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The Case Against High-School Sports

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#81

Post by migrantgeek »

I've started seeing a massage therapist for my back and when they gave me a tour of the office they showed me a shrine of the local high school football team with autographed pictures, helmets, etc.

The kid giving me the tour was proud to announce "we take care of the high school football team!".

I looked it up after and it turns out the school pays for these kids to get massages so they play better football. I pay nearly 700 a month to the ISD in taxes because I own a home. It hurts me to know that some of that pays for a teenager to get a massage before each big game.

I realize I am in Texas but it's still maddening that this goes on.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#82

Post by mcguire »

001sky wrote: post #60
mcguire wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" The counter example is that sports are linked (hitstorically) with (very) successful Academic Institutions. " Some of them. Others, less so.[1] * Princeton University * Harvard University * Yale University * Columbia University * Stanford University * University of Chicago * Duke University * Massachusetts Institute of Technology * University of Pennsylvania * California Institute of Technology " And rightly or wro…

No offense to America, but the modern University predates the US founding in 1776 by some 500 years. Secondly, are you suggesting that there the set (clever, assholes) is a null set?

I'm sorry. I was unaware that any universities (or any other educational institutions, for that matter) outside the United States were engaged in the kind of semi-professional sporting/entertainment industry that is common inside the United States.

[Edit: Examples]

* Between 2009 and 2012, the Allen, TX, Independent School District (which has one high-school) built a $60,000,000, 18,000 seat football stadium. "'It shows that the people of Allen support their kids,' said Allen head football coach Tom Westerberg."

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Allen-Unveils-New-Eagle-Sta...

* The football program at The University of Texas at Austin made $103,813,684 in 2011-12.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajessop/2013/08/31/the-econ...

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#83

Post by mcguire »

kaa2102 wrote: post #66
mcguire wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how many of your teachers were hired primarily as coaches in the sports programs? "minimum GPA for sports participation" You wouldn't believe the kerfluffle that caused in Texas[1]. As I recall, the result was rather predictable grade inflation. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Pass_No_Play

I hear you. My mother enforced a minimum GPA for sports participation. I took mostly Honors and AP courses. I had a C midyear on my report card in a math course and my parents told me there would be no more sports until I had only As and Bs. Yes, some teachers are hired primarily to be coaches. Some, not all of coaches teach gym class. However, my best teacher ever was a guy called Coach K because he and his father c…

When I say "kerfluffle", I don't mean on an individual level. I mean people who ought to know better predicting massive numbers of drop-outs, gang activity, and the failure of school systems. (Also, not having any local sporting events on Friday nights.)

For example, here is one quote from 2011, something like 25 years after the no-pass-no-play law was passed[1]:

"Dr. Victoria Martin, a Child Psychiatrist in Richardson, TX,...continued by saying: 'Instead of beating these children down even more, we should be encouraging them to participate in activities where they have talents and abilities. We are punishing the “good” kids, the ones who care about their school and want to participate in school activities instead of being involved in gangs and other destructive groups.'" [Emphasis mine.]

As far as teaching coaches go, I'll just mention one of my high-school history teachers, whose primary qualifications as a history teacher seem to have been that he was a very decent football coach.

[1] http://www.adhdtexas.com/no-pass-no-play-law-has-very-advers...

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#84

Post by 001sky »

mcguire wrote: post #82
001sky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense to America, but the modern University predates the US founding in 1776 by some 500 years. Secondly, are you suggesting that there the set (clever, assholes) is a null set?

I'm sorry. I was unaware that any universities (or any other educational institutions, for that matter) outside the United States were engaged in the kind of semi-professional sporting/entertainment industry that is common inside the United States. [Edit: Examples] * Between 2009 and 2012, the Allen, TX, Independent School District (which has one high-school) built a $60,000,000, 18,000 seat football stadium. "'It sh…

So why extrapolate from a US experience? It has nothing to do with sport, apparently, and everything to do with money and attention (aka, Jealousy). Look around the world, there are other ways to do things.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#85

Post by tzs »

> Even in eighth grade, American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics

Of course American kids spend more time on sports. They don't have super fast internet and live in a country where Starcraft players can get corporate sponsorship and make a living playing the game. Did the study take this into account?

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#86

Post by nitrogen »

skizm wrote: post #68
Retric wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Athletes are by definition reasonably healthy and healthy people are as a rule both more intelligent and do better at work / school than non healthy people. Further, athletes are required to have a minimum GPA which has both a positive and dramatic impact on testing scores. AKA compare everyone with everyone with a 2.0+ GPA and you will see a positive correlation. PS: You can correct for these factors, but it's far l…

> by definition reasonably healthy and healthy people are as a rule both more intelligent and do better at work / school than non healthy people Playing sports will make you healthier. Edit: also the whole holding student athletes to a higher standard (need to get a 2.0) makes them get better grades and do better on tests is kinda my point. School sports helps people do better in school and in life. Isn't that what p…

School sports helps people do better in school and in life. Isn't that what people who are against sports want?

That only helps the athletes, while (at least in my high school) creating a stratified society where everyone else was treated as inferior.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#87

Post by __--__ »

JPKab wrote: post #12

I was a high school athlete. I wrestled on a top-tier team, played football, and ran cross-country after a knee-injury temporarily disallowed me from football. The financial impact of high school sports aren't the issue. The real issue is their impact on high school culture. School sports, especially the big, spectator friendly, fast-twitch muscle oriented sports of football, basketball, and baseball, send a big mess…

What do you suppose separating it from academic institutions is going to do? The culture of sports will still be there. You can't hack away basic human nature and seeking social status through acts of physical strength has been part of human nature for thousands, if not millions, of years. All it's going to do is further the class divide.

For example, I played football in HS. It greatly improved my social status in school and allowed me to enjoy most of my 4 years of high school. The previous 6 years of schooling was marked with physical abuse because I was a fat geek. Football changed all that and provided my fellow geek friends some protection as well.

I would not have been able to play had football been privatized. My parents didn't have a lot of money, we couldn't buy pads like the hockey players did. At my school, hockey wasn't a school sport. Too expensive. As a result, the hockey players were even more popular than the football players at my school because there were so few of them.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#88

Post by skizm »

nitrogen wrote: post #86
skizm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by definition reasonably healthy and healthy people are as a rule both more intelligent and do better at work / school than non healthy people Playing sports will make you healthier. Edit: also the whole holding student athletes to a higher standard (need to get a 2.0) makes them get better grades and do better on tests is kinda my point. School sports helps people do better in school and in life. Isn't that what p…

School sports helps people do better in school and in life. Isn't that what people who are against sports want? That only helps the athletes, while (at least in my high school) creating a stratified society where everyone else was treated as inferior.

Ah. Gotcha. Valid point. I think that is a school by school thing. Not much you can do about that unless the state starts mandating how individual schools glorify different student accomplishments.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#89

Post by nitrogen »

Zimahl wrote: post #59
nitrogen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High school sports only served to create social division, with sharply separated in-groups and out-groups. Some of the athletes were great people; many were arrogant jocks with an overwhelming sense of superiority and no trace of "character". Bad grades and even shoplifting were overlooked to preserve "the team."

To be fair, this typically doesn't happen for the tennis players, track athletes, swimmers, etc. Most of the time the teams that are aggrandized, like for football, basketball, and sometimes baseball, are the ones what get the free pass.

True. When I was actually in high school I had a harder time realizing that, but I recognize that sports aren't inherently bad, it's the way some of the sports are elevated above all else.

Re: The Case Against High-School Sports

#90

Post by pessimizer »

mcguire wrote: post #46
pessimizer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WWII was the reason for the success of the US.

WWII was a consequence. The large amount of untapped natural resources were the reason for the success of the US.

And that Europe (esp. Germany and Britain), the USSR, China, and Japan had been largely destroyed.
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