My American Conservative high school football article is now online. Here's an excerpt:
High-school football also displays some modern virtues, such as a reasonably good relationship between whites and blacks, based on the common goal of victory and an informal division of labor. Football mania builds social solidarity, which is helpful in getting things done, especially in multiracial communities. The missing pieces of the puzzle have been Hispanic athletes. Latinos make up 20 percent of public-school students, but they don’t make much of a splash in the sports pages. For example, David Lopez, a 6’3”, 225-pound linebacker at Garfield, is expected to be only the second participant in the East L.A. Classic during this decade to earn a Division I-A scholarship. In contrast, last year’s graduating class of 149 at Oaks Christian in posh Westlake Village, California saw 11 players receive free rides to Division I-A football factories. One reason that Mexican-Americans don’t compete more evenly with white athletes is due to the early specialization and intensive training that middle-class youngsters now undergo. Today, when tennis pros typically grow up at costly boarding academies, it seems unimaginable that the greatest player in the world from the mid-’50s into the early-’60s was an ex-juvenile delinquent from East L.A. named Pancho Gonzales, a public-courts player who never took a lesson. There used to be more room for individual initiative, but children are increasingly dependent on their parents. The USA Today 2006 Offensive Player of the Year, Oaks Christian’s Jimmy Clausen, was raised to be a quarterback by his father, an insurance executive. Two older brothers had started at quarterback for the University of Tennessee. All three brothers were kept out of kindergarten until age 6 and repeated sixth grade, so they were 19 instead of 17 as high-school seniors. From seventh grade onward, Jimmy worked ten hours per week during the off-season with his private quarterback coach. He arrived at the press conference to announce his signing with the University of Notre Dame in a Hummer limo—though playing behind the miserable 2007 Fighting Irish’s porous offensive line has been a less glitzy experience for him. [More]
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
28 comments:
One minor nitpick with the article. In Texas, all of the assistant coaches on the football team are actually teachers and in many schools football in an actual class that takes the place of the generic physical education class. That is why of the 1.2 million high school football players in the U.S., over 100,000 are from Texas.
In addition, the head football coach has hiring, firing control of all coaches from 7th grade on up. That means that the suburban white boys have probably been running the same offense or defense over six years before they finish high school. In Texas it is very hard to get a job as a history, health, or physical education teacher if you do not coach a sport.
Totally off-topic (sorry), but this is too good not to post here:
The Historical Origins of Africa’s Underdevelopment:
According to my calculations, if the slave trades had not occurred, then 72% of the average income gap between Africa and the rest of the world would not exist today, and 99% of the income gap between Africa and the rest of the underdeveloped world would not exist. In terms of economic development, Africa would not look any different from the other developing countries in the world.
And just to throw in (sic) something about high school football:
The athletic ability of this school varies from sport to sport. For example, the varsity football team was disbanded in 2002 due to lack of interest, but was back in competition the next year...
Quiz: And what might be the reason the football program at an American high school was 'disbanded due to lack of interest'?
What's really strange about football is that despite its enormous popularity it's almost entirely a youth sport. No, really. Almost no one plays it past age 21 or 22 except for the tiny number of people who play in the NFL or Arena football. Unlike baseball or basketball or soccer, there are very, very few amateur or semipro leagues for adults.
To quote Wikipedia:
Rugby players often continue to participate in the game long after they have left school. In America, amateurs who have left school rarely play full tackle football, but often play touch football or flag football.
It goes without saying that touch football and flag football are scarcely comparable to the real thing.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Isn't this a another case of how average students that might have participated and got to be the leader and play various emotional and intellectual roles are more and more delegated to the faceless unimaginitive background? Perhaps another reason we are fascinated by the "color and flavor" of immigrants.
Additionally Latino youth are much more likely to focus their athletic abilities on the other sort of futbol.
Hispanics? What about Asian-Americans (beyond Pacific Islanders)? I don't see a lot of Chinese, Japanese or Korean star football players, especially at the most elite levels - and forget about the more diminutive SE Asians like Indonesians, Philippinos, Thais, and the like.
Why has the systematic discrimination against these physically smaller, less aggressive and sometimes more academically minded minorities not been challenged in court yet? And what about other major sports like basketball and hockey - why the no "yellow" zone there? How can we allow these sports and businesses that drive them to continue their apartheid system and raise yet another generation of low-esteem Asians?
I say it's time to level the playing field.
Decent article but still with the typical Sailer spin on "black athleticism." The fact that all-white or mostly-white teams tend to dominate all-black or mostly-black teams in high school football means that college football recruiting is biased against whites. The NFL is even worse. In basketball we used to be told (by guys like Sailer) that the NBA and college teams just pick the best athletes who usually happen to be black. But then all-white teams from Europe and South America started housing our all-black "Dream Teams" every time in international competitions.
Same with boxing, UFC, soccer and most other sports.
It's a good thing Europeans don't play American football. Otherwise it would be made an Olympic sport and an all-black U.S. football Dream Team would end up playing Serbia for the bronze medal every year.
"High-school football also displays some modern virtues, such as a reasonably good relationship between whites and blacks, based on the common goal of victory and an informal division of labor. Football mania builds social solidarity, which is helpful in getting things done, especially in multiracial communities."
This is total BS. The relationship between blacks and whites is that blacks are heavily favored relative to their ability at every position and every level of play.
Steve, I don't think white parents are the sole reason why white kids make a better showing in football than Hispanics. Look at the National Center for Health Statistics' NHANES studies. The average White young adult male is 178cm tall (5'10") and White males born since 1975 are 179cm (5'10.5"). In contrast, Mexican American young adult males average 169cm (5'6.5"). That's a big damn difference. Furthermore, Mexicans seem to have no noticeable differences with whites in muscle-tendon physiology that would give them an advantage like blacks have. Additionally, their physiques are different than whites too on average. They tend to be fatter and less muscular than whites at comparable levels of fitness and have considerably shorter legs and a less robust bone structures as well as rather bulky barrel-chests. A combination of short, spindly legs with a relatively large, bulky, fat torso tends to make one top heavy and is not good for a sport that emphasizes speed and mobility like football.
As for white parents holding their kids back to better compete, this actually helps white kids make up for a deficit they have relative to other ethnic groups. Europeans (especially Northern Europeans) tend begin puberty later than other groups (such as blacks, Latinos and Asians) and show delayed skeletal development (see Tanner and Evelyth - Worldwide Variation in Human Growth). This would put them at a disadvantage in their mid-teens, the age when kids are playing high school football. I think one of the reasons that there are fewer white kids in D-I football and basketball is that they get overlooked by recruiters because they are less developed in their teenage years. To argue from anecdote (forgive me), I had a white American aquaintence with whom I used to lift weights while living in Europe, who played pro-basketball for a few years in Europe before pursuing his PhD. He was 6'8" an his weight ranged from 255 lbs to 285 lbs. depending on how much he trained. His frame could easily have carried 300lbs. He was an extremely strong fellow (squat and deadlift 550 lbs., absolutely drug-free, despite the huge mechanical disadvantage he had from being 6'8"). He told me that he wished he had tried to play college football rather than basketball because he thought that given the way his body was constructed, he would have had a better chance at pro football (OT or DE) than basketball, but he didn't hit puberty till he was 15 or 16 and by the time he graduated highschool, he was 6'7" and only weighed 185 lbs. Only in his early 20s did he fill out and become big. I think this is a common problem for white athletes, particularly the tall ones of N. European background (this fellow was a blond haired, blue eyed, scandinavian looking type).
WTF. dude, you should probably write less about sports. your level of actual hands on sports knowledge is not that high. i'm pretty sure you never played any sport at even the DI level.
there is nothing peaceful about the rigid positional system in football - typically, blacks cause problems if they don't get their way. so to minimize the amount of friction they cause, hundreds of coaches avoid the issue by doing what the black players want.
the modern "division of labor" system in football is as much about minimizing the amount of problems blacks cause on a team as it is about discrimination against whites.
i ran track, and can tell you all about how black athletes cause problems for the team at the worst possible times if they want to get their way. i imagine the locker room tension at the NFL level can get sky high if the black players don't get what they want.
"Why has the systematic discrimination against these physically smaller, less aggressive and sometimes more academically minded minorities not been challenged in court yet?"
I would say football is a black and white phenomenon. I go to Ohio State football games, which I like to say are 100,000 white people watching 100 black people on the field. I am probably the only non-white person in the stands. It's a funny spectacle. A total oddity, though completely natural to anyone from America. The interest in football is low amongst Asians, and given their other more useful talents for the modern age they tend not to care to too much about why they're not sending as many of their sons to play for the Cleveland Browns or whatever.
I just had a hard time getting excited about football when I was in high school. I don't think I went to a single game, nor did any of the other Indian/Asian kids. I barely noticed when our team went to the state championship.
"What's really strange about football is that despite its enormous popularity it's almost entirely a youth sport. No, really. Almost no one plays it past age 21 or 22 except for the tiny number of people who play in the NFL or Arena football. Unlike baseball or basketball or soccer, there are very, very few amateur or semipro leagues for adults."
I'm in the rehab. field and football is not good sport from an exercise standpoint, short-term or long-term. We see a lot of people in their 40's who are debilitated from back pain, popping extended release morphine pills like crazy and going in for spinal fusion surgeries or facet joint injections. Amongst the men, we find a past history of football or wrestling to be a strong risk factor.
Last night I went to a regional final high school football game between two Texas suburban high schools.
Both were undefeated.
The racial make-up of the two teams was identical -- all white coaching staffs and nearly all-white lineups except for the skill positions -- receiver and running back.
In Texas, some schools that are predominately Hispanic have stopped playing football for futbol.
Raising your kid to be a football player probably makes more sense than raising him to be a chess player, given how much more rewards society gives to football players.
I am Lugash.
Regarding post high school and college football playing: It's just too much bother to get a full set of teams. You need at least 22 people to all get together for at least two or three hours, assemble all of the equipment and find an open playing field. You'll probably need at least two experienced refs as well, plus a couple of coaches.
Compare this to a pickup game of basketball, where all you need is a ball, a hoop over a garage door and two people.
I am Lugash.
Steve Sailer: The USA Today 2006 Offensive Player of the Year, Oaks Christian’s Jimmy Clausen, was raised to be a quarterback by his father, an insurance executive. Two older brothers had started at quarterback for the University of Tennessee. All three brothers were kept out of kindergarten until age 6 and repeated sixth grade, so they were 19 instead of 17 as high-school seniors. From seventh grade onward, Jimmy worked ten hours per week during the off-season with his private quarterback coach...
There's a sociological phenomenon at work here [that may or may not be related to the usual GNXP/Darwinian stuff which folks in these parts are obsessed with, rightly or wrongly]: By and large, black children do not have fathers.
The figure for black illegitimacy seems to hover around 68% to 70%; I've seen the figures for the percentage of black children being raised in homes with two adults present, although I couldn't find them just now from googling.
Anyway, my guess would be that fewer than 20% of all black boys make it from birth to age 18 living the entire time under the same roof as their biological fathers.
And setting aside any questions about whether they have the gray matter necessary to play QB in the first place, without a father's tutelage, these kids just aren't [on average] going to grow up to be QB material.
You see it in basketball, as well - the black kids who grow up without fathers don't know the fundamentals of the game - they can't shoot free throws, they can't shoot hook shots, they have terrible form on their jump shots, etc etc etc.
PS: For years and years [probably going on decades now], I have been convinced that fatherlessness is the source of the surge in homosexuality in our culture.
Without a strong male role model in the house, these kids grow up imitating the only role models they know, which, of course, are the females [and they tend to be rather promiscuous females at that].
skt: I don't think I went to a single game, nor did any of the other Indian/Asian kids. I barely noticed when our team went to the state championship.
I assume you mean that the Indian/Asian BOYS barely noticed.
But here's the important question: Did the Indian/Asian GIRLS notice?
MOO HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
The interest in football is low amongst Asians, and given their other more useful talents for the modern age they tend not to care to too much about why they're not sending as many of their sons to play for the Cleveland Browns or whatever.
At least on the college level, playing football is helpful to one's future career because of all the connections players make. Not to mention the fact that playing a team sport like football can build character thanks to all the teamwork and self-sacrifice required. And especially not to mention all the cheerleaders you get to screw :)
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
i ran track, and can tell you all about how black athletes cause problems for the team at the worst possible times if they want to get their way. i imagine the locker room tension at the NFL level can get sky high if the black players don't get what they want.
Heh, I have heard from a math teacher that the same is true in class.
If the blacks are not happy it is impossible to teach anyone.
There is no better argument for segregation in the classroom than that.
One wonders if the article on the Historical Origins of Africa's Underdevelopment has controlled for IQ to rule out the possibility that it is easier to take lower IQ individuals as slaves ...
Let me get this straight. Parents are holding their kids back from kindergarten and sixth grade so their 19-year-olds can compete for football positions against 17-year-olds, and you can't get a job as a history teacher in Texas unless you can coach football, and all this is somehow good for America?
>"High-school football also displays some modern virtues, such as a reasonably good relationship between whites and blacks, based on the common goal of victory and an informal division of labor. Football mania builds social solidarity, which is helpful in getting things done, especially in multiracial communities."<
>This is total BS.<
yes indeed there is plenty of evidence that steve sailer is not a classic conservative, a right-winger or, god forbid, a white nationalist. steve does in fact strongly desire a society where free inquiry is preserved. but other than that it is not clear what else he really wants preserved. like auster's gear-grinding blind spot on organized jewry's yeshiva-generated radical agenda for america (which can't ever be compared to organized islam's madrassa-generated radical agenda for america), steve's gear-grinding blind spot is his eternal hope for racial harmony no matter the mounting evidence that free-flowing dollars are the only thing here keeping the squabbling ethnicities from violent conflict.
steve's theory of "citizenism" is, in the end, a liberal bandaid. citizenism theory is the logical output of a post-modern high iq intellectual. it's a social theory grounded fundamentally in detached ambivalence and not love of a people or culture. ironically citizenism is in ultimate contradiction with sailer's own observation that the races are extended families. because, in the end, every family desires their own house, their own living space, their own nation.
in sailer and his buddy derbyshire you'll find a certain admiration for authentic right-wingers - but they could never go there themselves. to sailer and the derb, the blood & soil patriotism of pat buchanan is just so much nostalgia. an uprecedented demographic revolution has taken place in steve's home state during his lifetime ... and as a result steve seems occasionally peturbed. this demographic transformation certainly means the end of free inquiry. so, yes, there are some moments of exasperation. but there is little emotion in steve’s writing. righteous anger, outrage and calls to action just aren't in the cards. several years ago isteve.com used to be cutting edge on discussion race-realism and the coming demographically-induced crisis. now this site seems strangely lagging mostly due to a lack of emotion, and lack of awareness of our situation as a component of a global assault on western white nationhood. for instance the ongoing muslim outrages in europe barely budge the interest meter at isteve.com.
colonial america was divided in three equal groups on the question of revolution against the king: revolutionary, loyalist and ambivalent. one does not need to wonder which camp steve sailer would've have been in.
:lucius vorenus said… Did the Indian/Asian GIRLS notice?
No. Indian/Asian girls are not football (basketball, baseball, etc) camp followers like some white women. From my experience, Asian girls go for the intellectually and materially successful white, Jewish or Asian guys while Indian girls look for the same success traits within their own tribe. Many Jewish women seem willing to graze outside tribal pastures for outsiders excelling in these areas as well.
As has been said, if it weren’t for Asian (and Jewish) women, dorky white guys would never have dates, wives, children, the only attractive women white nerds could date are Asians, yada, yada, yada.
I am Lugash.
=======================================
Let me get this straight. Parents are holding their kids back from kindergarten and sixth grade so their 19-year-olds can compete for football positions against 17-year-olds, and you can't get a job as a history teacher in Texas unless you can coach football, and all this is somehow good for America?
========================================
I don't think Steve is in favor of the extremes of high school football. What he does seem to approve of is the team building and race mixing that only really occurs in football. Whether this actually happens or not is up to debate.
It's interesting how mad the audience gets at Steve on the topic of black physical prowess and the military. Everything else more or less gets rational discussion, but these two areas cause massive friction.
I am Lugash.
Hey, guys. Lots of these kids that play football and basketball at the HS or college level, especially the minorities (blacks, Samoans, Latinos), come from poor or working class families. For them, sports are pretty much the one time in their life when they're going to get recognition and the benefits that go along with it (name in the paper, popularity, praise, women, etc.). After that, these kids are going to be spending the rest of their adult lives at the middle or bottom of the status ladder - unless they belong to that exceptionally small percentage that goes pro and makes it the top of their sport. They also have to contend with a lifetime of wear and tear that comes from a few years of competitive sports.
Ultimately the guys that end up predominating at the top of the status ladder (big house, flashy car, good looking women, invites to the hot parties) are nearly all white or Jewish. I suppose in the far east, they're all Asian. So if you're the typical minority, sports are your only realistic way of making it high up in this world.
Weird you missed the story of Glenville High School in Cleveland, a poor inner-city black high school whose football program was rescued by Ted Ginn, a brilliant coach who started as the janitor there. Now the school regularly accounts for many Ohio State players and has put several players in the NFL. Most famously Ted Ginn, Jr. the son of the football coach. It's a story tailor-made for Hollywood.
the NFL is at it again, this time trying to tell tim tebow that he is a fullback.
http://tinyurl.com/37yl76
"I spoke with some NFL scouts who believe your future might be at fullback or H-back."
at this point the NFL is almost hopelessly racist.
it's already guaranteed that hester will not be allowed to run the ball in the NFL, and will be forced to block for black players that he is better than. it would be a shame to see tebow get the crouch treatment, while absolute idiots like vince young get to throw interception after interception.
I am astounded by the illogical racial aggrandizement exhibited in some of these comments. Let me get this straight. If blacks under-perform Gentile whites in academics, socialization, and economic power, lower average black IQ is to be blamed. Blacks who ascribe their poorer circumstance to anti-black racist conspiracy theories are to be ignored as irrational self-deluders. If Gentile whites under-perform Jews in academics, socialization, and economic power, lower average Gentile IQ is not to be blamed. Anti-Gentile racist conspiracy theories are not to be ignored as they are not irrational or delusional.
If Gentile whites are overrepresented in executive board rooms and political offices, whites can attribute their success to well-documented higher IQs, not to pro-white systematic policies. If Jews are overrepresented in executive board rooms and political offices, Jews cannot attribute their success to well-documented higher IQs, but to pro-Zionist systematic policies. Likewise, if blacks are overrepresented in the speed positions in the NFL and NBA, blacks cannot attribute their success to well-documented better short-distance speeds and vertical leaps, but to pro-Negroid systematic policies of professional sports leagues.
It is curious indeed that white success is not contingent upon pro-white-Gentile discrimination and favoritism, but Jewish or black success, in anything, is the direct result of pro-Jew/pro-black discrimination and favoritism. I marvel that only white Gentiles can benefit from true meritocracy.
Post a Comment