In Defense of High School Sports

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2006-02-09 09:09am

Before I went off to college, my high school received a grant from the town to do a bit of refurbishing. This included stuff like a new wing (since the student population was growing), more lockers, and a refurbished gym (which even the non-sports people had to admit was in shitty condition). The sports nuts in the school committee weren't satisfied with that, so they pissed away all of the money allocated to the gym on worthless shit, then said "We don't have enough money. Why don't you give us $3.5 million so we could build a field house."

By "field house", of course, they meant "stadium that colleges over five times the size of the school don't have." It was put to a referendum, and the town overwhelmingly said no.

So next election, they put forth a second "field house" design, only this one was half the size and cost twice as much. Needless to say, overwhelming no.

But as many of you have guessed, the second one was only the first part of a bait-and-switch. They proposed the first plan again. Overwhelming no.

Last year, they finally proposed just some money to refurbish the gym. Since I'm still registered to vote in that state, I was able to voice my opinion on it. Frankly, I didn't trust them, so I voted to turn it down. However, it passed, and the sports people immediately abandoned the idea of refurbishing the gym, brought up the fucking field house plans again, and are now asking for donations to help put it up.

So frankly, my experience of high school sports is that the adults supporting it tend to be disingenuous little shits who need to be run over by a bus.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-02-09 09:25am

Darth Wong wrote:I would also stress the fact that the vast majority of the student body at any given academic institution is not part of a sports team. The idea that sports teams will help kids is just one of the mindlessly repeated memes that simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The vast majority of kids lose interest in sports as they get older and the games become more competitive and stressful, not to mention the kids who are too short, or too ill-coordinated, etc. And even if this weren't the case, there are only so many kids one can realistically have on a competitive high school sports team anyway.

To make a school program which discriminates on the basis of athletic ability and then tout this as beneficial for the student body is utterly moronic. I would never advocate removal of PE class, but there's a difference between having PE class and having sports teams, sports scholarships, sports obsession, glorification of athletes, etc.

Its sports.. It is supposed to be competitive .. I am really confused about what your beef is with having a selection process for the teams.. Is this a "Everybody needs to be the same issue"

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-02-09 10:09am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:High school?

Shit, it's college sports that are the real worthless money wasters...

Maybe if you to a shitbag college. The Gators football team alone pulls in enough revenue to cover the entire athletics department top-to-bottom, and then some.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-09 10:10am

I already conceded that point, IP.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-02-09 10:14am

This seems to be turning into a Jocks vs Geek/nerds argument.. IMO.. interesting..

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-02-09 10:25am

Ubiquitous wrote:How could you not learn teamwork from playing football for three years? You must have played for one really shitty team if that is the case!

I played for a shitty team and hated my coach. Hell, I hated most of my teammates except for the other goal keeper. Overall, it wasn't a team-building experience. I stayed there as long as I did because I happened to like being a goal keeper.

Without teamwork, a football team simply cannot function properly, and I don't mean just on the pitch, either: it was our duty as a team to set up the pitch [corner flags, netting etc.] before the match, perform our team warmups properly [strikers working the goalkeepers, wingers exercising hamstrings, defenders on headers etc.] and, when we were in sixth form, make our own way to the opposition pitches [i.e. sorting out our own coaches or cars, directions etc.]. Our coaches sound quite shit compared to these $80000 ones that exist across the pond: we used to have a guy called Cleggy who came to train us in sixth form for £10 a session!

I didn't say there was no teamwork in the sport. I love soccer. But frankly, the kind of teamwork you learn in organized sports just isn't very applicable to the real world. Here in America, you basically learn clichés like "There's no 'I' in 'team'", but that's not really useful in business or college. In sports, the not-so-good players just sit around waiting for a blowout game so they can go in. If you're working in a group in an office, you have to make sure everyone contributes, and not in some mealy-mouthed bullshit way like "Oh if it wasn't for you, the best players would have no one to practice with".

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-02-09 10:35am

theski wrote:Its sports.. It is supposed to be competitive .. I am really confused about what your beef is with having a selection process for the teams.. Is this a "Everybody needs to be the same issue"

I think DW's point is that since sports teams can only include a tiny fraction of the student body, the idea that they're such a great help to kids is ridiculous.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-02-09 10:36am

Jim Raynor wrote:
theski wrote:Its sports.. It is supposed to be competitive .. I am really confused about what your beef is with having a selection process for the teams.. Is this a "Everybody needs to be the same issue"
I think DW's point is that since sports teams can only include a tiny fraction of the student body, the idea that they're such a great help to kids is ridiculous.

ok.. I think I get it.. This isnt about if sports in HS are good/bad, its just whether or not They help kids..

Thanks for the clarity.. I think

CarsonPalmer · Post by **CarsonPalmer** » 2006-02-09 11:07am

Except there are sports that can take all comers, and those can help anyone who is willing to work. In a good program, the team is not about winning, its about learning.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-09 11:16am

That sounds like nothing but pure advertising.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2006-02-09 11:21am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:High school?

Shit, it's college sports that are the real worthless money wasters...
Maybe if you to a shitbag college. The Gators football team alone pulls in enough revenue to cover the entire athletics department top-to-bottom, and then some.

Almost. IIRC the football team at UF brings in the bulk of the revenue but basketball ticket sales also bring in a hefty chunk of change.

Only a few athletic associations in the country make a profit - UGA does, UTK does, and I imagine UF would also.

CarsonPalmer · Post by **CarsonPalmer** » 2006-02-09 11:29am

Its not meant to be advertising, its meant to state what the goal of a good program should. A program can't be all about winning and be a good program at the same time. The emphasis HAS to be on teaching the kids to play.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-09 11:30am

But for what result? What's the long-term benefit? How would it be any better or different then my taking photography classes for three years, which I personally think was the most rewarding and educational part of my high school experience?

Post by **Coyote** » 2006-02-09 11:36am

The tired old saw about sports programs helping to build "teamwork" and "character" in students may not be an old saw at all-- it may, indeed, build positive traits in students, but which students? The ones who play sports, which as already pointed out, is a tiny minority of students in a given school.

The amount of money and attention poured into a school sports team versus the amount of kids actually benefitting from it seems wasteful. Students involved in sports end with twice the amount of money lavished on them (I'm guessing, no actual figures to back that up) as the non-sports participating students.

Figure the cost of gym equipment (a weight set is expensive), the maintenence of the wood floors for basketball courts, the groundskeeping and watering for maintaining a football field, a track... these are not small patches of ground but huge, empty fields frequently in prime real-estate areas.

The total aggregate of all these costs ensures that vast sums of school money and resources are spent so that maybe 50-60 kids per year get a lesson in "teamwork".

Overall, it just seems to be a waste, and when other kids see the lengths the sports teams go to for accumulating resources and attention, and realizing that they don't get that kind of attention because they're just not fast/coordinated enough, it gives a misplaced sense of priority to the whole thing.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2006-02-09 11:55am

Highschool sports, at least the big one or two in your area, serve as a way to socially connect the student body. Rooting for the home team does lend itself to the student body acting more collectively and improving, for want of better words, morale and comraderie. By no means does this require the lavish budgets and facilities many schools put into athletics, but just having sports teams, pep assemblies, etc. are not bad in their own right. I'd be perfectly fine if the student body centered on something more useful, like Robot Wars, a solar car challenge, or what have you ... but sports do help the student body in my experiences.

Steel · Post by **Steel** » 2006-02-09 12:20pm

School level sport doesnt just have to be about the school first team, and their personal victories.

The school can have several different levels of team, so that more people can be involved in playing, and they can have similarly skilled opposition, giving a chance of winning.

Being in a team environment does help people train harder than if they were alone, the constant competition between people in the squad drives everybody upwards, with the stronger members able to help the weaker members and raise the overall performance.

Who would you think was more organised and hard working: the person who does no sport, and just hangs around in starbucks, or the athlete who spends 2+ hours a day training, and then does their workload on top of that?

From my experience, team sports do produce people who have an understanding of what it takes to work together as a succesful team and how to motivate others to achieve their best. I enjoyed the process of being part of a motivated crew, everyone training hard.

As for coaches being paid more than the science teachers, at my school the coaches were the science teachers, 90% of them were maths or physics teachers, and good ones too.

For academic achievement and sporting prowess going together, from my school's 1st 8, 7 of 9 members are in or going to oxbridge, and i have met about 10 people here who rowed for GB at the same time as me.

CarsonPalmer · Post by **CarsonPalmer** » 2006-02-09 12:24pm

It is not necessarily any better than your photography class. Sports might not do that for you. But there are kids for whom photography will not do what sports does.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2006-02-09 12:35pm

It might help if we defined what the issue at conflict here was:

1. Is it the presence of school-organized and sponsored sports in high school?

or

2. Is it the money that is spent on school-organized and sponsored sports?

I think that some people have an issue with #1 but are using #2 as their argument. Keep in mind that you can make a great argument for music, drama, and art events (such as bands, school plays, and art exhibitions) not belonging in school either.

Personally I think school-sponsored sports are great. Just like school-sponsored music, drama, art, and other events are fantastic as well. They may not have a direct benefit to a student's education and the skills they need to get into college, but they're fun, community building events. I take issue with the extremes to which some schools go to promote sports over other activities, and the money that is spent on them.

Jew · Post by **Jew** » 2006-02-09 12:38pm

Jalinth wrote:As far as money wasters, if the coach is earning $80K plus, has 5 paid assistants and your median teacher at that school makes $40k, your school or town has badly misplaced priorities.

I can't speak for all schools, but I went to a public high school for a year. The football coach was the highest paid high school coach in the state (that was the rumor anyway) and the football revenue funded pretty much the whole athletics program. So although the coach was well-paid, his salary was not at the expense of teachers' salaries. Rather, his salary came straight out of the revenue that his team brought in.

Most high schools probably couldn't claim the same, but then again most high schools don't have the highest paid high school coach in the state.

I know my claim is anecdotal, so I dug up some numbers. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News last month, the average salary for a high school football coach in the Dallas area is a little over $80,000. But as the article mentions, football revenue covers the salary and much more besides. Of course that doesn't mean every coach's salary is justified, but it does make clear that just because a coach's salary is high doesn't mean his salary is a waste of money.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2006-02-09 12:43pm

Jew wrote:
Jalinth wrote:As far as money wasters, if the coach is earning $80K plus, has 5 paid assistants and your median teacher at that school makes $40k, your school or town has badly misplaced priorities.
I can't speak for all schools, but I went to a public high school for a year. The football coach was the highest paid high school coach in the state (that was the rumor anyway) and the football revenue funded pretty much the whole athletics program. So although the coach was well-paid, his salary was not at the expense of teachers' salaries. Rather, his salary came straight out of the revenue that his team brought in.

Most high schools probably couldn't claim the same, but then again most high schools don't have the highest paid high school coach in the state.

I know my claim is anecdotal, so I dug up some numbers. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News last month, the average salary for a high school football coach in the Dallas area is a little over $80,000. But as the article mentions, football revenue covers the salary and much more besides. Of course that doesn't mean every coach's salary is justified, but it does make clear that just because a coach's salary is high doesn't mean his salary is a waste of money.

You are talking about Texas, which is just a weird, fucked-up place to begin with, though...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-02-09 12:46pm

theski wrote:Its sports.. It is supposed to be competitive .. I am really confused about what your beef is with having a selection process for the teams.. Is this a "Everybody needs to be the same issue"

No, it's a "it's total bullshit to claim that this helps students when it only helps a tiny proportion of them, and one which is selected based on non-academic criteria despite the stated purpose of education" issue. It is a simple matter of an absolutely atrocious ratio between money spent and gains realized across the student body.

I have no problem with kids playing team sports in PE class, but I'm talking about team sports as an activity outside PE class, complete with stadiums and tickets and homecoming parades and all of that bullshit.

CarsonPalmer wrote:Mike, what about sports where there is a no-cut policy? I know that this is not possible in basketball, but in football, its not that hard to keep a lot of kids, and it is quite possible to put an emphasis on teaching.

What about them? They still waste time and money that should be spent in the classroom dealing with the country's slipping rank on international math and science performance. You already have PE class; why should schools have organized competitive teams operating outside PE class?

How many want ads do you see in the newspaper saying "Technician wanted. Must have good football throwing arm"?

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-02-09 12:49pm

Coyote wrote:The tired old saw about sports programs helping to build "teamwork" and "character" in students may not be an old saw at all-- it may, indeed, build positive traits in students, but which students? The ones who play sports, which as already pointed out, is a tiny minority of students in a given school.
The amount of money and attention poured into a school sports team versus the amount of kids actually benefitting from it seems wasteful. Students involved in sports end with twice the amount of money lavished on them (I'm guessing, no actual figures to back that up) as the non-sports participating students.

Figure the cost of gym equipment (a weight set is expensive), the maintenence of the wood floors for basketball courts, the groundskeeping and watering for maintaining a football field, a track... these are not small patches of ground but huge, empty fields frequently in prime real-estate areas.

The total aggregate of all these costs ensures that vast sums of school money and resources are spent so that maybe 50-60 kids per year get a lesson in "teamwork".

Overall, it just seems to be a waste, and when other kids see the lengths the sports teams go to for accumulating resources and attention, and realizing that they don't get that kind of attention because they're just not fast/coordinated enough, it gives a misplaced sense of priority to the whole thing.

The first bold is flat BS.... SEE HERE>>>http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/tabl ... able_1.htm

The average is over 68% of students participate...

#2 /// again BS..

The sports teams generate there own revenue... can you say that for Photo or Drama

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-02-09 12:51pm

theski wrote:The average is over 68% of students participate...

You're full of shit. You're assuming that every kid who plays team sports even in PE class is somehow benefiting from the expenditures on competitive sports teams in the school. And what about the negative impact of sports scholarships to universities, especially on the mindset of inner-city kids? I notice none of the defenders of high school team sports are speaking up about that.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-02-09 12:53pm

Darth Wong wrote:
theski wrote:The average is over 68% of students participate...
You're full of shit. You're assuming that every kid who plays team sports even in PE class is somehow benefiting from the expenditures on sports teams in the school. And what about the negative impact of sports scholarships to universities, especially on the mindset of inner-city kids? I notice none of the defenders of high school team sports are speaking up about that.

I was addressing this quote from Coyote
?

The ones who play sports, which as already pointed out, is a tiny minority of students in a given school.

not your Cost/benefit...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-02-09 12:55pm

theski wrote:I was addressing this quote from Coyote
?
The ones who play sports, which as already pointed out, is a tiny minority of students in a given school.
not your Cost/benefit...

Oh puh-lease, you're just taking his quote out of context. He was obviously talking about the same out-of-class sports teams that I was talking about, not the team sports that they make everyone play in PE class. Playing football in PE class is not the same thing as being on the football team.

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