What was the football 🏈 culture at your American high school like?

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glemits@reddit

Students, players' families, and not many bleachers. For many of the students, it was a social event. We had a consistently successful NFL team very close by, which had many hardcore supporters, and a consistently unsuccessful NFL team not far away, with not as many hardcore supporters.

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Adorable_Dust3799@reddit

Mine was on the meh side. I never went to a game or rally or anything. My 5+ yr older brothers were all in football, gymnastics, wrestling and/or track and i went to some of those events but it wasn't a huge deal. I couldn't have told you who the quarterback was ever. We also had surf and ski clubs, and band was popular, and drama and math. My sister and i were both in swim club and field hockey, but those were both pretty small. Baseball wasn't as big as football and i assume we probably had basketball but i dunno.

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JuneRhythm1985@reddit

I’m from Northern California (actual NorCal, not in central CA that wanted to be lumped in with us because they didn’t want to be lumped in with Modesto and Fresno) and football was definitely a thing. We were a mid sized town with a lot of other mid sized towns around. Football was pretty competitive, especially for River Bowl. I had friends that either played on the team, were cheerleaders, or who were in band, so I was at every home game and a lot of away games during my junior and senior years when I could drive. It was a lot of fun.

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thisaintparadise@reddit

Small town Florida. High school football Friday night was a big deal. Cross town games were crazy and cross county line games were insane. This was a long time ago. Now that small town is part of a major metro area and additional high schools in the county with varied student populations has lessened the rivalries and eliminated some of the cross town/county line games due to redistricting and school reclassifications. But there was that one glorious week when USA Today ranked my high school football team # 1 in the country. Thank you Tommy Frazier.

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lefindecheri@reddit

I went to an all-girls school. We didn't have a football team.

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fried_clams@reddit

None. We didn't have football in my Massachusetts school. We had a good hockey team though.

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Bigmtnskier91@reddit

I grew up in CT and it was basically the same as you. But if you’re from places in the south, Texas or midwest it’s a huge deal like Friday Night Lights.

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Alarmed_Pepper_6868@reddit

SE Texas here. Look up the Bum Phillips Bowl on YouTube. The stands are packed and the crowd gets wild.

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SenseNo635@reddit

I also grew up in Connecticut - a rural part of the state - and we did not have a football team.

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aintjoan@reddit

Pennsylvania too, as soon as you're outside the two big cities.

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44035@reddit

I grew up in Ohio. Football is massive there. Several players on our team went on to play Division 1 football in college.

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maceilean@reddit

I went to high school in Los Angeles and it was non-existent.

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Revolutionary_Bit_38@reddit

My HS football team didn’t win a single game

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she-dont-use-jellyyy@reddit

How did you have games with no field?

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Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit

It wasn't immensely popular, but everyone got really into homecoming, and you definitely had to be at the game.

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Comfortable_Break387@reddit

I'm from California but lived in Oklahoma briefly when I was in high school. It was exactly like the movies make it out to be with the football players being local celebrities and cheerleaders fawning over them. The entire town would show up every Friday in the fall for home games. Local businesses would have the schedule up at the register. I moved back to California, specifically San Francisco, and it couldn't have been any different. My high school there barely even had bleachers, and pretty much no one went to the games or had the kind of school pride they did in Oklahoma. I don't even think I knew who was on the football team.

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vteezy99@reddit

I feel like California can’t match the football fervor of the southern states. But it does very well in soccer and baseball

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baycommuter@reddit

We’re 30 miles south of SF and our games are packed, though the excitement isn’t to Oklahoma levels.

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tsukiii@reddit

Football wasn’t that big of a deal at my school, kids would come to watch their friends play or perform but it wasn’t the neighborhood’s main form of entertainment or anything. I was on the dance team, so we performed at home games on occasion.

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Curmudgy@reddit

What football culture? We had basketball, not football. I don’t know anyone who actually attended their games, but my clique in high school wasn’t into sports.

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Federal_Pickles@reddit

Well, I’m from Texas. So…

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cdb03b@reddit

When I was in High School it was a big deal. We went to State multiple years and two of our players went professional after college.

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rando24183@reddit

I went to a huge high school. So some people were really into the football team, and some weren't. I never went to a football game and neither did my circle of friends. I was friends with a cheerleader and mostly it was just that they had to wear their cheerleader outfit during some days, but none of us cared. It was just another extracurricular, same as anyone in band or debate or drama. Sometimes there were school assemblies, but I was ambivalent about those. Was a nice break from class so I wasn't trying to hide from them. I don't remember any of the teachers making a big deal of football or any sport. Even the teachers that coached sports.

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N_Huq@reddit

same, only i went to a small school

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Choirmom1@reddit

Texan here. In my town, when your child is born, you put your name on the waitlist to get football stadium seats and by the time they hit high school you will probably still be on the list. I cannot explain the focus on football. All the schools mascot are the same thru lol the grades so everyone grows up to be a dragon. The week of the game is filled with pep rallies, pre-game events, pre-game tailgates. For high school. Also multi-million dollar stadiums, nicer than some professional teams. I grew up thinking this was the same everywhere. I was wrong 😂

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Loud_Ad_4515@reddit

Texas. Naturally it's huge. And the band is part of it. My kid's marching band was 300+ students - about 10% of the student body. Something unique about high school football in Texas are the [homecoming mums](https://www.mumentousbook.com/blog/what-is-a-homecoming-mum-in-texas).

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New-Process-52@reddit

Muscles

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SoundsOfKepler@reddit

My Texas high school was one of the poorer and less populated in the district, so we never had much chance in football, but becauuse, pound for pound, the kids were tougher for their size, our wrestling team were often the state champions. So while certain parts of the school- band, cheerleading, the timing of homecomimg dance- still centered around football, no one thought being on the team was that big of a deal. Many boys on the wrestling team, were viewed as leaders, and they seemed to take that responsibility seriously, reaching out to students who might have felt they were on the periphery. A very different dynamic was at play that I didn't observe happening in the schools where football was front and center.

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ButtSexington3rd@reddit

Rural NY high school- We had a football team, there were pep rallies and the community went to games but it wasn't A Huge Deal. It was more something to do in a quiet community where there weren't a lot of things to do on Friday nights. Most people didn't remember if the team won or lost by Monday morning.

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ZWiloh@reddit

I went to a weird magnet school without a football team, but we did have cheerleaders...but I'm not sure they actually did anything, I think some guys and gals just wanted to be able to say they were cheerleaders? We didn't have any sports teams at my school, we were all pretty focused on our primes (majors)

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Quix66@reddit

I did too for my second high school! So much better than the first. No non-team cheerleaders though. Weird indeed!

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Loud_Ad_4515@reddit

Um, in Texas? Yeah, it's an entire thing. I will say that in small towns, the entire town attends games, and often there a dance or celebration afterwards My son was in marching band. Even though our school's football team was not great (brainy school), the marching band and the culture around it was amazing. We had friends from Paris visit for a year, and some things we recommend fell flat for them - they weren't being snobs or anything, they just wanted authentic "Texas" experiences. They were *blown away* by the halftime shows (band, color guard, drill/dance teams), and likened them to Broadway. Central Texas has a wealth of some of the best marching bands in the country, and it's due to our football culture. Our school does a homecoming parade through the surrounding neighborhood, then - of course - there's a dance, pep rally and other events. Someone that is unique to Texas, is the tradition of homecoming "mums" - short for chrysanthemum. When I was in school in the 80s, the mums were fresh flowers ordered from a florist or floral department. You chose personalization options (school activity, names), and they were decorated in ribbons in the school colors. The halls smelled amazing during homecoming week! They still do mums, but like a lot of things, they've gotten bigger, and now they are silk flowers, with parents often making them. Here's more about mums: https://www.mumentousbook.com/blog/what-is-a-homecoming-mum-in-texas

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JackTheHerper@reddit

The football game was something to do on a Friday night in a place where there wasn’t much to do. Just about everyone who could make it went for the social aspect, not many cared much about the football part. Lots of times there was a “fifth quarter” which was basically just a hangout in the field behind the bleachers after the game, they turned the lights on and had a few soccer balls/footballs out, sometimes one of those inflatable obstacle courses, music, even live music a few times. It was fun and kids got into all sorts of shit on those nights, especially with the unlighted, unsupervised park across the street.

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zoppaTheDim@reddit

Due to demographics and geography, we played in a conference where every school was three to six times as large as ours. We lost every game two and a half years running.

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BuildNuyTheUrbanGuy@reddit

Typical stuff. We went to the games to hangout and see our friends and girls. I never payed attention to the games. In Katy Texas its a religion. Whole town would be empty on Fridays when I was in college out there.

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Obvious_Ship_7225@reddit

Games were fun but not crazy over the top.

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hitometootoo@reddit

I don't really remember. I didn't care about the football team so I never cared about what they were doing. I only knew 1 person on the team because we were friends but he never talked about it. I do recall seeing them wear their jerseys before games but I couldn't tell you what they looked like since they kinda just faded into the background for me. I vaguely recall a school pep rally with them, cheerleaders, the basketball and I think baseball team doing some type of performance, but I'd always be busy playing games to pay attention to those times.

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Quix66@reddit

Overwhelming! Center of school and city culture, pep rallies, Friday night games. The football team and the cheerleaders ran the school. I hated it! Was hard to get out of attending pep rallies because the teachers want to go too. Was so happy to switch to a new academic magnet school with no inter mural sports. The school got a team back later because the district started sending neighborhood students there again, but I was long gone.

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Leelze@reddit

I grew up in Massachusetts and while our team was really competitive at the time, we didn't really do anything special before, during, or after games. It was treated as just another sport.

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No_Permission6405@reddit

Graduated HS in 1972. Football team went 11-0, put 3 guys in pro football. It was a party every Friday night.

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L0st_in_the_Stars@reddit

I went to a hippie public high school in Brooklyn, NY with no grades and no sports teams. No regrets.

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dobbydisneyfan@reddit

It varied. Most of my schools were tiny religious ones that had no football teams. We also had zero affiliation with any of the public schools that did have football teams so the biggest chunk of any sports stuff would be concerning the NFL or somebody’s little brother’s toddler football team or something. So there wasn’t a culture much for going to high school games. The guys tended to like sports but most of the girls didn’t care. I hate football so I was never involved in any of that.

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bluerog@reddit

In Cincinnati, the high school football culture is nuts. When you talk to other people from Cincinnati, you identify where they're from, in or near the city, by asking which high school you went too. You'll go to high school football game from age 13-18... And after you graduate, you'll still go if you're friends with people 1 or 2 years younger then yourself. And again 16-20 years later when your kids are going to, or playing in, the games.

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Amazing-Artichoke330@reddit

My dad made me play football in my Texas HS, and I hated it. The band was much better. It had girls.

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Medical_Gift4298@reddit

We didn’t have a football team.

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Green-Machine200@reddit

Really a big deal. We have had a number of players go to the NFL.

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nightwing185@reddit

It was fun. My school historically has been average but my senior year we went undefeated until we lost in the state playoff quarterfinals. We had a future NFL all pro on our team which helped

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ScienceJamie76@reddit

Our football team sucked so high school football culture was nonexistent.

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Traditional_Trust418@reddit

Sports were highly valued, especially football. Those of us who preferred musical talents were undervalued and forgotten about. Very little support went to the students with creative talents because all's anyone cared about was sports

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UpbeatPhilosophySJ@reddit

Nothing more American then going to the game on Friday night, McDonalds after, some dude peeling his hand me down Firebird out of the parking lot at 12 am.

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