I don't think I've seen a letterman jacket outside of a Halloween costume.
....only the jocks....Back when I was in high school (late 70's/early 80's) varsity jackets were everywhere.....do the hs kids wear varsity letter jackets where you are......
Not just responding to you Magpie....just generally.....Your post made me curious about my children's high school. Wealthy school, about 1000 students in grades 9 to 12.
The sports offered are soccer, hockey, basketball, volleyball, rugby, badminton, track and field, and cross country running. Happening somewhere off campus is apparently swimming, rowing, snowboarding and skiing (the school doesn't have the facilities for any of these, but they're still listed in the athletic program). No football!
I would think soccer, given how inexpensive it is to equip students for it, would be a natural fit for your school. All you really need is a field and a ball. Every school in my city offers it for that reason, because even the poorest kids can get out there and play. But it might not be familiar to the school administration in your town, or to the parents who'd be required to volunteer their time.
Football I consider basically on par with Hockey - stupidly expensive and if you have any regard for your childrens' brain health, you probably don't want them playing it.
Participation jackets?
My high school gave out letter blankets. In college I received a letter sweater.
Not just responding to you Magpie....just generally.....
We should cut out soccer, gymnastics, and cheerleading, too, since those sports also have extremely high rates of concussion.
Or, we can just relax a little....despite the negative press (concussion talk and football is the "in vogue" thing right now with the media) the percentage of players who get concussions is not very high, and ALL high impact sports are continually looking for ways to play the sport safer, whether ( I can talk about football specifically) that's by using better equipment or changing game rules, or eliminating kick of and punt returns which is the most dangerous time of the game, or by better training the kids in proper technique (ie. hitting with their shoulder, and gator rolling when tackling so the heads not hitting the ground, etc)
But of course, the "good stuff" doesn't make for good headlines, so all anyone hears about is the horror stories.
Ironically, my son who has played football since he was a little kid, has bum shoulders now because of the "concussion-free" tackling techniques. He can't keep those darn things from being injured since he leads with them on every play.
And the one time he had a concussion in his life was from some jerk kid goofing off and swinging DS around and landing on top of him when he was about 13 - nothing to do with the course of football play.
Eta: Both my boys play lacrosse now too, and DS11 is goalie....he had to be taken out of the game and concussion evaluated because he got hit with the ball at close range twice on his head within about 10 seconds. He blocked the first one, it ricoched back to the kid who then blasted him a second time. DS11 staggered for a few seconds and they immediately pulled him.
There's not really a "safe" sport - there's always a risk. It really doesn't have anything to do with being concerned about brain health...of COURSE there is no parent is out there saying they don't give a hoot about their kids brain. thats a ridiculous statement.
When I was a kid growing up, people took knocks to the head as a matter of either pride or comedy.
I know you're joking, but... Mine had skiing and so did my kids'.
It's pretty common here. I remember my mum found me a pair of enormous wooden skis with metal spring bindings at a yard sale, and a horrible seventies-era brown-and-tan snowsuit with a cropped top and flared legs. She was pretty proud of herself, though in 1987, I was dying every time I had to put that snowsuit on. Not even sure how those skis were allowed on the slopes, either. Eventually, I managed to snap my skis taking a tumble on a downhill, and my relatives took pity on me and bought me proper fiberglass skis and a decent snowsuit. Whee!!
Also, equestrian was definitely a thing at my husband's school, in Northern Ontario. Tiny community, tiny school, but they do love their horse events.
That is funny! Curious how old he was at the time? Because past a certain age, it's not "cool" for Moms to go running down or in there! So part of me wonders a little bit if he was trying to save face. Lol. Last summer I was in a stadium well up behind home plate when I watched my then-18 yr old son, as a batter, get hit in the helmet with an 85mph fastball, and go down. I resisted the urge to go down there myself, but watched the coaches and umpires attend to him. I could see he was awake and they were asking him some questions and holding up fingers and that sort of thing, so I continued watch with baited breath. He got up and they helped him over to the dugout. After that, his coach came over to the fence to update me and told me I could go see him in the dugout, so I did. I got over there and he looked up and said, "I'm fine, Mom. You can go now!"My stepbrother told me an amusing story following one of his football games. A teammate got his clock cleaned during a play, and was out for a few seconds. The coach, Medical, and his mom all ran to him. When he came to, he still wasn't clear where or who he was. His mom, wailing "Jeff! Jeff!" tried to hug him. He screamed "Who the [eff] are you?!?"
They laugh about it now.
You've probably heard me talk here about my mother before. She's almost 92. She is walking around with one dilated pupil and let me tell you, it freaks medical personnel out! We sometimes forget it's there until we see the looks on doctors' faces when they don't know her and see her eyes for the first time. It cracks us up a little and here's why. So picture this. A cute little old lady is being seen in the ER for a slip and fall. They're examining her and whoops, there's the wide-eyed, freaked out look on the doctor's face! Usually they blurt out, "Is your pupil always enlarged like this?" and this is where it gets really fun. Right away she launches into one of her favorite stories of how when her grandson was four years old she was babysitting him one day, they were out in the yard hitting whiffle balls, he hit a line drive right to her eye, and it's been like that every since! Maybe you have to be there, but for us, it is really funny to hear her tell that story. Every.single.time. It wasn't so funny at the time it happened as we came home and found her with a reddened eye and I saw the dilated pupil and had to rush her into Mass Eye and Ear for evaluation. But 15 years later we can laugh about it. Oh, and nobody ever even once said it was related to concussion. It is simply an eye injury.When I was a kid growing up, people took knocks to the head as a matter of either pride or comedy. I knew a fellow who had one pupil smaller than the other for awhile, until whatever was wrong sorted itself out. We just laughed about it.
You've probably heard me talk here about my mother before. She's almost 92. She is walking around with one dilated pupil and let me tell you, it freaks medical personnel out! We sometimes forget it's there until we see the looks on doctors' faces when they don't know her and see her eyes for the first time. It cracks us up a little and here's why. So picture this. A cute little old lady is being seen in the ER for a slip and fall. They're examining her and whoops, there's the wide-eyed, freaked out look on the doctor's face! Usually they blurt out, "Is your pupil always enlarged like this?" and this is where it gets really fun. Right away she launches into one of her favorite stories of how when her grandson was four years old she was babysitting him one day, they were out in the yard hitting whiffle balls, he hit a line drive right to her eye, and it's been like that every since! Maybe you have to be there, but for us, it is really funny to hear her tell that story. Every.single.time. It wasn't so funny at the time it happened as we came home and found her with a reddened eye and I saw the dilated pupil and had to rush her into Mass Eye and Ear for evaluation. But 15 years later we can laugh about it. Oh, and nobody ever even once said it was related to concussion. It is simply an eye injury.
Back when I was in high school (late 70's/early 80's) varsity jackets were everywhere. Athletes (boys and girls) wore them with pride.
They don't seem to be wearing them these days. I wouldn't have noticed, except a few days ago we actually saw a couple boys from a rival school with theirs on. They were the only ones I've seen in this area in the last 12 - 15 years.
So, what gives? Around here sports are very popular. That makes the absence of letter jackets even odder...to me at least.
Can anyone explain?