WOPR said:
Football players get off easy because people care about football. This pampering almost always leads to failure later in life, but that's not really important when "lawsuit" has been on the tip of your tongue for several years. I'd say an "eyewitness" is not the same as a "witness" because the "eyewitness" is just someone who saw the incident. A "witness" is someone who saw it and is willing to defend an involved party. How many people actually came to back you up? (Note: The distinction between "witness" and "eyewitness" exists for lack of better terms, it is NOT a proper definition). Additionally, a capacity to fight back after the fact (especially in a manner that could constitute assault, self defense claim notwithstanding) never helps. Limping away to complain directly to the principal does.
And f**k your reputation. If you have these kinds of problems, popularity is your least concern.
Advice for avoiding this altogether: If you were still in high school, I'd say
-Keep out of the halls
Pretty obvious, just make sure to move through as quickly as possible and in the largest groups possible.
-Look before you leap
Make sure there's no opportunity for crude jokes
-Don't hold a grudge
Even for a second. If you loose it, you will be hit back.
-Act like a f**n tool (but a nice f**n tool)
This is somewhat complicated. Essentially sarcasm will put you on a field of non-vulnerability, while being generally friendly and helpful avoids unnecessary hatred
-Avoid human contact
Keep your friends. They are your friends and nobody else is. Help when asked, but never stick around too long. Dodge people if ever you see them coming.
-Don't go to a school in the same neighborhood
ESSENTIAL. The more you have the opportunity to avoid them, the better. Confrontations are almost always worse off-grounds.
-Smaller=Better (schools)
Lower population means it's easier to get noticed and easier to get shit done.
-Borrow a teacher's room during lunch hour
The farther away you are from your enemies, the better.
-Keep 5-10 friends handy, never walk alone
Harder to beat up 10 guys (and not all "nerds" are meek, I know this one guy that's BUILT like a football player and thinks like Stephen Hawking. Long ago I resolved never to cross him) than it is one. This applies to everything. If multiple people are willing to speak up, then important people start caring.
-Make sure at least one of them is female, if you want to be especially careful
There is an upside to a good number of athletes being chauvinistic pricks. It means they're less likely to beat you up in the presence of a woman.
-Suck up--Just do it ya pansy
Teachers are more likely to pay attention to you if you are considered trustworthy. Your reputation can take any number of hits, but there is a point at which you can be physically injured. This isn't to say: "be a rat"; this is to say have a conversation with your teacher once in a while. Make sure they know you, and on good terms.
--Loyalty from friends and acquaintances is also good
Essentially I mean "Be antisocial outside of you own, personal, small group". Proof: Never one broken bone in my body, then again, regions and population do make a difference.
This has worked for me for what is going on four years now.
And as for this:
Singularly Datarific said:
Except the football team. The coaches are still making absurd amounts of money and the program isn't losing any funding. While I struggle to get into classes because they had to drop a section, the football coach still gets his fucking pay raise because they don't want him to quit and go to another college.
Departments that actually teach important things that matter like: calculus, physics, composition, psychology, philosophy, education, humanities, engineering, technical training, and business, are losing their adjuncts because they can't afford them. As a result, classes are over full, teachers are overworked, students don't get as much feedback on their studies, books are being sold out because instructors aren't given enough time to order more, and students have to enroll for extra semesters so they can get required prerequisites.
I'm honestly surprised this country isn't dumber than it already is.
At my High School, I am in Band and Art.
Neither get any funding. Because of the damn budget cuts, I have to work in a goddamm concession stand for 2 8-hour shifts to pay off my band-dues, and the arts program is
entirely fundraiser-driven. And they're STILL hiring more coaches for the POS football team at my school! WE ONLY WON TWICE SINCE I ENROLLED. I'M IN THE 11TH GRADE, AND I WAS HERE SINCE 6TH. Can't they realize it's a lost cause and invest in the programs that have RESULTS? The Marching Band got 1st place last year, and we did not even have a goddamn band directer for half the year!
WTF?!?!
This is a problem pretty much everywhere. At my school the football team is the only one that gets funding. My art teacher has to pay out-of-pocket for half of the annual art supplies, while I see the football team going around with new jerseys that would cover most of the cost. I'd be inclined to do something if she cared, but at this time the status quo is apparently alright. The school does cover a lot of non-football related activities, which is pretty good considering it's a football school that's won 15 years of the division's 50 year program (looking back, I sometimes wonder how I landed myself here), but I can imagine where all the money would go if it needed to support a larger student body.
