Wilted Rose
mdk said
Idunno if we're talking about the same jocks. I mean the sports kind, quarterbacks and point guards and wrestlers and the like. 10 out of 10 of the nicest and best people I know were in competitive sports in high school.... you learn a lot more in a locker room than you do on a math test, IMO. Doesn't mean we got along in high school, but that's why they call it 'school' I guess.
I'm not saying they are bad people; I always got along with everyone. It is in my nature. I even have one cousin who is a stereotype jock and we spent our teen years hanging out and playing CoD and Halo all the time. Now he comes to me for advice despite the fact he is three years older than me because he has had trouble out of highschool. I admit that my personal view of bullying is that people are too soft skinned and that it is best to handle it by having a sense of humor about yourself, but that is just me. Maybe I was lucky to be able to do that.
What i'm saying is that those people tend to have trouble. Especially the ones you noted. Now, there are certainly those well rounded people who did well in school and did well in sports, and well rounded people always do the best out of everyone, but what tended to happen is that the purely jockish would be popular in high school and good at things related to high school, but once they left they would flounder. Popularity works differently in the adult world. Your coworkers like your ability to do your job more than anything else, because if you do your job shitty that means they have to work more, and there are fewer jobs that are purely physical than there used to be. In the modern working world, what you learned in math class is much more essential than people want to admit.
If a jock can get a physical job and has the cognizance to realize that they aren't the shit anymore so that they stay there, then they will do well. But it seems like too many of them are chasing something they lost in high school. Like I said, it does seem some of them join the army and grow up, but I suppose that depends on them or their experiences in the army because some of them leave the army only to be in the same floundering position.
I suppose the important thing to remember is that High School coincides with one of the most critical times in your emotional life, but it is otherwise one of the least important times in your life. When people don't realize that, they have trouble.
...this is coming from someone who has lived in small towns, I will note. Here, our jocks tend to be coddled because people take high school football very seriously - even the adults. You'll hear stories of football players not having to do homework because administrators are afraid it will distract them from football. For all I know, it is different elsewhere.
