, very quietly -- wish they could do away with football. It’s usually the most expensive team a school fields. They fantasize about spreading that money to more students, using it for better physical education programs. But they won’t make such a suggestion for fear of howls from parents.
That’s fine too. Communities that support the sport should have a say. Likewise, no one should feel culturally derelict for valuing a chessboard over a gridiron. Many Cal State campuses with honored football histories, including Fullerton and Long Beach, dropped it years ago because of the expense.
It can be sad to see the weakening of American traditions -- among them the Little League, which is losing ground to the globalized soccer craze. People crave continuity and a sense of mutual identity. Yet, as ethnic, generational and global shifts transform the region, the meaning of many “all-American traditions” also will change, sometimes bringing vibrant new ways.
