10/25/22 Movies Lie About Football And Athletes?

     Movies make it seem like the jocks get all the glory and love in the movies.  We watched Friday Night Lights this past weekend and those guys seem to have time to party and hang out at the local eateries after games, like that is normal life.  The guys are all trying to get drunk, and it seems that the girls of the school are just prizes to be collected.  That is so far from the reality we have lived in for the last six years.

    I'll say, maybe in junior high the games were not as intense and since they played on Wednesday and Thursdays, there might be some energy on the weekends to hang out, if the occasion occurred, but then again, they were little kids and video games were the preferred way of burning off steam.

    Mijo has been on varsity the last three years, and I have yet to hear him say he is going to do anything other than eat a quick meal after a game with us.  Games start at 7:30pm, whether Thursday or Friday, and by the time the game is over, and we get back to school and he changes, it is not uncommon for it to be closer to 11:00pm.  We have kind of figured out that there's a Domino's Pizza by the house, we order a couple of pizzas and head home.  This year, with his injured knee and now ankle, he doesn't want to be out on it more than he has to, but when he was playing games, he would be so beat up, he really did just want to get home and lay on the sofa or bed.  Add to that, most Saturday mornings, they have a film review, so they can sit with the coaches and see where mistakes were made, none of these athletes we know are going to get drunk and try to show up in the morning for film and workout, most have family close by either in the booster club or just attending most practices and just being around.

    I follow a wrestler on Youtube and this week was his 21st birthday.  He has been getting asked if he was going to go buy alcohol to celebrate and he admits that he doesn't drink, the craziest thing he says he likes to do is go and buy a Starbucks drink, but then he saved it because he had weigh-ins in the morning for a meet, so the coffee had to wait until after he was done or risk the drink putting him over his weight limit.

    I really see today's athletes as finely tuned machines, they want to perform their best, I think only a small percentage are trying to get drunk, if any, nowadays.  As they say, times have changed.