Was admission to the games free; and if it wasn’t, who collected the money?
I tend to lean toward the side that schools should not be involved in sports to the degree that they are in the U.S. That’s a matter of opinion, though, and I don’t have a particularly strong argument to support it.
I feel more strongly that school sports shouldn’t be commercialized. No one should be making a buck when the athletes aren’t getting paid. If people think that sports instill school pride, camaraderie, and community spirit, then let the community support it fully. No selling tickets, no contract for the TV rights, no sponsor logos on the uniforms or at the stadium.
I’m not sure how you know that- after all, there are loads of teams and leagues ( everywhere from recreational level to elite level) that function alongside school teams even now. And others for sports that don’t exist in the local high school league. Somebody organized and runs those teams/leagues. By “they”, I assume you mean the government - well, it’s possible that government agencies may not create leagues and teams * , but I am also wondering how important sports really are to a community if the only way that community can have teams is by paying coaches rather than using volunteers as nearly all youth organizations not associated with a school do. Or if people are unwilling to form a team/league if there isn’t a pre-existing one for their kids to try out for /join.
although they might - it’s not unheard of for Parks and Recreation departments or non-profit organizations associated with police and fire departments to run leagues/teams/recreational programs.
Good topic. I’ve been in favor of removing sports from the public school systems since I read this article in The Atlantic some years ago. A small school district in south Texas suspended sports for a year because of budgeting constraints and wound up having a pretty good year academically and culturally.
I think our belief in the benefits of high school sports with little regard for the disproportionate costs of them is, as the article notes, embedded in American culture and not emulated anywhere else in the world. I also don’t think this example of American exceptionalism is, like many others, a particularly good one.
You know, if we just removed football from schools, and left all the other sports, I think we’d be about 80% of the way towards detoxifying sports in schools.
Let’s get rid of marching bands while we’re at it. Does marching up and down a field really have any positive effect on music education. At the very least, students and parents could use that uniform money to buy/rent better instruments.
The book is now over 30 years old but if you want to be soured on the role of football in high schools, read Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights. The non-football stuff he revealed, like the machinations of the school boards in gerrymandering the district lines and the English departments struggling for funds, was even better – and more disheartening – than his insightful studies of the players and coaches.
I forgot to add a trinket about the Premont school district I wrote about above – when news got out that they were dropping sports, concerned football fans around the state donated $400,000 to the district, which the school promptly used in upgrading its science labs.
Except for football and I guess marching band contests, when do musicians need to march up and down a field to practice their craft? If I were suddenly introduced to US high school culture with no knowledge beforehand, this would seem very weird.
After school activities and clubs have been dropping like mayflies over the years because of tightening budgets. If the dropping of a sports program is going to ruin a school, then I think that school has priority problems.
Physical fitness has something to do with competitive sports programs. A love of playing sport has a lot to do with such programs. So do a lot of other good things.
I would suspect dozens of people learn to love sports from organized sports programs.
Cool.
Well this is what it comes down to isn’t it? Something for nothing or heck with it. Rather than giving some poor child a place to be part of a team, a way to excel, let’s cut programs for the poor and cut taxes for the rich.
Yeah. Whatever. That is the great thing about being in the school business. Everyone who pays the property tax knows how to do it better.
Sure charging children fees for school programs is just another way to kill them (the programs, not the children) off. Not to worry, rich children will still have sports, music, & other programs.
Again, it’s the playoffs. Get ride of the post season, and sports would have an end cap, a limit to the madness. It’s chasing that state title, however unlikely, that leads to the intensity, the constant pressure to ramp things up.
I have known multiple adults who lost their jobs over violating state rules involving athletics, like recruitment, eligibility, etc. It still happens.
Can anyone make a compelling argument for preserving the post-season?
High school is not the place where yoots learn to love sports. An argument could be made instead that high school is when huge numbers of young athletes drop out of organized sports.
Maybe this is all an unexpected version of a new culture war where the nerds are challenging the traditional standing of the athletes in the American high school hierarchy.
Both of my kids did sports in high school: my daughter, rowing and my son, football. The rowing team was not affiliated with the school, but comprised athletes from all high schools in the area. I like this model as it unplugs the sport from the school, but as others point out, only those that can afford it get to be on the team.
My son played football and that was part of the high school - everyone who came to the team was on the team, but not everyone played in every game. In fact, the sidelines were packed but only the 1st and 2nd string saw any action or traveled to far away games, and even when they were way up in the 4th quarter the benchwarmers were rarely allowed to play in a game. Those kids did, however, participate in all practices and did get conditioning and learn how to play, and they all did receive state champ rings the two years in a row they won. The football team did generate revenue that buoyed other sports.
Anyway, I do agree that high school sports can be important in teaching kids how to play a sport and how to take care of themselves and generally how to stay active thru their lives - PE is not going to do all that as strongly. But as others have pointed out, like anything else, people can take it to unhealthy extremes.
There’s nothing that an expensive sport like American football can provide that contribute to educational missions that an inexpensive sport like soccer or basketball can’t provide (other than an increased likelihood of injury).
He just graduated in the spring, class of 2020. I think all players were required to purchase a pack that included a few items that were not team-owned - as I recall it was maybe $200 at the start of the season. The team offered “scholarships” to pay for this pack for those that could not afford it, thru donations from other team parents. But the team provided all uniforms, helmets, shoulder pads. We also had to buy cleats and if we wanted a better helmet ($300, lasts several seasons). We also had to pay for our helmet to be reconditioned and painted ($150) each season.
Speaking from the perspective of a 35 years of experience in high school teacher* - sports are good, if the adults involved are good. Period. If you have a good, positive culture surrounding sports and the adults in charge know that sports are not the be all and end all of existence, the kids will have fun and come out the other end better people. If the adults are toxic, the program will be toxic. In and of themselves, sports are neutral.
To address a couple of other things mentioned above: football usually pays for all of the other sports at the school combined. Stadiums are used for other things besides football. Marching bands exist so that debate teams have someone to look down on.
Full disclosure: My high school has placed quite a few students in the major leagues including Matt Carson, Mark Teahen and Tiajuan Walker.
I think something like the Finnish model is a good idea. Most high schools emphasize general physical education, and healthy outdoor time, but don’t have competitive sports teams in the American sense. Kids do that kind of thing in after-school clubs.
And then there are dedicated Sports High Schools, that have highly-competitive entrance tests and are basically a kind of specialized senior secondary school that has sport on the curriculum - both the University-bound upper-secondary stream and the vocational stream have sport-focused schools. These are schools for people who are going to be (or already are) professional sports people. They are not just for student sportspeople, though, they also have non-sporting students (around 30% of the student body). And academics is still emphasized for the sports students, although they can opt to take longer to finish their schooling just like regular students.