by Dan Wolthoff
The debate over high school sports is a new one to my ears. However, there has been a rising argument that high schools should do away with their sports programs because they are taking away from the academics of the school. Some of the arguments against high school sports include; lost classroom time because of pep rallies and sporting events, year-round schooling is denied because it will disrupt sports seasons, and coaches spend more time on their sport rather then their lessons.
I could not disagree with these arguments, or any arguments against high school sports more. I would definitely not be where I am right now without high school sports in my life. Throughout high school I played football in the fall and wrestled in the winter. These sports taught me discipline and kept me on schedule. I kept to a strict schedule during sports seasons because I would not be able to get through school any other way. I would wake up, go to school, go to practice, go home, do homework, and then go to bed. I am sure that if I looked back on my grades throughout high school, there is a drop every spring when I did not participate in sports.
High school sports also kept me on a straight path and kept my goals of college in sight. During the fall and winter, I had a game or match just about every weekend. This kept me away from the parties on the weekend and any drugs that could have been offered to me. I had to make sure that I was fresh for my football games and that I was the right weight for the wrestling matches. Without these responsibilities in my life, I am sure that I would have made different choices in my life. While, this might not be the same experience for every athlete in high school, I am sure that it is the experience of enough student athletes to keep high school sports around.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
High school sports also played a large part in molding me into who I am today. I think you're right that being on an athletic team gives you a better sense of discipline in all areas of your life. You learn to juggle far more than you could ever imagine, yet somehow you manage to get everything done...and to do it well. I've always felt that I perform better when I have less free time because I knew that I always had to be doing something productive.
My sports teams were also where I made many of my friends, learned social skills, and received support. It never occurred to me that high school sports could have a negative impact on academics. If anything, athletic programs serve as an opportunity for students to escape from the constant pressures of the school year. I would certainly lack many of my life skills had I not been on a high school sports team.
I'd have to agree with both of you. Middle school and high school sports are a great way of building friendships and discipline as well as developing and sharpening motor and coordination skills. Sports are a great and popular alternative to sitting inside playing video games or sitting out on a street corner with the wrong crowd. (Not that all kids that don't do sports end up doing either of those two...) For some people, sports can help further thier educaiton. My brother for example was not the best student. He struggled all through middle and high school with his grades and didn't have any plans of going to college. However, he was great at rowing and was on the crew team all through high school. Our senior year, he began to get calls from college recruiters offering him scholarships for rowing. It was because of these recruiters and the scholarships that my brother was able to go to a really good college and is now studying criminal justice. With help from an advisor and a tutor, he is getting decent grades. The fact that he has to keep a certain GPA to retain his scholarship is a great motivation for him to do well! While it doens't work for all kids that play sports, it has helped my brother and many others like him that probably wouldn't have gone to college otherwise. Some kids can't pay for college and others don't have the motivation or grades to get in. Sports can be their ticket to getting a good degree.
If you went back to my high school career and erased the time I spent playing high school sports, you would be left with a very depressing outline of events. I went to an extremely small high school. I graduated with 80 students and there were less than 400 students in my entire high school. This made playing on a sports teams highly accessible. In fact, it is hard for me to think of one person that didn't participate in one sport or another. As you can imagine, our size did not help our winning average in many of our offered programs, but the experience was well work the time and dedication. I participated in tennis during the fall, basketball during the winter, and softball in the spring. I really don't think that would have been possible had I gone to a larger district and the community feeling created by the athletic program was indescribable. My involvement taught me organization skills, social skills, and not to mention a great work out schedule for the entire year. The memories that I have from those years cannot be matched and it would be a real shame to deprive future generations of the experience.
Post a Comment