Friday Night Plights
I recently finished reading Buzz Bissinger's 'Friday Night Lights' for the first time. As a non-American who knows very little about high school sports, it was eye-opening. Reading about the amount of investment into high school football is almost incomprehensible.
...it was pointed out that a $5.6 million high school football stadium had been built in Odessa in 1982. The stadium included a sunken artificial-surface field eighteen feet below ground level, a two-story press box with VIP seating for school board members and other dignitaries, poured concrete seating for 19,032, and a full-time caretaker who lived in a house on the premises. H.G. Bissinger, 'Friday Night Lights'
Adjusted for inflation, that is over $18 million. A staggering amount of money which serves only a select handful of students each year. If that sort of investment were put into the academic side of schools, which has the potential to benefit every single student, it would completely revolutionise teaching and learning.
I was generally aware of America's deep love for high school and college sports, but reading Friday Night Lights feels like it is at the expense of absolutely everything else. A zero-sum game.