Football holds quasi-religious status in Alabama, where Friday nights and Saturdays in the fall are completely dominated by high school and college athletes battling it out on the gridiron in front of adoring fans.

In fact, one teacher is arguing that football in Alabama — and around the country — is now the “best taught subject” in school, but not for the reasons you might expect.

The following image began making the rounds online earlier this month.

Great Quote pic.twitter.com/ivPakpod5V

— Roy Istvan (@COACHISTVAN) June 6, 2016

“Football may be the best taught subject in American high schools because it may be the only subject that we have not tried to make easy,” said Dorothy Farning, a high school English teacher.

Doug Samuels of FootballScoop.com called it “the best quote about high school football I have ever seen… And it comes from the lips of the chairman of an English department at a high school in Brooklyn of all people.

“Unlike Math or Science, there are no shortcuts in football to get to the desired outcome. Football is all about hard work and the sweat equity that you put into it, and many of its lessons aren’t fully realized until years after you’ve handed in your pads for the last time.”

At a time when children get coddled instead of spanked; high school valedictorians and salutatorians are being eliminated because the titles may discourage students who didn’t earn them; and college students are demanding “safe spaces” where they can function without their ideas being challenged, high school sports remain one of the few places young Americans can learn life lessons before being thrust into the “real world.”

That is, at least until they start handing out participation trophies.