"This Is All This Town Has..."

The Boston Globe sports section on Sunday, December 3 featured a front page article and photos of Everett High's football team and coach, John DiBiaso. It had some great pictures of Dib with the kids, the team bus, and even DiB shopping! It was a nice piece, very complimentary to the city's football program; it was a wonderful tribute to the Crimson Tide, and well deserved.

There was one comment, which was probably very offhand, that was very telling and a little disturbing at the same time. In the section titled "A day in the life," an unnamed coach, in the context of Everett going without a championship title in two years, comments that "This is all this town has."

"This is all this town has?"

Such is the culture of this school system, and in the fall months, it permeates the city. What a message to impart! It starts at the top and trickles all the way down to the players. In the article, our very media savvy school superintentendent strategically creates an image of a poor, dirty, industrial city in which football is the only beacon of hope. "When you live in a city like this, you point to the industry, the smokestacks, the traffic on Broadway...our houses are almost one on top of the other. This is something you can point to - I live in Everett and that's my team." When your superintendent makes a comment like that, what message is that sending to the other kids in the school system? If you don't play, or at least embrace, the football culture in this city, there's no place for you?

We're not trying to minimize the impact of high school football in this city. It is, indeed, a huge part of our culture and our heritage. It is not, however, the only thing this city has to offer our young people. There are youth sports organizations to which the adults in this city devote countless hours -- not just in football, but in baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, and soccer. The high school has various clubs outside of athletics -- a music program that draws more kids to it each year; language clubs; scholastic clubs. In the past couple of weeks, there have been pictures in the local paper of young people in the elementary schools who are part of the Kiwanis Builders Program. High school football is important to our city but it is, by no means, "all this town has to offer." By the way, someone should explain to that coach that we're a city, not a town. We haven't been a town since 1892.

The trickle down effect of this culture is frightening. It's in this "football is everything" culture that a young player is quoted, stating, "Football is life in Everett," and "It's our life." When all is said and done, football isn't everything. These kids graduate from high school and the vast majority don't go on to the NFL. Most of them leave their football glory behind and they go to college, or they go onto jobs and/or the military. That's real life. All the football victories in the world won't prepare young people for real life if "it's all this town has."