Are sports ruining high school? Interesting article in this month's Atlantic Monthly

Parents Forum
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<p>?? I didn’t miss your point, I was adding on to the idea that when someone feels that their school has more athletic competitions than academic ones, one needs to look at how these things are funded in order to understand whether the imbalance has anything to do with bias on the part of the administration.</p>

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<p>Well, great, that is one anecdotal data point. Our sports vary widely in cost, depending on a lot of things - available venues, equipment, whether coaches are volunteers. For example, one year of cross-country/track asks for about $350, one year of sailing asks for $3,600. Plus, if you make it to regionals or nationals, you have to pay your own travel expenses. You cannot generalize your one limited experience to conclude that academic competition participants pay more than athletes everywhere. That is simply not true. Besides, it will vary by state. In CA, public schools cannot require anyone to pay anything to participate in a school-sponsored activity. So those who refuse to pay still get to compete, and all the other families have to pick up the slack if they still want the same level of opportunity. It is a tightrope.</p>

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<p>So? The same is true of sports teams. Lacrosse just recently became popular in CA and all the public schools had to start their own teams from scratch. And guess what, in a matter of a few years, the lacrosse talent coming out of CA has skyrocketed.</p>

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<p>You are comparing apples (“competitive” or “national circuit level”) academic competitor, to oranges (“typical”) student athlete, so this is not a comparison worth talking about.</p>

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<p>I read the article when the magazine came out with a huge sense of vindication as it said what I had privately said to my DH for several years. Publicly speaking this brought out a huge backlash from brain-washed sports enthusiasts who crazily and systematically wreck their own and their kids lives.</p>

<p>To the sports enthusiastic parents- Q- are any of you doing anything remotely to do with sports at present? You are more likely doing something where the academics part of school played a major role. </p>

<p>Re- values taught by being on team sports- As per the recent town meeting against alcohol & substance abuse, I went to- a lot of heavy teenage drinking happens at sports events especially travelling teams, after game parties.
All incidents of hazing in our school involved sports teams.
For that matter- there have been several incidents of rape, substance abuse reported at national levels at sports events.
Groups/Teams also breed collective stupid behavior similar to popular girls clique, where everyone follows the dominant player.</p>

<p>Re- Shared sense of camaraderie etc- I have it too- we played in back alleys- lacking everything- no sports equipment, fields etc. Everything was makeshift- fondest memories were scuttling away when we accidentally hit a ball in neighbors window. There were no parents keeping score. It was totally non-competitive and great fun. One can have that in all kinds of places without sacrificing academics. </p>

<p>In every class of 300-400 students, at least 100 students are on some kind of sports team or other and have spent more time on sports than on academics after school. Only 2-3 are super stars who have managed good grades and won sports laurels. These go to top universities. 3-4 are athletic recruits to any XYZ university not necessarily Tier 1 or Tier 2. The rest are just sheep. Meanwhile the kids who have been quietly winning academic or other extra-curricular laurels- debate, math & science competitions, Model UN’s etc. go on to top colleges. These kids hardly get any acclaim except at the time of college admissions. </p>

<p>An example- this kid we know-was so bright that he skipped a grade in middle school. Then he got involved in heavy sports, spending weekends traveling to different tri-state areas to participate in tournaments. In High school, he did not get into any of the AP classes. Our school has placement exams for them.</p>

<p>Parents must decide- if their child were to devote 10 hours a week more on academics or sports, which one is likely to payout more. </p>

<p>I have been tracking this for a long time in our school district- my DD gave up on sports in her 9th grade as they were taking too much of her time- I became quite anxious as I thought she would no longer be considered well-rounded. However, she kept up with her involvement with school band, orchestra, other school clubs and had stellar academic & SAT performance. She got accepted to every top college she applied to. This was also true of her cohort of friends who also focused on academics.</p>

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<p>75% of my job pertains to sports on a daily basis. In a few years, I hope that it encompasses closer to 100%…</p>

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<p>Dipali- it’s crystal clear that you did not participate in athletics during high school. You have no frame of reference as to the importance of the things you so easily blow off. You have to have competed to truly understand all the positives associated with playing an organized HS sport. I can see how someone sitting on the outside would have trouble “getting it”. I graduated HS in 1979. I have a doctoral degree. I have not spent one second thinking about algebra class or Brit Lit since leaving HS. The things I do remember are friends, girlfriends and sports. The life lessons learned are priceless and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without HS athletics. </p>

<p>Also, this article was not about playing sports in college. But since several folks have brought it up. There are many ways to play sports in college besides DI. How about DII, DIII, NAIA, Club, intramural, etc. If a Varsity athlete wants to compete in college they can.</p>

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<p>^ I participated in high school athletics and I completely agree with Dipali. On an athletic team, at least a male athletic team, usually the best athlete is the “leader.” This exceptional athlete sets the norms and values for the group as the other boys respect and follow him, even if he is sub-average intellectually (which was usually the case in my high school). I quit my senior year because I just couldn’t take the lowbrow groupthink anymore.</p>

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<p>As I posted earlier in #31, participating in high school athletics correlates positively with high school academic performance. You can throw out as many anecdotes about dumb athletes as you want, but it won’t change what the studies say.</p>

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<p>I totally agree with this. However in this thread I think posters are often talking about different things … all of which are true in some cases. For example, a lot of the folks talking about the excesses of HS sports are likely talking about boys football/basketball/high profile sports and likely with regional biases where these sports can really be over the top. While Bay’s comment above is about all athletes … I’m not sure how many of the folks complaining are talking about the cross country teams (home of typically very high GPAs) or most of the other sports where the kids slug along with the same support and publicity of non-athletic ECs.</p>

<p>I was on a high school cross country team that didn’t lose a dual meet while I was in high school and won a state championship … I’d say we got about 10 seconds of props from the school while I was in high school … and, fyi, our captains went to William&Mary (I think), the Coast Guard Academy, and Cornell.</p>

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<p>Once again, the captain of my son’s lacrosse team is the valedictorian and the captain of my son’s hockey team is #7 in the class and class president. My daughter is captain of the volleyball team and is top 10% of the class. She is also co-captain of the swim team with a boy who is also top 10% and also had state cut times in 3 events last season.</p>

<p>I’m not saying there aren’t dumb jocks, but lots of kids at our private, Catholic HS take all college prep classes and don’t play any sports.</p>

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<p>^^ I was on the baseball team and in my high school baseball was somewhat big as we were perennial district champs and would have a boy sign a minor league contract about every other year. These talented boys became the leaders of the group though they were usually clueless about everything besides baseball. Since coaches do almost all the thinking for the team the kid that the other boys look up to and emulate is simply the one who stands out the most on the field, the one most talented physically, Heracles (Hercules) rather than Odysseus.</p>

<p>^ I don’t know the situation in selective private schools, as my experience is with academically average public schools.</p>

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<p>austinareadad,</p>

<p>People only have as much power as others are willing to give them. No one on a team is required to revere another kid just because the coach dubbed him “captain.” Usually when team captains wield influence over other players, it is because they really are leaders. Perhaps you were just not cut out for team play. Golf or tennis might have been a better choice for you.</p>

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<p>^ In public schools that I have been familiar with, the great athletes were made captains and deemed “leaders” even if they were dumber than a box of rocks, and most of the other team members wanted desperately to gain the approval of such boys.</p>

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<p>It seems that all the major extra-curricular activities have gotten out of hand in terms of time commitment, in terms of the expense for both school and parents, and in terms of how necessary they are to getting into college. They are glorified hobbies in the end, but now have taken on this huge importance in the kids’ lives to the detriment of family time and other worthy pursuits. They also have this weird role of helping to determine who is worthy to be admitted to the top schools. So the kids are going to college to STUDY, but being the drum major or debate team captain or newspaper editor or quarterback or charity coordinator makes a difference in who gets selected. Odd. </p>

<p>Sports are no better or worse than any other major EC. I hear similar complaints about the marching band and music program, for example. You have to sign away your life for months if you join the marching band, and forget about getting to play or sing in the various music ensembles it you haven’t taken private lessons since you were knee-high.</p>

<p>A lot of high school EC’s are out of control. Participation in them by those who want to just give something a casual try, explore a new interest, etc. is pretty much discouraged after middle school. It’s all or nothing serious.</p>

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<p>My freshman is in Cross Country(Fall), Track (Spring). He is in all Honors classes. He gets back home so tired after running 4-5 miles every day. While he enjoys what he is doing, he is working hard to keep up As in his subjects. Some of the kids I know who got into top colleges just took PE in high school. They were not involved in sports. I want my son to be in Sports but the time involved makes it harder for the kids to excel in academics.</p>

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<p>The GFG,</p>

<p>I know what you are talking about, but I wonder whether that phenomena occur at all in the majority of high schools. The top competitive high schools seem to be competitive in every arena, not just academics. I would be surprised if ECs were overwhelmingly demanding in the low-performing high schools. Even if they are, I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing, as I think there are tremendous benefits in developing high level skills and abilities in a lot of things other than school work.</p>

<p>Things are different than they were when a lot of us were in high school, but perhaps it is better and we are just not used to it. I wish I had developed the skills and had the competitive experiences that my kids did in high school. So far, it seems to have benefitted them.</p>

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<p>Commitment to athletics was huge in my family. Balancing academics with high level sports participation was never easy, but still doable. We were fortunate enough to be part of teams that competed at the regional, national, and international level. However, some of the best experiences came from the local and state high school competitions. All in all, they were very different experiences. And all of them have their place, as long as everyone understands that not all HS sports carry the same importance. </p>

<p>This said, while being part of a HS curriculum is important, the excessive focus and funding of revenue sports is totally out of control. The story of the Allen ISD spending on a football temple exemplifies how nutty it has become. Teams starting to practice at 12:01 the day they are permiited to train shows the disregard for the athletes exhibited by morons masquerading as coaches. Two-a-day practices in 100 weather is ridiculous. Do we really need 20 hours of practice and meetings to play JV or varsity? </p>

<p>As usual, our schools show an uncanny ability to spend time and resources excessively and lack control and integrity.</p>

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<p>Bay, I am sure there is a lot of variation in how EC’s are handled from school to school. The private schools in our area have early dismissal one afternoon a week. Those extra two hours or so are devoted to organizations and clubs. That system makes the time demand on the student completely manageable, as compared to how it is done at our public school. Our students lose homework time and generally must choose between athletics and clubs.</p>

<p>The intensity will no doubt also vary. At our school, the average athlete is certainly going to spend far more time on sports than the average club member, since clubs don’t meet more than once or twice a month and for only an hour or so after school, whereas athletes stay every day until after 5 or much later and might have Saturday or Sunday competitions too. That said, those we know who seriously pursued EC’s like theater (as in not just going out for the school play), put in lots of hours too. D had friends who traveled more than an hour into the city weekly for dance and voice lessons, as well as auditions. These kids also auditioned in state for community theater and those productions require long hours.</p>

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<p>I have no idea if our HS’ most high achieving kids academically are athletes or not. One thing I do notice is that our LAX team (never noticed it in vball) has awards from the league and state for athletes who earn a varsity letter AND have over a 3.7GPA. They are certificates handed out at awards night and I notice a good % of D’s LAX team seems to get one.</p>

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<p>@GFG</p>

<p>Our high school schedule was similar to yours, and I always looked at it as perfect for teenagers. </p>

<p>Six or so hours of sitting in a classroom, followed by 2-3 hours of exercise and team (social) time, followed by dinner with the family and then homework. It is only 4 days per week that this happens, since homework can wait on Fridays. Yes, there may be sports/EC events on the weekends, too, but I thought that was all good experience. </p>

<p>Students may be limited in their choices due to time, but they do seem to have a lot of choices nowadays, and they can choose to participate or not. It is not forced. Plenty of good colleges don’t care much about ECs. It is only the highly competitive colleges that seem to care, but the students who go to those colleges can often handle high-level academics and intense ECs with ease.</p>

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<p>The early specialization bugs me. In the olden days, a kid could be in band and the debate team and play football. Not so much anymore. Kids are so much better at such a younger age, it is more difficult to make the team without extreme focus. I wish kids didn’t have to choose so early. </p>

<p>Believe me, I am not anti sports. One son did cross country and swimming, the other does tennis. They learn as much from those experiences as in the classroom. And they both seem to be taking sports participation into their post high school lives, which thrills me as well. They are staying fit and making friends through sports. I just wish there had been time for them to pursue some more non sports interests in high school. </p>

<p>A twist on the topic: haven’t there been studies lauding the effect of sports on girls’ lives? As a former girl, I can say I wish these opportunities had existed when I was young.</p>

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<p>Anecdotally, my D has derived all the quality benefits from participation in sports. No drinking, no drugs, no serious relationships with boys, no sex, healthy body, great diet, high self worth, time management, teamwork, hard work, giving 100%, etc…</p>