The New York Times has a fascinating article on the small Texas town of Euless, which has seen a significant influx of Tongan families, bringing a very unique kind of diversity to the area... and some serious power to the local football team: Polynesian Pipeline Feeds a Football Titan.
A pipeline from the Pacific Island kingdom of Tonga, thanks to the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, has delivered a Polynesian influence to the town's churches, markets and championship football team, the Trinity High Trojans, which won state titles in 2005 and 2007 among Texas' largest schools.
Thirteen of the 24 Trinity players who have made all-state since the 1980s, and 16 members of the current roster, are of Tongan descent. That is crazy awesome.
But it's not just the football team... According to the article, students at Trinity speak 53 languages, and the flags of 31 nations hang in the school's entrance. Half of Trinity's 2,189 students in grades 10 through 12 are white, with a roughly equal mix of black and Hispanics and about 275 Asians and Pacific Islanders.
This year's football team is represented by at least eight nations, from Laos to Rwanda. They're probably a pretty interesting sight on the field. It's definitely a stereotype-defying portrait of Texas small town high school football.
