Schools, Sports, and Funding

Great Debates
1

In a recent thread on funding the arts, I brought up the subject of public funding of sports, primarily in schools (mainly high school and colleges). Someone made a reply amounting to that we need sports.

My question is - why? I’ve worked with a high school football program as a trainer for a bit, so I know the ins and outs. I also failed to ever see anything productive come out of it - though I did see a lot of money go into it.

I’m not arguing against physical education as part of the curriculum, I believe that is necessary. I’m talking mostly about football. Most of the other sports, at the high school level, are coached by teachers, travel light, and don’t cost much. Football, on the other hand, requires a mini-stadium at each school, a half dozen coaches and trainers, massive investment into material and technology.

What did the students get out of it? Not that much. Most of the ones I worked with didn’t go on to college programs. They barely graduated, and only then, with special treatment and tutors. They weren’t any healthier - they almost all smoked and drank heavily, and one died from a heroin overdose.

At a time where school are scratching for funding for textbooks, this seems horribly unwise spending to me. I can see the need for after-school activities, and sports are indeed a valid activity, but I see more merit in women’s soccer than in the high school football programs. It is more cost effective, as well.

Why can’t such football programs be shunted off to the side? Youth sports programs are all the rage - why not make teen sports programs function the same way? You want to play, sign up for a local self-funded team.

It seems to me that more effort is put into some high school (and some collegiate, not naming names) football programs than anything else in the school, which is incredibly disheartening.

2

Is the question, Why do we need sports? Or is it, Why do schools in the US give so much to football and not other sports? Important distinction.

Why do we need sports (and thus funding for them, I would assume)? Because Americans are getting fatter and lazier by the day. Same up here in Canada. Sports are often the only way some people will every get any physical activity. I know that’s how I am (thought thankfully I’m not fat). I hate working out for the sake of working out. I need to have a ball at my feet or a raquet in had or something to get out and do something physical. That’s why I play soccer and tennis and squash and go mountain biking on rough trails, because there’s a sporting goal involved. So a little funding to get people to play sports in school or elsewhere could be a good thing. Notice that I said ‘could’; it’s entirely dependent on how the funding is applied.

Now, why does football get so much money? Culture. Americans love their football, at all levels, and want to watch it. So it gets money not because it supposedly helps people or is good for the players or whatever, but because people want it.

3

Bingo. The system won’t change because of that fact. The “arts over sports” debate is almost a cliche in itself.

4

America gets what it deserves, I guess. America wants its football and doesn’t give a crap about books or art. Fine, we get crappy schools with crappy averages with braindead students who get passed because they’re on the football team.

Sucks if you’re not on the team, though.

5

I swear, I’m not going to raise my kids in this festering wasteland of cud chewing morons.

6

I’m confused; it’s a brain dead wasteland, but isn’t this the same country with MIT, Harvard, and a dozen or more other elite schools?

7

It is hard not to be elite when your competition is Ball State.

8

See, and that’s exactly the reason why I hated sports in school. I sucked in sports I was always treated like crap and harrassed because I let the “team” down. I hated it. Hated, hated, hated. It was all about winning and not much else.

I finally discovered that I could enjoy physical activity when I had a PE class that was non-competitive: weight training, etc. That’s what I needed.

Not to say that this is a good reason why sports should be abolished (which is not what the OP is suggesting anyway), it’s just that “one size does not fit all” and just because competitive sports work for some, doesn’t mean it works for all. In fact, it undoubtedly turns many kids off.

And not that I know much about football, but can’t some football players get rather big and hefty? They’re not all lean and the epitome of physical perfection, are they? Because I’ve seen some that definitely are not.

9

Ball State? I assume you’re picking on it for the name, because they have some damn fine programs there. Music Education and Journalism, to name two.

10

I don’t know how it works at your school, but at the high school I teach at football funds a host of other activities. It is a consistant year-in/year-out money-maker. The money football brings in pays for baseball, softball, tennis, water polo, etc. Anything that keeps students in school is a good thing, and for a large number of kids, that is sports. No amount of increased funding is going to square the amount of band nerds there are, but sports of all types can appeal to just about anybody.

11

I taught in a high school with approximately 1200 students. We had a coach and an assistant coach. That was it.

The school was an inner city high school. The football and basketball programs gave the neighborhood a sense of community that otherwise would have been lacking. In this particular case, it brought together a predominately white neighborhood and one that was mostly Black.

The sport was expensive, but it more than paid for itself. It was one of the best sources of income for our school.

All of the football players who were in my class learned very quickly that I didn’t give away grades – and I was never pressured to give football players special treatment.

The last year that I taught, there were five football players in one of my fundamental classes. That was my favorite class. The guys treated me with respect and the feeling was mutual. I loved those kids and they worked their buns off. Every one of them passed my class and they did it themselves.

Football provided a way of releasing tension through the physical exertion of practice and game time.

It gave the guys a way of building self-esteem. You didn’t have to be handsome or well-off to be one of the school heroes. They had a lot of motivation to stay clear of drugs and to show up for class and do the work.

For a few seniors each year there would be scholarships. A couple of my students eventually signed with NFL teams. None of them made it really big. But I will never doubt that their lives are better for having had the experience of losing and winning and remembering.

These days the students in the neighborhood can get a little encouragement from some of the local guys. Now that pro football is here, I would think that interest in participation is even greater. And I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt that Steve McNair is around to give them encouragement.

** Zagadka**, I’m sorry that your experience was so disappointing. I really don’t think that it is typical.

Why were the players allowed to remain on the team if they were caught breaking training? How could they have football practice almost every day from July until the end of the season and not be healthier?

12

I dunno. I guess our school was interested in having more of those stupid banners they hang over the gym. They got away with all kinds of crap.

Don’t think they ever had to cheat on the grades, though… it took real talent fail out. All the kids who were “at risk” got moved to dummy “special” classes. Oh, right, they also took the core classes from the coaches. No one else was allowed into those classes.

I can respect the usefulness of the sports in your situation, where it is a valid distraction for a lot of kids. I can think of other social activities which could take their place, or even be better, but I guess it is a good solution, and putting it at easy access to them is fine, too.

I jsut don’t see why all the money erecting massive stadiums and buying the team 80" projection TVs to review the games with (not kidding, that is how they did it at that school). The coaches had a wireless headset system.

I’m fine with sports in general. The school’s soccer program was low budget as hell - they are lucky they had more than one ball. The players moved out the nets themselves before each game. The field was the PE field. The coach was an English teacher moonlighting. That is the glory of most sports - they are blessedly simple. A game of basketball or soccer, you just need a court or field, and go.

For some reason, they pour thousands into football… I guess all the padding, equipment, stadium, coaches adds up. The football program had a huge stadium with all the aluminum seating and topiaries and crap…

13

So are you complaining about how they did sports at your school or at schools in general? Your school sounds nothing like the high schools I attended growing up.

Marc

14

This guy’s funny: http://maddox.xmission.com/dumbassjocks.html

15

A few careers ago, I was involved with athletics and Physical Education at the K-12 and university levels.

First, I’ll dispell a few myths:

Football, and other athletic programs, rarely generates a profit. You could find a few exceptions, but in general the profit to a school or university is in prestige, not monetary.

“Sports builds character” is one of the most egregious myths I’ve ever heard, and I can’t believe it persists as strongly as it does. The fact is, sports builds character for SOME. I’ve seen it do good things for some kids. But I’ve also seen sports do a lot of damage and teach some pretty damn cold blooded stuff. This is one of the reasons I’m no longer in that business.

But more to the point about funding - athetics are inherently elitist. Kids are CUT from teams if they aren’t good enough to play at the scholastic level. So there’s a whole bunch of kids who MIGHT have derived any supposed benefits from sports who get nothing except the opportunity to be spectators.

Ah, but they can play intramurals, you say? Not so, in many many school districts. Often, kids who have been cut are out of luck. Some will go join the track team or other “non-marquee” sports, others will not participate in athletics at all. Of course, there are also many kids who aren’t interested in formal athletics, and would derive no benefits from the experience at all. They are not served by these programs in any way, but an intramural program might be of interest to some of them.

So then you have football, which requires more space, equipment, and funding than just about any other sport (Don’t bother bringing up the swim team - the school’s pool is used by lots of other people). For the cost it takes to run your average high school football program, which only has a limited number of player slots, you could fund an intramural program which serves hundreds. And which need not cut anybody.

In short, I feel there is no reasonable justification whatsoever for football. And little justification for the way we do scholastic athletics in the U.S. in general. If all the propaganda about sports building character and self-esteem were true, we’d find a way to get more people in on the experience. Such a system would look a lot different than the one we currently have: more intramurals, and more types of activities. Physical Education programs (good ones, that is) are now more open to alternative activities that aren’t always competitive: rock climbing, kayaking, circus skills, dance video games, inline skating, etc. It would be cool to see these activities used in new ways to bring in the kids who don’t go for the traditional sports, done in the traditional format of formalized athletics.

The only justification for football and such is that which has been already noted - people LIKE having football around for whatever reasons, so they find ways to have it.

16

Um, I was a trainer. I traveled with the team to every other school.

So I guess the 20 odd schools I saw were just anomalies. :-p

17

Or maybe you just lived in a rich area. Or you’re making stuff up.

In my school district growing up, no school had its own football stadium. The district used two stadiums for nine schools shared. One is owned by the city and is open to private groups to rent for events when the high schools aren’t using it. On weekends they often held marching band competitions there. And I know they’ve had things like skate competitions and demos there, too.

The other is owned by the school district and has hosted the Special Olympics, among other things.

The team reviewed tape on the same TVs that every class had access to - they had to check them out from the library like everyone else. And they were used for Frosh to JV to Varsity. And on weekends they often held marching band competitions there.

Same thing with just about every school in the district except one, which bought an extra TV system for the athletic department, but they were upgrading their AV stuff and just bought an extra TV that was the same as all the other ones.

So, maybe it’s just your area.

18

Would you mind naming some of these amazing high schools with their own football stadiums?

19

I don’t agree with anything the OP claims, but in regards to stadiums, it is common in my experience for schools to have their own. Certainly almost every school in the Denver/Boulder area does. I see Neurotik, above is in Arlington. I went to HS in Alexandria, and every school in Fairfax County has their own stadium. So that part, at least is probably true.

20

Charter Oak, Edgewood, Covina, San Dimas, Glendora, Pomona, Azusa, Arrow…

All in the spectacuarly rich suburban land of Los Angeles.

Maybe it is a California thing.

And if y’all want to call me a liar again…