What it means to be a Flyer?

I love sports.  I love watching them, talking about them, and playing them.  I think my love of sports might be the thing that drives my wife most crazy.  What she finds most odd about my love of sports though is that it includes loving my high school team.  For those who don’t know, my wife is from Maryland, from an area that can be considered a suburb of either Washington D.C. or Baltimore, and she has never cared much for high school sports.  Not even when she was in high school.

I have wondered for some time why this is.  Does it have to do with being from a small town vs. being from the suburb of some big cities?  Maybe it’s the east coast vs. the southwest?  Maybe she hates all sports(I really hope not, and I don’t think she does)?  Maybe it has to do with the fact that my family have been Flyers as long as they have existed and that she doesn’t have that connection to her high school?  I can say I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with a combination of all of them.

First off, let me toot my own families’ horn.  Now what I’m about to say can only be proved by very old newspapers at my grandpa’s farm, and if you ever want to see it, I’ll gladly show you, but I’m the great grandson of the original Dixie Flyer.  You might be saying “Huh?” or “What?”, so let me explain.  Do you know how Dixie got the name Flyers?  It was given by a news writer talking about how the Dixie point guard was very fast, how he flew up and down the court, and something else about the rest of his flyers(I can get you direct quotes at Easter time).  Any idea who that point guard was? Arnold McArthur, my mom’s paternal grandpa.  So anyways, I think that’s the first reason why I love being a Flyer so much.  However, I know I’m not the only one who loves being a Flyer even after graduation.

Here’s a quick stat for you.  Roughly 30 people I went to school with (meaning we’re all graduated) commented about Dixie taking state in football today.  Some of them have family on the team, but most don’t.  That says to me that plenty of people still have school spirit even though they have already graduated college and moved away(you should have seen the number of adults at the game who don't even have kids on the team).  Now why is that?  I think a lot of it has to do with the small town, and I think a lot of people have multiple generation connections to Dixie.  However, I think there is more than that.

Why would anyone care about a school 5 years later unless that school did something for them or to them?  I don’t think they would.  So what is so special that Dixie has that other schools don’t?  I think the one word to describe it is family.  Some people may have hated Dixie and would totally disagree with me (I have a couple in mind) but I can only describe how I see it.  Maybe I’m biased because family was the way football felt and I equate that to all the school, but I like to think that even though I didn’t know everyone during school, everyone was friends because we went to the same great school.

So why did so many people post about Dixie winning today?  Was it a slow facebook day? Were we supporting a brother or cousin on the team?  Maybe some were living through others?  Or maybe being a Flyer means being family, even when it’s people you don’t know doing great things and you offer your support for a cause larger than yourself?   

All I want to know what being a Flyer means to you…and either why you did or didn’t care about today.  Please comment below or on facebook, because obviously it means something to 30+ people.