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