Fiday Night Lights - Bring The War Dance

The WSJ has a great story (and video!) about high school football in West Texas.  I laughed, I cried, and now I excerpt a bit:

A Tongan War Dance Enlivens Football In Euless, Texas High-School Players' Ritual
Jazzes Local Polynesians;
Everybody Does the Haka
By J. LYNN LUNSFORD
November 16, 2006; Page A1

BEDFORD, Texas -- For as long as anybody can remember, the stereotypical Texas high-school football player has been the saddle-tough son of the West Texas prairie.

So imagine a recent evening when the Odessa Permian Panthers, whose historic dominance of Texas football inspired the book, movie and TV series "Friday Night Lights," looked across the field and saw the rival Trinity Trojans doing a Polynesian war dance.

At the sound of a tone blown over a large conch shell, 17-year-old senior defensive tackle Alex Kautai threw off his helmet, freeing a mane of curly black hair. He shouted several sentences in a foreign tongue and waved his arms as 93 visibly agitated teammates gathered behind him on the sidelines.

On cue, they dropped into a wide, crouching stance and began the ritual known as the haka. "Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora!" (We're going to die! We're going to die! We're going to live!), they chanted in unison as the fans went wild. For the next 60 seconds, the players acted out an ancient battle in which a big hairy man saves the life of a Maori chieftain.

With each phrase, the players slapped their thighs, arms or chests. They stomped back and forth, symbolically thrusting and jabbing at the enemy. At the end of the dance, Mr. Kautai jumped in the air and landed on one foot, his right fist in the air and his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he sneered fiercely.

Few other high-school teams could pull off that routine without looking silly. But at Trinity, the war dance embraces the culture of a growing population of immigrants from the island kingdom of Tonga, in the southwest Pacific east of Fiji. An estimated 4,000 people of Tongan descent live in Trinity's hometown of Euless, a city of 52,900 whose boundaries include about 2,800 acres of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

 

Tongan community leaders say that most of the Pacific Islanders were drawn to the area over the past 20 years by jobs at the airport, where many of them work as baggage handlers or service employees. For those with airline jobs, company flight privileges have made it easier for them to fly home regularly.

Most of the 24 players of Tongan descent on the Trinity football team weigh between 250 and 308 pounds and stand at least 6 feet tall. Besides that, they are quick, so the combination makes Trinity an intimidating force on any high-school field. The Tongan players helped transform Trinity into a Texas football powerhouse.

...

After consulting with local Tongan community leaders, Mr. Lineweaver agreed to let the team demonstrate the haka at a dinner for the football boosters. "I can't even wrap my West Texas tongue around some of the words, but every boy on that team has made it a point to learn it," Mr. Lineweaver said.

The team first performed the haka for fans at the beginning of the 2005 season. Concerned about seeming to taunt opponents unfairly, the coach restricted the haka performance to the sidelines at the end of the field where most Trinity students sit.

It was an instant hit. Today, the stands closest to where the team performs the chant are full an hour before kickoff. An eerie silence falls over the stadium as soon as the tone is sounded on the conch shell as fans strain to hear the haka leader urging on the team.

Fans wave haka signs and wear black "Got Haka?" T-shirts. Rather than race to the parking lot to beat the crowd at the end of the game, hundreds of people routinely wait 20 minutes or more for the team to do the haka one more time.

The team has performed the haka at elementary-school assemblies in order to fire up the children before state-mandated tests. It has performed for the City Council. Before last year's championship game, one fifth-grade class learned the haka and performed it to cheer on their newfound heroes. "It's amazing that a little chant has that much power," said Trinity principal Andy Cargile, a lanky Texan who is quick to point out that he sometimes wears a printed Polynesian skirt known as a lava-lava around the school.

Ilaiasi Ofa, executive director of the Voice of Tonga, the organization that serves as a local advocate for Tongan immigrants, said the haka has become a source of pride for a community that hasn't always been sure of its place in Texas. Shortly after the team first began performing it, Mr. Ofa showed a videotape of it to a group of older Tongan residents. Their attention immediately gravitated to the white players standing in the front row, performing the war dance alongside their Tongan teammates.

"I had two older men with tears in their eyes tell me afterward, 'After seeing that, we know that our future generations will be accepted here,' " Mr. Ofa said.

Although he thought at first that the haka was a passing fad that would last just one season, Mr. Lineweaver says he wouldn't dream of trying to discontinue it. "Little first-graders are learning how to do the haka before they learn to block and tackle," he said. "If I tried to stop it now, I'm afraid I'd get run out of town."

I think sports is way overdone in this country but for this, I'm a fan.

Comments

[Sue]

West Texas? Not hardly. Euless is in North Texas. Okay, now to read the article. ::grin::

[Sue]

Clarification...Hurst/Euless/Bedord, make up a tri-city commonly referred to as HEB. They are all 3 in North, not West, Texas.

[Sue]

Okay, I should have read the article first. Odessa! West Texas. ::grin::

Now to finish the article.

[Sue]

I know everything about HEB but I didn't know that? Yikes! What a great story.

[TCO]

Journal is the best newspaper and is far superior to the Economist as well.

[mariposa]

Makes for an interesting homecoming, no doubt - I would love to see those kids chant the haka before their games! Is this a great country, or what?

[Paul Zrimsek]

I've also seen Ka mate translated as "It is death"-- which should be reassuring to those not convinced that "We're going to die" is the very best way to start a football cheer.

[clarice]

Only in America!

[rob seaman]

This is a copy oh the New Zealand All Blacks national rugby team fyi

[centralcal]

As a regular WSJ on-line reader, I missed this story completely. What a great story it is and I would have missed it if not for reading this blog!

I used to come here regularly to read TM's always interesting posts. A few months ago I read the comment thread attached to his post, too, and found it every bit as imformative as the post. Now, I always make sure to check out what you guys/gals have to say. Reading all of your thoughts and comments are always informative and often, entertaining.

[Strick]

Other than the West Texas faux pax (don't think of anything east of Fort Worth as "west" Texas), not much news here. The Tongans have been our neighbors for years. Went to our church for a few years before they got one of their own. Good people.

We also have a huge influx of people from all over Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. My son's 7th grade football team's roster reads like a mini-United Nations.

Cool, really, football bringing us all together.

[clarice]

Ok Rob, Only in America (and New Zealand).

[TexasToast]

Sue

Trinity Vs Permian

It doesn't get much better.

*Except for the Sharpstown Apollos in the 70s. Baseball.

[ed]

Hmmm.

Trinity Football Website

Interesting picture.

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[MayBee]

I keep looking for the pun in the word "Fiday".

[Bob]

As a WSJ regular, I enjoyed the article as well. But as soon as I finished, I thought how long before the Welfare Pimps claim these hard working Tongans are squeezing out other minorities. Or will the ACLU recognizes this as a religious ceremony, and have it shut down. It would appear to me this is no different then a prayer before a game... so which ritual more or less egregious?

[anonymous]

Funny one: Remeber John edwards?

Anyone.

Well while he was bad mouthing Walmart the other day, one of his staffers approached Walmart about getting his children a Playstation 3.

What nerve. Give me special treatment while I trash you as being against the little guy.

Wait your turn Mr. Edwards!

[Bob]

anonymous... This is funny, I just got done reading it!

http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061116/APF/611162631>Edwards acknowledges staff asked Wal-Mart for Playstation 3

Maybe Aunt Nancy P. Brain can initiate legislation to close down all the WalMarts... well right after they do their Christmas shopping of course!

[hit and run]

Makes me feel bad for referring to Euless as Useless all my life.

[Tom U]

Sounds like a religious ceremony to me, should be banned.

[hit and run]

Tom U - good point.

But then again, highschool football in Texas is a religion

[Larry]

Every healthy kid ought to give sports, especially team sports, a shot. They learn lessons that serve them through life about sacrifice, discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship and plain old hard work. Camaraderie of shared experience is priceless. I have buds I haven't seen in decades whom I know I would pick up with just like we never left off.

"On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory." W. Churchill

[Major John]

Rob is right - that is the Maori "Haka Ka Mate". The New Zealand All Blacks perform it.

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/haka-feature/haka.cfm

[Gary Maxwell]

Euless is about three minutes from me. There is a large Tongan choir that sings at Mass at St Michaels Sunday night. Beautiful acapella songs, that I have no idea what the words mean! And the article is correct Tongans are a rule are large people. Many of the female tongans could play for the football team too! Trinity has graduated a bunch of Tongans who have gone on to play college ball.

[clark]

I remember going to pep rallies while at Lamar before playing Trinity when some guys blew up rubbers and threw them on the basketball court...I also remember driving to Odessa for the playoff game where Permian crushed us in 1990. The whole town seemed to be in the stands and the entire non-football student body appeared to be on the track before the game. I recommend seeing it for yourself. Do they still have the oil drill in front of the stadium? VFND

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