SancheztheWhaler wrote:You are talking about Texas, which is just a weird, fucked-up place to begin with, though...
Tell us about it.
Darth Wong wrote: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.
Maybe it's just how things are in these parts (see above), but the big ticket items like football and basketball are net
gainers for the entire athletic department. For example, when I was in high school the gymn was refurbished (including new plumbing, lockers, lighting, etc.) by the net profits from the sale of basketball tickets. Sport brought in far more money than it cost. Local businesses also paid for things like uniforms, scoreboards and the PA system. So if anything, sport is helping to carry the schools on its back, not the other way around.
As for having a negative effect on universities and the inner city kids who get athletic scholarships, you're just being stupid. Taking a teenager from a bad neighborhood and sending him to a college town where he's not surrounded by gangbangers, dealers and hookers might get him interested in things other than athletics. In fact, he's probably more likely to study and attend class since if he flunks out of school, no more football.
Just how many professional athletes are employed in America?
Thousands. The NFL alone employs >1600 in any typical season.
Crazy_Vasey wrote:School sport teams in America play in stadiums? The mind boggles. We were lucky if the rugby posts were still there when we got to gametime at my school.
For several years in the 1960s, the local high school football teams in Dallas and Fort Worth drew bigger crowds than the two local pro teams.
I'm of the opinion that sport contributes more to schools (at least in my neck of the woods) than it takes out. The proof is in the fact that private schools are every bit as nutty over athletics as public schools and in spite of not being able to just vote themselves more money like school boards and county commissioners do.
It also gives kids a chance to go on to college and maybe earn a living. Quite a few people, including my current boss, went to college on athletic scholarships, only to find education, training and jobs that have nothing to do with team sports. Even if the only aptitude a person getting one of these scholarships has is to catch a ball and run fast, why not encourage him to do his best on the tiny chance he might have to make it big or at least earn a living?
Speaking of which, I find it funny that people think it's cruel to give athletes false hopes of stardom in the NBA or NFL (and that being a good reason to not have team sports in schools), but drama, music, and other extra-curriculars get a free pass when they are net losers for the schools financially. There's something at work here that has nothing to do with cost/ benefit analysis.
If an athletic department is a drain on the school's budget or is causing other other problems, I'm all for getting rid of it. But a blanket "Team sportz in skool is teh EVil!!!" is cretinous at best.
Darth Wong wrote:Because professional athletes are far less numerous than any other profession, even actors and musicians.
Are you fucking kidding me? How many actors and musicians actually earn livings
as actors and musicians -i.e. not people who play extras for an hour a month or have once-a-months gigs in a band, but actually pay the rent working in a muffler shop? It may be more than pro athletes, but it's still a very small number.
This little gem of stupidity left me in stitches:
Darth Wong wrote:And at least actors and musicians really do learn teamwork; there is no stigma of selfishness attached to the act of demanding playing time.
Jesus Christ but you have lost your marbles! Read any rag like
US or
People or the others. It's chock full of "So-and-so stormed off the set when her lines were cut" stories. There's an entire cable (E!) channel devoted who hates whom in show business. Musicians are the bitchiest of all. How many times has someone quit a band or been fired for demanding "playing time"? Countless numbers. Why do so many bands split up? Usually because one or more of the members want more "playing time" and their bandmates or the record label tells them to fuck off. Just this morning I got a notice that
Asia was going to reunite with the original members for the first time in over 20 years. Why so long? The guitar player and the singer/ bassist refused to even speak to each other because each got the other fired for "creative differences". Don't get me started on Van Halen...