Entitled
Disclaimer: this is an account based on my own personal, firsthand experience. In truth, the experience is pretty limited. It's pretty biased, and may not be 100% accurate. If I offend you, I apologize in advance and I hope that you can understand that I meant nothing against you or the fantastic school I'm writing about (or the students therein). If you're looking for something that talks about Bingham's history of success without talking about it in the way I do, go check out this article:
http://www.southjordanjournal.com/2015/08/10/82006/miner-magic-fact-or-fiction
And so, I begin.
If there's one thing you need to know about Bingham High School, it's that they're really good. At, well, just about everything.
This is an image of a wall in the gymnasium at Bingham. Those are state championship banners, and there is an equal amount or greater on the wall on the opposite side of the gym. To be fair, Bingham's history is long, and you could say that the championships have simply accumulated over time. This might be true, but there's something else. You don't win this much by just getting lucky, even over 100 years. I don't know exactly what it is, whether reputation, tradition, or good fortune, but it seems like Bingham is always good at everything. Championships roll in left and right, and any time Bingham is competing in any event, (athletic, academic, or otherwise) they're bound to be a strong competitor. The sports are fantastic, the clubs are amazing, and just about every team is of some high quality simply because, well, they're representing Bingham. I could talk about the contributing factors for this legacy of success, but I'll save that for another post. Now, I don't want to talk about causes; I want to talk about effects.
What happens when you win everything?
(Again, remember I am speaking generally and I'm not saying that every single student at Bingham acts a single way. Plus, remember I've only attended Bingham for 3 months, and I'm no expert by any means.)
At Bingham, success isn't just celebrated; it's expected. They don't go to an event with the expectation to lose. They expect to be among the top of the group, and they know that they have the potential to win. And they do. They win, and they win, and they win. Game after game, championship after championship, the victories come. But what does that do?
In my opinion, it creates a feeling of entitlement.
Not that having a legacy of success is inherently bad, but it makes the students (as a whole) kind of conceited. The students think they should be successful simply because that's what they're used to. In sporting events, I've seen the students disrespect their opponents simply because they know that they're better than them. And yeah, you can say that's just the attitude in meaningless competitions. But I think it runs deeper than that. To me, the school pride at Bingham is based (partially) on their history of being great. I don't mean that that's a bad base for school pride, but it's easy to create this weird sense of superiority when you know you're the best. You feel like you're better than others. And you get to this super strange point where you feel like you deserve the win because you know that you're going to win anyway. It's easy to discount an opponent because you know who the winner is. And that's a lame attitude to have. (AS A NOTE: I understand that every person on any team at Bingham has worked extremely hard to get to that place, and I commend them for that. I do not mean to discount their effort simply because almost every team at Bingham is good. That's not what I mean at all. I realize that every win is a product of work, and I know that Bingham is full of people who work really, really hard.) I guess maybe this post comes from my transition from West Jordan High, where success wasn't quite as common. And I guess maybe I wouldn't notice the attitude if I had grown up with it. But still, it's pretty lame.
I write this post the night before the Utah 5A state football championship semifinal, when my Miners will take on the Lone Peak Knights at Rice-Eccles Stadium (at the University of Utah) in hopes to advance to the state championship game. Bingham (unsurprisingly) is probably the favorite, but Lone Peak definitely deserves to be there. Lone Peak did knock West Jordan out of the playoffs, so Bingham winning tomorrow might feel a little extra good to me. I am definitely excited for the game. And I know that everyone is. This is my first time going to a high school football game at Rice-Eccles Stadium. But that's not the case for most of my classmates. I was talking to a really good friend of mine about this a couple days ago. She asked me, "You've really never missed a day of school for a football game?" I responded that I hadn't, and she found this surprising because it was so different than what she was used to. She said, "I've gone to a game at the U every year since I was in the seventh grade."
And it's clear that she wasn't lying.
Bingham has won the state championship in football four out of the last six years. And a lot of people expect them to complete the three-peat this year. When I asked him a few weeks ago if Bingham was going to take it all again this year, Bingham's student body president told me that everyone would be extremely frustrated if they didn't. He said that it wasn't just a hope anymore, it was the norm. And maybe that's the weirdest effect of winning so much: that it doesn't mean as much. Once you expect something to happen, it's not surprising (or exciting) when it does. And I mean it's pretty obvious that the students at Bingham will be happy with a win tomorrow, and devastated with a loss. But I just mean that, in anything, the more something occurs, the less special it is. And honestly, that just too bad.
If winning's a good thing, maybe you can have too much of it.
I'm excited for the game tomorrow, and I love Bingham High School. I don't mean any disrespect in this post, and I hope that the wins keep coming and the trophies continue to be won. This post was just to express a weird thing that I've noticed since coming to Bingham, but I didn't mean to say that all students are conceited or arrogant because of a lot of success in the past. I hope you can at least see my perspective. Feel free to disagree, but don't disregard my opinion just because it contradicts yours.
GO MINERS
http://www.southjordanjournal.com/2015/08/10/82006/miner-magic-fact-or-fiction
And so, I begin.
If there's one thing you need to know about Bingham High School, it's that they're really good. At, well, just about everything.
This is an image of a wall in the gymnasium at Bingham. Those are state championship banners, and there is an equal amount or greater on the wall on the opposite side of the gym. To be fair, Bingham's history is long, and you could say that the championships have simply accumulated over time. This might be true, but there's something else. You don't win this much by just getting lucky, even over 100 years. I don't know exactly what it is, whether reputation, tradition, or good fortune, but it seems like Bingham is always good at everything. Championships roll in left and right, and any time Bingham is competing in any event, (athletic, academic, or otherwise) they're bound to be a strong competitor. The sports are fantastic, the clubs are amazing, and just about every team is of some high quality simply because, well, they're representing Bingham. I could talk about the contributing factors for this legacy of success, but I'll save that for another post. Now, I don't want to talk about causes; I want to talk about effects.
What happens when you win everything?
(Again, remember I am speaking generally and I'm not saying that every single student at Bingham acts a single way. Plus, remember I've only attended Bingham for 3 months, and I'm no expert by any means.)
At Bingham, success isn't just celebrated; it's expected. They don't go to an event with the expectation to lose. They expect to be among the top of the group, and they know that they have the potential to win. And they do. They win, and they win, and they win. Game after game, championship after championship, the victories come. But what does that do?
In my opinion, it creates a feeling of entitlement.
Not that having a legacy of success is inherently bad, but it makes the students (as a whole) kind of conceited. The students think they should be successful simply because that's what they're used to. In sporting events, I've seen the students disrespect their opponents simply because they know that they're better than them. And yeah, you can say that's just the attitude in meaningless competitions. But I think it runs deeper than that. To me, the school pride at Bingham is based (partially) on their history of being great. I don't mean that that's a bad base for school pride, but it's easy to create this weird sense of superiority when you know you're the best. You feel like you're better than others. And you get to this super strange point where you feel like you deserve the win because you know that you're going to win anyway. It's easy to discount an opponent because you know who the winner is. And that's a lame attitude to have. (AS A NOTE: I understand that every person on any team at Bingham has worked extremely hard to get to that place, and I commend them for that. I do not mean to discount their effort simply because almost every team at Bingham is good. That's not what I mean at all. I realize that every win is a product of work, and I know that Bingham is full of people who work really, really hard.) I guess maybe this post comes from my transition from West Jordan High, where success wasn't quite as common. And I guess maybe I wouldn't notice the attitude if I had grown up with it. But still, it's pretty lame.
I write this post the night before the Utah 5A state football championship semifinal, when my Miners will take on the Lone Peak Knights at Rice-Eccles Stadium (at the University of Utah) in hopes to advance to the state championship game. Bingham (unsurprisingly) is probably the favorite, but Lone Peak definitely deserves to be there. Lone Peak did knock West Jordan out of the playoffs, so Bingham winning tomorrow might feel a little extra good to me. I am definitely excited for the game. And I know that everyone is. This is my first time going to a high school football game at Rice-Eccles Stadium. But that's not the case for most of my classmates. I was talking to a really good friend of mine about this a couple days ago. She asked me, "You've really never missed a day of school for a football game?" I responded that I hadn't, and she found this surprising because it was so different than what she was used to. She said, "I've gone to a game at the U every year since I was in the seventh grade."
And it's clear that she wasn't lying.
Bingham has won the state championship in football four out of the last six years. And a lot of people expect them to complete the three-peat this year. When I asked him a few weeks ago if Bingham was going to take it all again this year, Bingham's student body president told me that everyone would be extremely frustrated if they didn't. He said that it wasn't just a hope anymore, it was the norm. And maybe that's the weirdest effect of winning so much: that it doesn't mean as much. Once you expect something to happen, it's not surprising (or exciting) when it does. And I mean it's pretty obvious that the students at Bingham will be happy with a win tomorrow, and devastated with a loss. But I just mean that, in anything, the more something occurs, the less special it is. And honestly, that just too bad.
If winning's a good thing, maybe you can have too much of it.
I'm excited for the game tomorrow, and I love Bingham High School. I don't mean any disrespect in this post, and I hope that the wins keep coming and the trophies continue to be won. This post was just to express a weird thing that I've noticed since coming to Bingham, but I didn't mean to say that all students are conceited or arrogant because of a lot of success in the past. I hope you can at least see my perspective. Feel free to disagree, but don't disregard my opinion just because it contradicts yours.
GO MINERS
