DSP Writing Assignment

            ​Sports are America’s favorite pastime.  They have influenced American culture in such a way that they seem to have become one of the top priorities in everyday life. Multiple times a year, people throughout the country come together to support their favorite teams in championship games.  Whether it is the Superbowl, the NBA finals, the NCAA March Madness, the Stanley Cup finals, or the MLB World Series, sports are a mainstay of everyday life that are interwoven into every aspect of American culture.  As a result, over the last century, communities throughout the nation have incorporated athletic programs into their schools. In her article "The Case Against High School Sports", Amanda Ripley argues that in America, sports and education do not exist equally in schools. She contends that sports regularly gain priority over academics. And although Ripley concedes that although athletic programs in schools benefit students, any benefits are outweighed by the disproportionate expenditures of time and money on athletics rather than on academics, which limits the educational growth and potential of the students.

            As a result, children have the opportunity to participate in the sports in which the professional athletes whom they admire did. Many even dream of one day becoming a professional player. Although it is not likely that they will advance anywhere past high school or college athletics, school sports offer children the opportunity to begin developing essential skills in their respective sports. For some who do excel, proper training must begin at a young age, which is easily accessible through the programs at their own school.

            The origin of school-sponsored sports is also related to the need for containment of violence. As Ripley explains, “Until then [1900], most American boys had played sports in the haphazard way… games looked more like brawls than Organized contests.” It can be seen today that through school sports, there is less violence because kids no longer needs to formulate their own games with no enforced rules. The organization of school sports provides structured rules that must be followed in order to keep athletes safe. Sports also provide an outlet for stress. School is not always a walk in the park. Testing and homework can cause students to feel overwhelmed. Having a sport to go to after a long day gives students a place where they find distraction from stress causing agents and release their negative energy. If schools did not have sports, students would not have an outlet from their academic stress. Instead they may put their energy towards something dangerous.

            Whether a sport is team or individually based, the game is centered on basic principles. Through sports, children learn the importance of cooperating with others in order to achieve a common goal (i.e. winning a game or stopping a scorer). They also learn about sportsmanship and leadership, perseverance and healthy competition. These are all important qualities people need to have in their everyday lives. By teaching them through something enjoyable, it is more likely that students will adhere to these characteristics and then abide by them later in life. The most notable health concern in America is obesity. Our nation is ranked the #1 most obese nation. Much of this problem is due to a lack of exercise. Many people do not have the time to work out with their busy schedules, especially high school students who struggle to balance jobs, homework, community service and college preparation. However, with sports embedded into the school system, an exercise opportunity is easily accessible. If obesity can be prevented at a young age, simply by promoting exercise through sports, then the percentage of people who will suffer as adults with decrease.

            Lastly, in an environment where it has been known that children form their own groups and others struggle to find their identity, sports help to promote a sense of belonging. Each school has one identity, for example, the Harrison Huskies or Rye Garnets. No matter what a person's social identity is, everyone in one school is a husky or a garnet and support one team. Sports games bring all members of a school together, athletes and math scholars, the most popular group and the students who sit alone at lunch, to collectively cheer for the same team.

            ​Unfortunately, as sports become more popular in the school system, American education has stagnated. An international comparison shows that American math students rank 31st in the world in critical thinking while South Korean students rank 4th. Ripley draws comparisons between the athletic availability at schools in these two nations by describing an America school as having “lush grass fields, six tennis courts” and at a South Korean school “classmates played pickup soccer on a dirt field at lunchtime”. The differences in athletic fields alludes to the larger idea that American schools focus more time and money on sports which ultimately seems to be interfering with the nation’s ability to compete academically with others. Not only do the schools have a great focus on sports, the students develop the same type of bias. In the low-income families, the glorification of sports leads kids to believe that this is their way out of their current economic status. They think they could be the next LeBron James or Derek Jeter. Thus, they do not focus on completing their education, going to college and then finding a job to make a living. Instead they think, which statistics prove is unlikely to happen, that by spending all their time at a sport, they will become a professional player.

            High school students are also not focused on getting a higher level of education. Ripley states, “only 17% of the school’s juniors and seniors took at least one AP test.” It is clear that sports are replacing advanced classes. AP classes are rigorous and require extra time for studying, which cannot coincide with the time spent at sports practice or games. With fewer students in AP classes, American education is certain to plummet and students become less prepared for college. The latter is a large problem since the majority of kids who play sports in high school do not go one to play in college. The time they waste playing a sport would certainly be more useful if it were spent studying. 

​            The major result of introducing sports into schools is the emphasis shifting from academics to athletics. Predominantly it is the uneven distribution of money. Sports are very expensive to maintain; they require busing, maintenance of fields, equipment and coaching. The statistics from Premont High school, which indicate that $1300 is spent per player and just $618 per math student are relevant to most high schools across the nation. The main concern with this is that the large sum of money affects athletes, who are only a limited group of students, while the smaller sum affects all students in a school. As academic budgets continue to be slashed to make up for sports funds, the quality of teaching decreases and it becomes the status quo that academics can fall in the shadows of athletic achievement.

            ​This also lends itself to the distorted images of individual students. Like Ripley mentions, the majority of schools have their athletic achievements displayed in a trophy case upon entrance to their building. In a place where education is the main purpose, those that play in sports are more highly recognized. So what about the scholars? Students who are not athletes find themselves less important in school. Insecurity may arise in those who don’t play sports because it seems that what the school favors is a quality that these particular students don’t have. American schools should be more like South Korean schools whose students “made it into the newspaper, [only] for their academic accomplishments”. Academics should be the first type of recognition in schools if America wants any chance at improving its ranking in international education.

            In the 2005 film Coach Carter, Ken Carter, head coach of a high school basketball team, instituted a lockout of the basketball season when he realized that his players academics had fallen below the accepted average. In Ripley's article, she supports the idea of eliminating high school sports in order to place focus back on education. Although she does prove that this approach has been successful, it is not the most ideal approach to solving the problem of balancing sports with education. The best way to balance these two things is by reorganizing budgets and redistributing funds between sports and academics. Sports should not be allowed to receive more than 50% of the total school budget. therefore, the necessary academic funds will by accessible and more effort can be spent on improving the educational opportunities for students.

            The most important thing that can be done to fix this problem is changing the attitudes of the coaches and athletes. The focus should be on creating student athletes, not athletes who happen to be students. In many cases, coaches give their players a hard time about taking time away from practice for studying or extra help. they think that the sports program is most important and that practices and games take priority over testing and homework. Sports are only supposed to be extracurricular activities that come after academic requirements are fulfilled. If we can replace this attitude with one that understands the importance of school over sports then American education may not be as compromised.

             Even though sports allow students to learn important skills, to feel part of a community and relieve stress, the toll they take on education is significantly more damaging to society. In order to improve the existing imbalance between athletics and academics, our nation must start with small changes that will eventually lead to a successful turn around. Sports will always be one of the top priorities of the American culture however the problems due to the excessive dedication to sports can not be ignored.