The high school social hierarchy places the most accomplished, confidant, and charismatic at the top of the social hierarchy. More often than not, these tend to be the athletes who participate in the most glorified sports: Football, Basketball, Baseball, Women’s Basketball, and Cheerleading. These individuals at the top determine what is socially acceptable and what is socially anathema. From a very young age, our youth are raised in an environment that that devalues authority (school teachers, principles, priests, etc), and stresses immorality, licentiousness, and drunkenness. Athletes of the glorified sports, in particular, are vulnerable to this environment, as they are raised to be “winners” and have the most access to these forbidden fruits due to their powerful position atop the food chain. Therefore, as the athletic teams have been brought into the Ave Maria community, a similar social hierarchy has begun to be formed and along with it the social norms at Ave Maria have begun to change as well. Retreat attendance is down, Mass attendance per capita of the student body is down, households are struggling to attract members, and the discussion of academic and theological topics over the dinner table is dwindling. These are immediate results of many reasons, but one prominent reason is the rapid influx of freshman athletes who we have failed to integrate into the University community as a whole. I am not so worried about immoral behavior, though that is bothersome, but about the kind of social environment that the University will foster in the coming years. Will households continue to be socially stigmatized? Will mass and religion be deemed “uncool” in the social ladder? Above all, how will those of the middle ground who come here open and willing to get something out of this experience be swayed?

            I’ve compiled some facts to add to the above argument as well as to the one you’ve obviously all read in my blog article. I hope this helps to clarify my position. I also hope that you will accept this as dialogue and not a diatribe. It has never been my intention to judge any individuals at this university or to downplay the positive experience many athletes have had here. I am merely pointing out the elephant in the room.

            In a recent survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, it was recorded that high school Athletes were, in general, more likely to have recently cheated on an exam, more likely to consider bullying an acceptable method to motivate people, and more accepting of grandstanding and smack talking before during or after games. The link to this survey is below. What I found most remarkable was that there is a distinct difference between male and female athletes, varsity and non varsity athletes, and athletes who participate in glorified sports versus cross country runners, tennis players, and gymnasts. Here are some scary statistics:

The highest cheating rates were for those involved in football (72%), girls’ softball (72%), girls’

basketball (71%), cheerleading (71%), hockey (70%), and baseball (69%). Female cross country

athletes (39%), male cross country (53%), male swimmers (53%) and female swimmers (57%)

were the least likely to cheat in school.

If you play football, you are 12% more likely to cheat on exams.

            I’m not the only one that is questioning the widely held belief that American athletics are good for character building, team building, and honesty. Check out what the founder of the Josephson institute says: “There is reason to worry that the sports fields ... are becoming the training grounds for the next generation of corporate and political villains and thieves.” Look. I’m not saying “if you are an athlete, you are going to be the next Enron CEO.” I am saying that there is reason to believe that the sports environment in America is unhealthy.

            So what are we to do? I would propose a plan of action, but I will not be here next year to move past the “diagnostic” stage. I made my attempt to help this year and I failed spectacularly. My purpose in writing this is to point out an issue that every one of us, whether Ave or Athlete, Esto or Lawless, Lit, Theo or Bio Majors, can make an effort to solve, simply by loving on each other, and not falling prey to this “I’m too cool for that” crap. It is also my hope that in the Fall of 2011, God will call some members of the Ave Maria community to a new, creative, inspired outreach to combat this changing social environment and to bring this school back to Our Lady. I will be praying for this University and her direction next year, as well as for all of you.

                                                                        May the love of Christ be with you.

                                                                                                Marcellino D’Ambrosio

An article on the survey:

http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/188128

The survey:

http://josephsoninstitute.org/sports/programs/survey/index.html

            As we climbed the unending steps in front of the cafeteria, the tension began to mount.

            “So since this is a big Catholic school and all, am I allowed to have sex with my boyfriend?”

The girl who had just asked me this question was just now taking a break from chewing her gum to turn one side of her mouth up in a coy grin. The boyfriend she was referring to was a beefy young linebacker smirking obnoxiously as he gripped her fingers in one fleshy hand. He had just signed on to play football next year, and I was the fortunate Ambassador who had lucked into giving them a tour. She was trying to get a rise out of me. I smiled: “would you like to rephrase that question?” The rest of the tour went similarly. When I give tours to athletes, most notably football players, I get a lot of the same sorts of questions. “How are the parties here?” “How hot are the women at Ave?” “Do people smoke [pot] here?” These are far more common than you’d like to think.

            Today in the cafeteria I was asked to fill out a random student survey by two students on the budgetary committee founded by our new CEO. That student survey asked “Is there a divide between the Athletes and Non-Athletes? If so, please define.” I filled up what was left of the page. The Athlete vs Ave “problem”—and there is a problem—has been debated on for the last three years. It has been the subject of much pained contention and boisterous debate. It’s infiltrated our dinnertime time conversations, its found its way into the school newspaper, and has virtually taken over the forums. So what is the debate? The epicenter of this storm of controversy is the heart of the University itself. As a growing University, like it or not, each and every student that steps into the “one shop stop” at orientation has an impact on the school’s direction, whether they stay for two weeks or for four years. Who comes here is, therefore, vitally important. 

            We “Ave’s” don’t want to be “intolerant,” or “judgmental,” so we are very careful to predicate our concerns with such statements as “It’s probably just a couple bad apples that ruin it for the rest of you,” or  “I know all athletes aren’t like this.” I will not predicate my statements with any thing of the sort –it ought to simply be understood. I will say, however, that sport can be good. My experience with the rugby team has changed my life positively in many more ways than one. The question is not whether or not sports are good. The issue is one that looms far larger than Ave Maria University, but extends deeply into American culture as a whole. We are all familiar with the aged movie trope in which the chiseled sandy haired jock stuffs the pimply nerd into a locker while all other onlookers laugh at his misfortune. We may even remember that one quarterback friend back in high school who somehow made it through history class despite his adamant insistence that George Washington Carver was the first president of the United States. These are stereotypes. As we all know, stereotypes don't always hold water. I’m writing this to tell you that this one in particular, however, does.

            I’ll start this out by telling you about one of those embarrassing moments that defined my childhood. When I turned six, my father got a job teaching graduate theology at the University of Dallas, so my family up and moved to Texas. I spent the next eight years home schooling and in small private schools, but then, when I was fourteen, my family enrolled me in the local public middle school. I wanted very much to fit in, and so I quickly found out what drove the social scene: football. If you wanted to have any shot at not sitting at the lunch table between to Pimples McGee and Nerdstky McNerdskerson,

(These guys^)

you had to play football. Now, like I said, my dad was a theology professor. We weren’t exactly the kind of family that watched ESPN highlights together. Regardless, I chose the “Men’s Athletics” track instead of taking P.E, and quickly found myself in the locker room, facing a locker full of weird looking pads and a helmet that weighed more than my entire body. Much to my chagrin (and my teammates glee) my football career began with my eighth grade football coach chasing me out of the locker room with my pads all stuck in backwards, cleats totally unlaced, and my helmet jiggling rhythmically with each step. I still haven’t completely lived that one down.

            Anyway, for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why I had such a hard time catching on to the game. I could run faster, jump higher, and lift more than many of my teem mates, but when it came to the playbook, I just didn’t get it. What I found later was that while I had been reading Lord of the Rings and playing make believe in my back yard for the last eight years, my classmates had been playing football. The Texan thought process goes something like this: there is nothing that can make you more proud than your kid playing football at your alma mater, UT. But if he wants to play in college, he’s got to start in high school, and if he wants to start in high school, he has to start in middle school, and the best way to give him a fighting chance to play in middle school, he should get his hands on a ball as soon as his fingers are strong enough to hold it. Basketball and Baseball are much the same way.

Perfect!

To say that college recruitment is competitive is like saying the Palestinians and Israelites don’t get along too well. Recently, a thirteen year old signed on to play for USC in 2015. Most kids start learning the alphabet at age five. This website advises parents to get their toddler signed up for a flag football league to increase their chances of an illustrious high school football career.

            So many kids start on a particular track very early. Some kids start playing chess, taking part in science projects, and competing in spelling competitions, while others learn to play a particular sport. What seems to happen is that each track forms itself into a sort of subculture, and very early on these subcultures develop into hierarchy. Anyone that has ever been to a public school can attest to the fact that there is a social hierarchy in place. It sets athletes, particularly football, basketball, baseball players and cheerleaders at the top, and the “sexually active band geeks” one step up from the down syndrome kids. Popularity for the high schooler is everything, and the social rules that govern interaction between these groups are expansive. To put it succinctly: there are rules about who can be popular, and who can’t. This is public knowledge. If you take issue with that, just watch Mean Girls. Let’s just take a look at one of the scenes in that movie. At one point, “Regina George,” the Queen Bee preeminent social queen points out all of the tiers of the social hierarchy according to each table they sit at in the cafeteria.

“bzzzzzzzzz.”

            If you ask most high school boys about this issue, they would probably tell you that where you sit in the cafeteria determines if you get invited to parties or not, if you have sex at those parties, and how hot the girls are that you get to have sex with. That’s what moves the social scene in high school. Alcohol and Sex. Drugs get thrown in there too somewhere, but let us continue.

            Now, lets just take a look at a recent development in our own cafeteria at Ave Maria. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if you go into the cafeteria you will see the beginnings of the same high school breakdown. Many of the athletes gravitate to the left side of the cafeteria by the TV, which is perpetually playing ESPN highlights. The other set group is the “overly pretentious lit crowed.” They sit outside under on the patio. “The Ave Kids that Win Intramurals,” “That Freshman Group,” “The Angelus Leaders,” and “The Partiers,” sit at different tables all the time. What doesn’t change is who they sit with.

            When I got to Ave Maria, there were cliques and there were groups. There was some division. However, until this year, there was not a social hierarchy. I could sit at any table in the cafeteria and welcome anyone else to sit with me. Now, it is no longer a common experience for many Ave Students to sit down at an unusual table. Awkward looks and uncomfortable silence await the brave soul who tries it.

            To a certain extent, social hierarchy is an unavoidable fact of human nature. It is possible that it could a good thing. It really depends on what the culture values. In Ancient Greece it was Kleos or Glory, in Japan, honor. In medieval Europe, faith was the highest virtue. American high schools however, do not seem to have much good positive peer pressure. If you are popular, you get invited to parties and have sex with hot (guys/girls). If you aren’t, you stay home and play World of Warcraft/ Read Jane Austin.

That is why there is an athlete problem. It’s not a personal issue, it’s a cultural one.

 So, Ave Maria, let me ask you a question. Do you want another four years of high school when you come to this University? Because that’s what’s in store for Ave if things keep moving in the same direction. Here’s what’s practically going to happen, and has already happened.
            When people tell me that I need to go “reach out” to the athletes, I chuckle to myself. The entire nature of this social hierarchy makes such “out reach” extreemly difficult. What is socially encouraged becomes cutting down Ave Maria and anyone else who values her mission. This year has been a difficult year for the men’s households. Where as my freshman year, a great majority of my class pledged for a household, this year, they pulled in one or two each. Why? One reason is because households have become stigmatized. Social hierarchy says that it is not cool to be in a household, be involved with the school, or even go to school planned events. Only “Ave’s” do that. And if you are an “Ave,” you don’t get to sit with the cool kids at the cool tables or go to the cool kid’s parties, or have sex with the cool cool girls.

This is not judgment. This is observation.

                                                                                               

                        Yours,

Marcellino D’Ambrosio