When Tom Bradley, the mayor of LA at the time, came visiting, we had a huge ceremony with bands playing, parades, etc. The football team was marched on stage and each of the players got to shake hands with the mayor. “Hello, football players, meet the mayor. Shake his hand. Oh, before you leave the stage, here’s your tall, gold-plated school appreciation trophy. Thank you.”
Of course, at the end of the academic year, the nerds had their day during the award ceremonies. “Hello, nerds, here’s your flimsy paper certificates. You can see that we just got a new laser toner cartridge. Uh, good work. Well done. Did I mention that education is very important? And, oh yeah, the recycle bin is on the left as you leave the stage.”
Actually I felt worse about the women’s tennis team. They had to pay for their own uniforms and for the bus fare to the tennis competitions. I guess the school ran out of money after putting up the new electronic score board on the football field.