This is a quintessentially American concept. "To letter in football" means to have played for the school´s best (or only) football team. On the high school level this would be called playing on a varsity sports team.

The letter that a letterman earns is a large physical letter to sew onto his school jacket (or sometimes sweater). He also gets a pin to fasten to the jacket for each year he plays on this high level, per sport. A guy who has many letters is said to be carrying "lots of metal".

Using myself as an example (:-)), I earned three letters in my last year of high school for running cross country, indoor track and playing baseball. In addition, they gave me a "captain´s bar" pin so I could go around feeling extra-cool :-).



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Note added at 19 hrs (2009-09-28 23:53:52 GMT)
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Here are some examples of pins you can attach to the big letter on your jacket when you earn each "letter". http://www.mountolympusawards.com/categories/metalinserts.ht...