By Sue Murphy
I was musing the other day (I do that), and a terrible thought came to me: With budget cuts running rampant, what if someone decided to get rid of high school football?
Now, I haven’t been to a high school football game in years. But back when my daughters were teenagers, Friday night football kicked off every fall weekend. My daughters were in the band and, despite the fact that there were only enough musicians to form one big letter, watching those brave few march around at halftime made this mom extra proud.
Football programs can be a drain on a school’s resources, what with all of those helmets and shoulder pads and properly inflated balls to be purchased. I get that. Watching football isn’t cheap, either. There are tickets to buy and seat cushions and ads in the program. Football is a major financial outlay on both sides of the ball.
Just for the sake of argument, however, I wonder if anyone has crunched the numbers on what it would cost to not play football. My guess (to borrow a line from Chico Marx) is, “You couldn’t afford it.”
Let’s say the proverbial “they” made the dreaded announcement: Sorry, folks, no more high school football. (I suspect the announcement would be made at a safe distance from an undisclosed location.)
After the wailing and gnashing of teeth subsided, the fallout would be tremendous. First, there would be a string of coaches forced to seek jobs in Florida, and no one wants that. The assistants would follow, along with the trainers and the announcers and the guy who paints the stripes on the field, the whole lot of them headed down I-75 looking for a place to settle in.
The marching band would never get a chance to do the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade because the scouts wouldn’t have a chance to check out their moves.
Speaking of moves, no football would mean no dance team, no majorettes, no flag squad, NO CHEERLEADERS. (Hundreds of moms just went into a dead faint.)
But enough about the emotional fallout, let’s talk dollars. All of those football pads and helmets? Somebody makes those for a living, you know. The Friday night lightbulbs, the line chalk, the whistles for the referees? Cancel those orders. And if no-football ever becomes a reality, I’d sell my Gatorade stock quickly.
There would be no need for a concession stand. Imagine the dip in wholesale popcorn sales. No Raisinets, no Milk Duds. And who’s going to make up for all that lost nacho cheese revenue? See, the repercussions go a lot further than you think.
Plume-hatted uniforms? Instrument rental? Tiny little pieces of sheet music? Don’t need them. Flags for the flag squad? Sparkly outfits for the dance team? Spanx? All gone. There would be no bus rental, no car washes, no chocolate bar sales, because there’d be no competition trips to Disneyworld. Would you do that to Mickey?
No football would mean no Homecoming, meaning no photographers, no DJ’s, no floats, which is practically the only reason crepe paper streamers are produced. The local restaurants would lose a zillion dollars in parent-credit card revenue. The losses at the florists and fancy dress stores would trickle down to greenhouse keepers and garment workers. Tack on a couple points to the national unemployment rate, why don’t you?
Face it. Cancelling high school football would be fiscally irresponsible, but I don’t think we have to worry about that ever really happening. I mean, what would be next, getting rid of college football? Wait a minute… ϖ
