Too Many Homecoming Queens Are Playing High School Football
HuffPo- For Kaylee Foster, there was no question that she would attend the homecoming dance with the star of the football team. That’s because she was the player who kicked two field goals and the game-winning point after a touchdown.
The senior at Ocean Springs High School in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was also crowned homecoming queen just before the big game.
When asked whether she was more nervous before the homecoming queen announcement or before she made the kick, Foster said: “I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be homecoming queen, but I was pretty sure I was going to make that kick.”
Expanding on Clem’s blog yesterday, which is my new move…
There is a new criteria for homecoming queen in America. It’s no longer enough to be popular, smart, pretty, and good at campaigning for yourself. Gone are the days when baking a massive batch of cookies and handing them out to the nerds would ensure their vote. You won’t see any more “True Life: I Want To Be Homecoming Queen But I Don’t Want To Play Tackle Football” episodes. Because these days, homecoming queen and tackle football are like the American presidency and Russia: you can’t win the first without the other.
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Author’s note: Is that a good political joke? Nope. But I wanted to see how it felt to write a pandering, canny, predictable “Facebook status” type joke in a blog. Turns out, it doesn’t feel good. Hence, the demise of Facebook. Back to the homecoming stuff.
Were this story the only example of a homecoming queen playing football, I wouldn’t call it a trend. But you may recall that a similar young woman was featured in a recent UNSAVORY commercial that ruffled some FEATHERS and caused people to light their shoes on fire like an insane girlfriend trying to burn the negative spirits of a jilted lover.
Interestingly, this young lady played linebacker, whereas the subject of our story played kicker. I won’t compare the two except to say that linebackers are gritty and tenacious and risk paralysis on every tackle, whereas kickers are dainty and untouched and skip film sessions because they’re not interested. They’re pretty much soccer players on a football field (in high school, this is often the case). I’m voting for the linebacker.
Either way, I think we need to stop shoeing these girls into the homecoming tiaras. It’s not that they shouldn’t be allowed to play fooball; it’s that young girls who dream of being homecoming queen are going to see these examples and start begging their parents to let them play pop warner. And we all know that’s where the CTE starts.
To all you high schoolers: stop voting for the girl on the football team. You’re enabling brain damage among an entire generation of young girls who would otherwise have grown up to become doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc. but threw it all away for the sake of being crowned homecoming queen.