When The #1 High School Team Has No Fans
Does An Empty Student Section Suggest Bigger Post-Lockdown Problems?
Apathy is the overrated protection of that rock you’re hiding under.
– Laura J.W. Ryan
Why does one of the best basketball teams in the State of Michigan, undefeated after 17 games, with an enrollment of over 2,400 students, have a ghost cheering section?
Somebody forget to post the team schedule?
Someone put all home games on Tuesday school nights?
Does the TikTok generation simply stay home now?
Historically, Cass Technical High School has been both the city’s most populous and most prominent public educational institution, and for 70 years, its only “magnet school,” where the mostly non-neighborhood admission requires qualified examination entry scores (six such public schools now exist in Detroit, with only one remaining catholic high school, U of D Jesuit).
Perhaps most notable for its many successful entertainer and musician graduates, such as Diana Ross, Lily Tomlin, Ellen Burstyn, Donald Byrd, Alice Coltrane, Jack White and curiously, many world-renowned jazz double bassists, including Paul Chambers and Ron Carter, Cass Tech’s more recent sports achievements, as State Division I football Champions in 2011, 2012 and 2016, also suggest at least exceptional football accolades.
Last year, the basketball team came within two points of the State semi-finals, with expectations even higher this season. My role as father of two downtown Detroit teens, including one Cass Tech senior, while teaching near the northern edge of the city, theoretically gives me an unusual court side view of why such a preeminent high school cannot fill even one bleacher row of current student fans.
The team’s winning big, the winter’s been mild and students get to be loud with virtually no restrictions (including no more masks). . . so where did everybody go?
Can we further develop truly supportive work places where both students and staff want to stay and get more involved?
The mass desertion seems to only trigger my own fears of abandonment. I keep asking my son, who enthusiastically enjoys the weekly events, who knows the team on the floor can actually see and hear his cheers, “So what gives?”
Timeout in tiny yet enthusiastic Cass Tech student section during recent home team win.
Photo by Wilder Wetzel-Righettini.
“I think it’s a combination of a few factors,” he replies before returning to his screen.
I reflexively lean on some scattered sociological perspectives, to try methodically deciphering the likely three most commonly-cited, overlapping causes of this developing version of student indifference in bulk:
The continued hibernation from in-person social activities. While a Common Sense Media report revealed a 17% increase in screen media for teens when comparing data from 2019 to 2021, it appears an anticipated rise in the more active involvement of “screenagers” has not coincided with the return to in-person learning.
Lingering post-Covid fears (justified or not) about major indoor events (Detroit in particular had the highest Covid rates in the State, with an observable spike in fatalities the first three months of the 2020 pandemic and again in January 2022).
Noticeable increase(s) in school violence (at or near campuses) discouraging parents and guardians from allowing their kids to attend extracurricular activities, and sometimes, in even consistent regular attendance to normal school hours. With stressed-out and district-jumping educators causing increased teacher absenteeism, many districts are cutting back and restricting events with their reduced staff.
Last fall, the Cass Tech football team came within a two-point conversion of making it to the state finals, yet their season opener at Lawrence Tech was abruptly cancelled before halftime — due to excessive fan fighting in the stands. In another too-common echo of mounting national teen and adult assaults, a melee last month after the defeat of cross-town rival Detroit King didn’t exactly help publicize the joys of a winning basketball program.
The longtime school principal, Lisa Phillips, recently issued an understandably strained phone blast message to the 2,000+ households, pleading with parents to get more involved with what their sons and daughters are doing on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and any social media. She added, “We are experiencing an uptick in student conflict resolution issues on a weekly basis. . . . If you are involved in a conflict of any sort, we are asking and we are going to be demanding that you not attend any extracurricular activities.”
It will be interesting to witness how all schools navigate these alarming national trends — in combination with lingering student apathy.
Can we get more creative than the usual calls for more metal detectors and a greater police presence?
Can we further develop truly supportive work places where both students and staff want to stay and get more involved?
Cass Tech endures the extra challenges of being a commuter school, where the average enrollee needs to ride a few miles to campus, with or without a still often unreliable DDOT bus transportation system (also partly due to labor shortages).
A close friend of my son, senior Martell Mosley, lives in a tattered neighborhood with a much higher crime rate than the area surrounding Cass Tech. He obviously enjoys hanging out at our place and going to the games. He casually mentions a reasonable additional explanation for the miniscule turnout of classmates.
“Mr. Boyer, our school-wide PA system has not worked all school year. There are no daily announcements telling us about games or anything else.”
“Huh?”
“For everything, we have to rely on social media.”
“Maybe somebody needs to put in another work order?”
“It would be nice to have the PA working again.”
Indeed schools, in a post-lockdown-stop-and-start, continue struggling with the most preciously basic responsibilities of a greater society, in keeping our kids healthy, safe and well educated.
Onto the State Girls and Boys Basketball playoffs we go. . . .
Cass Tech finally fixed the PA system, we will see the crowd turnout for the first playoff game this Friday.
It's so sad because there's so many students at cass that willingly attend all these outside parties and participate in school activities but never support their own classmates in possibly the best season cass tech has ever had.