Refocus and Reaffirm School Sports

School Administrator, Sept, 1996 by John E. Roberts

I know of a school administrator in Michigan who says the greatest controversy in his school district during his tenure has been the way the girls varsity basketball coach compiled game statistics.

Another community school leader became his district's chief defender and led the court challenge of the wrestling team's disqualification from a post-season tournament because of participation by two ineligible students. He championed the disqualified team with a profile no one had ever seen him take for any academic program.

With increasing regularity these days, one can point to such examples of lost perspective. Sometimes, the professional educators are at fault. In many other cases, parents and community members lose sight of the proper role of interscholastic athletics in secondary schools.

By their actions, community members and educators demonstrate two points: (1) sports are more important to people than they should be and (2) sports are too important ever to be abolished from extracurricular offerings.

Whether friend or foe of school sports, effective school system administrators must accept first that interscholastic athletics and some of their problems are facts of life for secondary schools. Second, those who care about schools and school sports should not waste time trying to eliminate interscholastic athletics but should try to promote the highest goals and expose the potentially dangerous directions of these programs. We must promote the ideal that school sports should provide as many students as possible the opportunity to participate as meaningfully as possible in as many different activities as possible.

This is consistent with the historical role of public education in America, which is to promote social understanding and democratic participation. School sports draw together students of diverse backgrounds to compete with and against one another. They provide laboratory experiences in physical and emotional development and, if properly led, teach teamwork and sportsmanship, which are fundamental elements of citizenship. Sports deliver these lessons more efficiently than most classroom curricula.

At the same time, we must stop these dangerous trends:

* Specialization in one sport year-round. This is a misguided fear by obsessive parents that if a student doesn't play a sport 12 months, he or she won't make the high school varsity and, failing that, won't get admitted to college.

* Paying for school sports with non-school funds. Single-focus booster groups today control the entire budget for the sport of their interest, just as they have been doing for non-school youth sports. Combined with the growth of non-faculty coaches, it's difficult to call these school sports.

* Eliminating youngsters prematurely. By cutting squad sizes and curtailing playing time for all but a few we give up on youngsters before they have matured emotionally or physically.

* Expanding the scope of competition. Through year-round practice, expanded seasons, out-of-state travel, and more grandiose championships, athletes get the message it's not enough to compete locally anymore Good seasons are defined by more expansive titles, wider travel, and taller trophies.

Elitism in interscholastic athletics is more than unbecoming, it is dangerous. It grants more status to athletics than other school programs and more status to athletes than non-athletes. Athletes begin to believe and expect the world will cater to them rather than be served by them-the antithesis of what our schools should teach.

The ideal model of school sports leaves time for students to participate in several sports, as well as non-athletic activities. It leaves time for students to do their homework, every day and on time. The model of school sports doesn't require athletes be excused regularly from classes and it doesn't exempt athletes from course assignments or examinations. This model is reasonable and achievable for school administrators to demand.

Only when we involve as many students as possible as meaningfully as possible in as many different activities as possible have we reached the full potential of our schools, and through them, tapped the full potential of our students.