Probably a lot of that. Dumb jocks certainly exist but most of my high schools top athletes were all in AP classes and are doing well for themselves as adults
Same, and it skewed heavily in some sports. When I was in cross country and track most of us were in AP classes and would study between races at our cross country and track meets. But even the more stereotypical ādumb jockā sports like football and basketball were full of guys who almost exclusively took AP classes and went on to become middle or upper middle class individuals.
When I was in high school (20 years ago), students on varsity teams had to maintain a certain GPA or theyād be pulled from the team. A lot of them had parents who pushed them pretty hard to excel academically.
You seem to be implying that the top athletes are the ones wallowing in past glory.
There are role players and benchwarmers that cling to a memory or two (or excuse as to why they weren't a bigger deal) and make it their whole personality.
I don't think this is unique to athletics, though it is the most visible. There's plenty of arrested development losers in all walks of life.
Yeah I think a lot of people kinda discount how transferable the mindset between being a good athlete and being a good student is. If youāre smart enough to grasp the intuition for a concept then the path for mastery is mostly just intentional practice
They even got lettermans for the band kids at my high school iirc.
(They also piloted middle school class rings in the area which afaik did not catch on, though i did get one somehow and its very cute, nicest jewelry piece i owned as a kid)
As a former high school football player living in the same city.....well a few things. If it was socially acceptable id wear my letterman jacket all the time. It is so damn comfortable. I also enjoy the book friday night light along with 12 mighty orphans and the junction boys as far as football books are concerned. I also love telling the story of how i was a junior on varsity and played offensive line. The guy in front got of me got hurt before the season. I got to start the 1st game of the season in a brand new stadium. First play from scrimmage, brand new season, community in the stands all excited and my ass does a false start.
My badge of honor is having the first ever false start in that brand new stadium.
Yeah ours would pay for like half (I think, itās been awhile) if you played football but we still had to pay something. And the poor people who didnāt play football had to pay full price.
They were $250 and I'm 31, so God knows how much they charge now
I lettered in nerdy things and wanted one, but my patches were FREE so I thought: heh, that'd be funny -- wait, no, not paying that for a school I hate
The book Friday Night Lights is one everyone should read. Itās genuinely great writing and does a great job showing you the fabric and history of this little town so that you understand why football is clung to so heavily and how bad it is for the guys who play.
It really is. Id also say 12 mighty orphans is a hell of a book too. While i love junction boys, it kinda centered arounf the football program. 12 mighty orphans talks about the kids that made up that small football team and gained national attention as one of the best teams playing against bigger schools (they were an orphanage).
I went to high school in a little Midwest town where a lot of people got stuck in this trap. I may be hard on myself sometimes when it comes to feeling accomplished in life, but reminding myself that I at least moved away from my home town (well it wasn't where I was born and raised, but you get the point) makes me feel better about myself. I can't stress enough how important it is to not get stuck in your home town.
Side note: I need to make a starter pack for people who peaked in the military. They are not that different from people who peaked in high school.
Right, and honestly it is a little sad if ryou feel unaccomplished and comfort yourself with the fact you moved lmao š. Not a job you like or dislike but pays well, not school or education or a personal project or endeavor, or meeting a soulmate.
Not necessarily. It just means that your best days were in the military. Most people who served don't make it to general, obviously, but unfortunately there are quite a few of them who go nowhere in life after they are discharged. Sometimes this is because of something like post-traumatic stress disorder or bodily injury, but other times they just don't know what else to do with themselves and just sort of drift through life, looking back and talking about the military like it was the only worthwhile thing they had ever done.
The weirdest part is that it's normally the ones who only did one or two enlistments as a support MOS that act like this. I know guys who did 10-20 years as a combat MOS, with multiple combat deployments, who do a much better job at readjusting. It's all the cooks, admin, and mechanics who did 4-8 years who go full brovet and can't move forward with their lives when getting out.
This seems to be the case, is a pretty big contrast with some of the veterans I've met who built a civilian career as Beltway bureaucrats after leaving the service and the types being talked about here.
I mean, if he's happy then who cares? A lot of people are really happy staying in their home town. I moved around a lot but now most of my customers are small town folk who have been there forever and it's actually really nice listening to them talk about all the history they have with the people there.
Every High school class of xxxx has the people who donāt move away. That being said, at least in the town I went to high school, most athletes went on to at least try out on a college team and usually used the scholarship money to get like a Business Degree, that or they joined the Army.
So ironically, none of the āpeaked in high schoolā athletes actually stayed.
I've seen some Letterman jackets around as pop-culture merchandising, like when Riverdale was popular you could find replicas of Archie's football letter jacket around a good deal.
I knew a guy who went from being the football god, with his (dad-bought, of course) Porsche 944 parked out front, to being a drop-out and riding a lawnmower for the school district, within a year of graduation. That had to be one hell of a lifestyle adjustment.
I once bumped into a UK equivalent of this. Guy told me about his time playing at the local (non-league) team. Actually said the words: āIām a legend around here.ā He was eating alone in Tesco cafe (equivalent of a Walmart.)
Whoever made this meme watches too many movies. It's a basic bitch stereotype that nerds apply to athletes they went to school with and never got over the jealousy.
My 20th high school reunion was this year, and I can name at least 4 in my class of 70 that are like this. It would be 5, but Tommy went to prison for statutory rape and isn't allowed at the football field anymore.
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How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?
"Get out of here Uncle Rico! I'm tired of you eating all our steaks and ruining our lives!"
https://preview.redd.it/8q23l0hamn8g1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=076fb413d83d6a8788beacb0952d1564fd937eb8
š
https://preview.redd.it/u396nian7f8g1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd47501d295494888d0b313bda94826cc82754a7
Chad Thadley
https://preview.redd.it/qwdqr639nf8g1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a9d4787f65b6e7dccc2857fc0ca2aae38b325b0
Also this guy
This guyās posts are a little too accurate
The embodiment of āpeaked in high schoolā.
it really is wild how many people instantly recognize this type, same stories, same nostalgia, same high school glory loop on repeat
I wonder if they really know that guy or he only seems familiar because heās been lampooned endlessly in comedy flicks and shows
Probably a lot of that. Dumb jocks certainly exist but most of my high schools top athletes were all in AP classes and are doing well for themselves as adults
Same, and it skewed heavily in some sports. When I was in cross country and track most of us were in AP classes and would study between races at our cross country and track meets. But even the more stereotypical ādumb jockā sports like football and basketball were full of guys who almost exclusively took AP classes and went on to become middle or upper middle class individuals.
When I was in high school (20 years ago), students on varsity teams had to maintain a certain GPA or theyād be pulled from the team. A lot of them had parents who pushed them pretty hard to excel academically.
We had that too but it was a 1.5 GPA lol not very hard to maintain
You seem to be implying that the top athletes are the ones wallowing in past glory.
There are role players and benchwarmers that cling to a memory or two (or excuse as to why they weren't a bigger deal) and make it their whole personality.
I don't think this is unique to athletics, though it is the most visible. There's plenty of arrested development losers in all walks of life.
Yeah I think a lot of people kinda discount how transferable the mindset between being a good athlete and being a good student is. If youāre smart enough to grasp the intuition for a concept then the path for mastery is mostly just intentional practice
idk, a lot of the football linemen in my high school were dumb af
Dumb jocks existed in my school.
Least they had a peak. Most haters never get one.
https://preview.redd.it/okvi2p5o4f8g1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=962c1cd0e11d96f858d3639162cc4349dac2870a
Also sells shoes.
Possibly went to Polk high.
And drives a dodge.
Dodge is a fine automobile.
Drove over my wife, in a Dodge.
And smoking hot wife and daughter
If coach had put me in fourth quarter, we would have won State.
https://preview.redd.it/kpr0x3ofmf8g1.jpeg?width=1061&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=352d57a8c7d682c178427462b5c3ceb1989ef40f
Uncle Rico is exactly where my mind went when I saw this!
Always talks about throwing āa pigskin a quarter mile over those mountains over thereā
I think we can let the letterman jacket slide, those things are both really well made, comfy, warm, and stylish
They even got lettermans for the band kids at my high school iirc.
(They also piloted middle school class rings in the area which afaik did not catch on, though i did get one somehow and its very cute, nicest jewelry piece i owned as a kid)
As a former high school football player living in the same city.....well a few things. If it was socially acceptable id wear my letterman jacket all the time. It is so damn comfortable. I also enjoy the book friday night light along with 12 mighty orphans and the junction boys as far as football books are concerned. I also love telling the story of how i was a junior on varsity and played offensive line. The guy in front got of me got hurt before the season. I got to start the 1st game of the season in a brand new stadium. First play from scrimmage, brand new season, community in the stands all excited and my ass does a false start.
My badge of honor is having the first ever false start in that brand new stadium.
But otherwise i have moved on in life
Those letterman jackets were expensive man! I would wear it too if I felt no shame
The funny thing is the jacket is free, it is the damn patches that will cost ya
You went to a rich high school if you got those for free
They definitely weren't free at mine lol.
They didn't give those put for athletics or academics? It wasn't a rich school. I cana ssure you that
Definitely not
Damn
Yeah ours would pay for like half (I think, itās been awhile) if you played football but we still had to pay something. And the poor people who didnāt play football had to pay full price.
They were $250 and I'm 31, so God knows how much they charge now
I lettered in nerdy things and wanted one, but my patches were FREE so I thought: heh, that'd be funny -- wait, no, not paying that for a school I hate
The book Friday Night Lights is one everyone should read. Itās genuinely great writing and does a great job showing you the fabric and history of this little town so that you understand why football is clung to so heavily and how bad it is for the guys who play.
It really is. Id also say 12 mighty orphans is a hell of a book too. While i love junction boys, it kinda centered arounf the football program. 12 mighty orphans talks about the kids that made up that small football team and gained national attention as one of the best teams playing against bigger schools (they were an orphanage).
A good story is a good story.,
the bar girl seems fun
4 TD in one game still the record
I went to high school in a little Midwest town where a lot of people got stuck in this trap. I may be hard on myself sometimes when it comes to feeling accomplished in life, but reminding myself that I at least moved away from my home town (well it wasn't where I was born and raised, but you get the point) makes me feel better about myself. I can't stress enough how important it is to not get stuck in your home town.
Side note: I need to make a starter pack for people who peaked in the military. They are not that different from people who peaked in high school.
What if your hometown is New York or Los Angeles? Is it okay to get stuck there?
Right, and honestly it is a little sad if ryou feel unaccomplished and comfort yourself with the fact you moved lmao š. Not a job you like or dislike but pays well, not school or education or a personal project or endeavor, or meeting a soulmate.
Just living in a different structure lol.
Lol, I never said that was the only thing going on in my life, but I'm proud of having traveled a lot.
You know how the narrative goes ā smaller your hometown is, more humiliating to be stuck there
If thereās no reason for you to leave then donāt. I know first hand that moving just to shake can end poorly.
That's basically like Good Will Hunting and Boston.
Nope, get away for a bit, see something different.
>Side note: I need to make a starter pack for people who peaked in the military. They are not that different from people who peaked in high school.
My country has no army, so I'm not aware how it works, however peaking in military shouldn't mean you are a general?
Not necessarily. It just means that your best days were in the military. Most people who served don't make it to general, obviously, but unfortunately there are quite a few of them who go nowhere in life after they are discharged. Sometimes this is because of something like post-traumatic stress disorder or bodily injury, but other times they just don't know what else to do with themselves and just sort of drift through life, looking back and talking about the military like it was the only worthwhile thing they had ever done.
The weirdest part is that it's normally the ones who only did one or two enlistments as a support MOS that act like this. I know guys who did 10-20 years as a combat MOS, with multiple combat deployments, who do a much better job at readjusting. It's all the cooks, admin, and mechanics who did 4-8 years who go full brovet and can't move forward with their lives when getting out.
This seems to be the case, is a pretty big contrast with some of the veterans I've met who built a civilian career as Beltway bureaucrats after leaving the service and the types being talked about here.
No, it just means that those were your best years, and that it all went downhill after getting out. It has nothing to do with rank.
I mean, if he's happy then who cares? A lot of people are really happy staying in their home town. I moved around a lot but now most of my customers are small town folk who have been there forever and it's actually really nice listening to them talk about all the history they have with the people there.
Look at the picture on the very bottom right, he's not really happy.
Kenny Powers!
Whoooooa...... BUNDY!
Itās fascinating how much people resonate with this concept. Is this common? Didnāt grow up in America
Every High school class of xxxx has the people who donāt move away. That being said, at least in the town I went to high school, most athletes went on to at least try out on a college team and usually used the scholarship money to get like a Business Degree, that or they joined the Army.
So ironically, none of the āpeaked in high schoolā athletes actually stayed.
Depends, the bigger the town/city the less likely this is. But if you go to a small town... yeah, these people exist.
Iām so glad I was expelled and arrested instead of peaking in high school
Why do people hate on letterman jackets, they look greatĀ
They look good on kids in school, but what are adults lettering in?
I've seen some Letterman jackets around as pop-culture merchandising, like when Riverdale was popular you could find replicas of Archie's football letter jacket around a good deal.
Its just a crazy thing to wear post high school
Wearing a jacket you got when you were 16 and youāre now 45 is uhhh kinda interesting, letterman or not.Ā
*Carharrt jackets have entered the chat
Friday Night Lights is also awesome, although the show was better
The first two characters to pop up in my mind were Al Bundy and Uncle Rico. This thread didnāt disappoint me
Married to the same woman all his life, two kids, a dog, three bedroom house with a basement and an attached garage. Al Bundy is my hero.
I knew a guy who went from being the football god, with his (dad-bought, of course) Porsche 944 parked out front, to being a drop-out and riding a lawnmower for the school district, within a year of graduation. That had to be one hell of a lifestyle adjustment.
The girl on top has the jersey from my highschool š
I left. That could have been me. Thank you for cheering me up.
Small town people in the US are weird
That's really damned depressing. I understand the lower right part of this, for sure.
I once bumped into a UK equivalent of this. Guy told me about his time playing at the local (non-league) team. Actually said the words: āIām a legend around here.ā He was eating alone in Tesco cafe (equivalent of a Walmart.)
Whoever made this meme watches too many movies. It's a basic bitch stereotype that nerds apply to athletes they went to school with and never got over the jealousy.
FWIW Iāve literally never put my letterman jacket on
I have never met anyone like that š¤·āāļø
Hahahaha
https://preview.redd.it/ntesmx6gtm8g1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2b4f022c850287757a91d378edad541106232ae
that last picture really captures the whole thing.
Do people like this really exist? I grew up in the city and thought this was just in movies about small towns.
Please tell me there aren't for real 40 year olds like this
40, not so much.
25, absolutely.
iām convinced nobody has actually met someone like this, and people are just projecting because they had a miserable high school experience.
My 20th high school reunion was this year, and I can name at least 4 in my class of 70 that are like this. It would be 5, but Tommy went to prison for statutory rape and isn't allowed at the football field anymore.
these people will be your boss
I still wear my letter jacket occasionally because itās warm, comfortable, and a conversation starter