The Football Mystique: Spirit and Sacks

How much does a football team actually

contribute to a school’s environment?

By

Anne Erickson

In the Lick-Wilmerding archives room, between the dusty covers of a 1969 yearbook, amidst sketches of peace signs, black and white photos (the drama clique, the flexible scheduling committee, the senior sunbathing society), one can find 10 small pictures and a paragraph that stand as the last relic of Lick-Wilmerding’s not-so-famed football team. Once upon a time, out on the lawn—which in those days extended over the area now dug out to accommodate the new building, the atrium, and the theater—the boys of Lick-Wilmerding played the sport that in many ways defines the American high school and the American way of life.

“Anybody who saw them play will have to admit that the 1968 Football Tigers played better than their 0-5 record indicates,” begins the optimistic blurb beside the pictures. “They were a scrappy team, which by hustle and desire made up for what they lacked in size.” The yearbook gives special thanks to those members of the team who, due to the scarcity of players, played on both offense and defense against larger and stronger foes. It concludes that the 1968 Lick Wilmerding Football Tigers—who, little did they know, could be the last—were “a determined team who never gave up.”

Tim Erickson, alumnus of the class of ’71, puts it a little more bluntly. “We were pathetic,” he admits. “I think they might have scored one touchdown the entire season.” The next year only nine people went out for football. Suffering from lack of space, minimal finances, and diminishing interest, the team disbanded for good. “I don’t think there was much of an outcry from the students when the sport was discontinued,” says Ann Maisel.

The demise of Lick’s valiant yet puny football team raises some key questions. While football died at Lick, it continued to thrive at nearby high schools all around the Bay Area, as well as around the nation. Today at Berkeley High, Bishop O’Dowd, and Saint Ignatius, football draws enormous crowds. The discontinuation of a football team at one of these schools would no doubt lead to protests and discontent. But along with the Urbans, Universities, and Marin Academies of the Bay, our student body does not clamor for football. Why?

One could hypothesize that Lick students “rejected” football, or at least lost interest in the game, because of the type of school that we are—just as O’Dowd and BHS students embraced it. One could make the assertion that the non-existence of football has consequently shaped Lick as a school. But is this really the case? To what degree does football, or the lack of football, impact a school’s culture? And what is a “football culture”?

Certainly, the question is not straightforward. Eleven guys wearing shoulder pads cannot transform a community into a stereotypical, socially stratified 1950’s high school in Anytown, USA, complete with cheerleaders, jocks, nerds, band, and pep rallies. On the contrary, this image serves only as an extreme end to a spectrum of schools. Meg Gorzycki, Director of Curriculum at (football-playing) Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland, points out that “each school has its own unique culture.” O’Dowd, Gorzycki says, tries to center its community around its Catholic mission statement—a far cry from the mentality at public school football giant Berkeley High. These schools are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and neither fits the “Anytown” profile. School culture must be affected by more than the existence of one sport. “One could argue, for example, that a school culture could just as easily be affected by a male sports program even if it did not include football…perhaps [the culprit is the culture of] competitive, contact sports, as also expressed in soccer, lacrosse, or others,” says Gorzycki. Ilana Kaufman also contends, “I don’t want to say that I blame [a cultural difference] on football, maybe I would blame it on coaching, or the culture as defined by pro sports.” Al Adams agrees that other sports can create the same sort of “football culture.” Beyond the realm of sports, many variables affect the way a community functions, Gorzycki points out. For example “[students] absorb values from TV, music, [and] peers.”

Yet administration members from schools around the Bay Area admit that the existence of football in particular, whether for real or symbolic reasons, does seem to spark remnants of the socially segregated, spirit-filled “Anytown” culture in a school community. “I do believe there is a difference in schools with and without football,” says Kaufman. Adams suggests that football may be so special because it is the “epitome of being the macho sport.” It sparks physicality, violence, and crowd involvement. He also points out that it is the only modern-day sport in which, the vast majority of the time, women do not participate. “Women change a sport,” he says, and the existence of a purely male activity at a high school could cause the gender stereotyping reminiscent of “Anytown” high, not to mention increased violence.

A “football culture” can be encouraged by students and administration alike. If sports players are recruited to a school or receive special treatment, says Gorzycki, that influences the social culture in a school. Kaufman agrees. “A school mission, a vision, the size, the way we ‘lead’ the community with common goals, ideals and expectations—I do think that can influence the way a community conducts itself.”

“Anytown” culture is certainly not all negative. In Kaufman’s experience, the consequences of a “football culture” varied widely, breeding both healthy spirit and intense discrimination. “I attended a big, football-playing high school…there was a football culture—the whole so-and-so is dating the quarterback, isn’t so-and-so fine, etc.” says Kaufman. In many ways, her school built its social existence around football. “There were the…liquor-laced parties that were part of the football culture, and there was some violence associated with the sport,” she says. “I was also around when the girl tried out for and made the football team. I’ll never forget, her name was Linda, and the team jumped her and broke her leg so the girl…was forced off the field.” But, she adds, football also promoted “a lot of good. There was tremendous school pride, and there were ‘community-building’ rituals associated with football, like painting your grad year on the bleachers.”

The most compelling reason for football’s effect on a school community may be its parallel role in the outside world. Mainstream America is captivated by and invested in the sport of football, and the power it has outside high school doors gives it prestige within them. Professional football’s central values become the values of football schools: competition, violence, and what Adams tentatively calls an “almost militaristic” ambiance: the romance of “having gone into battle with your buddies.”

The complex football culture was lost to the Lick community in 1970, and the two pages the Football Tigers once claimed in the yearbook are now filled with pictures of the soccer teams.

The loss of football marked the end of an era for Lick, but students still manage to have a good amount of school pride without the pep rallies. “While there are fewer kids to scream and cheer, we have a loud and robust group here, and proportionally speaking, I think L-W can compete with the biggest football schools,” says Ilana Kaufman. What Lick may be fortunately lacking are the aggressive spirit and social hierarchy that often accompany football.

Lick’s lack of football has allowed it to become the type of school it is today. Not drained dry by expensive football equipment, Lick has room in its budget for a variety of different electives and sports, including the shops. It has severed one vein of connection between itself and popular America, allowing it to further its role as a unique community slightly removed from the mainstream.

March 2004

Paper Tiger

Sports