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The Atlantic: 'The case against high school sports'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Oct 7, 2013.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    What about band? And AV club? And the Madrigals have to be a fucking money pit and none of those kids are going to be the next Katy Perry.


    Prom night could - nay, should be spent memorizing periodic tables.
     
  2. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    This means different things to different people with different experiences.

    Being where I'm from, I cannot imagine a society without high school sports. They're not just about the high school. It's a community thing, a socializing agent. And many people have not been exposed to this.

    I heard somebody, I think Colin Cowherd, mentioning high school football on the radio. And he just could not understand that these games draw crowds, that small towns empty into the stadium on Friday nights. He had no frame of reference.

    Would the abolition of high school sports translate to an uptick in academics? Good chance. But who's going to quantify whether it's worth what would be lost?
     
  3. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    Premont's issue was not sports. It was shitty educational administrators and care-less parents. How many parents ran for school board spots or even spoke up about the crappy deal their kids were getting from people paid to educate them?
     
  4. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Well, yes. That's usually the case when schools get to the point where they talk about slicing athletics. Somebody was making crap decisions, and they weren't all about sports funding.
     
  5. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Hmm. I bet if you check the bios of virtually every single college football, basketball and baseball player, and every NFL, NBA and MLB player, they virtually all played high school sports.

    Maybe not niche sports, such as soccer, volleyball or swimming.
     
  6. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    I'd throw baseball, softball and maybe even basketball in there too, micro.

    The AAU leagues, with their complex web of age/skill levels, traveling teams, regional tournaments, etc., have become more important than high school sports in many parts of the country. Hell, the athletes have more loyalty to the AAU team, league and coaches because they start with them before high school. College coaches know this and recruit/scout those leagues.

    Football is the one sport I see holding out against this trend, but there are year-round indoor leagues, camps, etc. for kids parents who are "serious" about landing a scholarship.

    And as jr/shotglass noted, the ties between a community and its high school are almost non-existant in the cities and suburban areas.

    I don't like any of these trends, but that's reality, unfortunately.
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    They might all (or most) play high school sports, but they all get scholarships based on their performance in the club/showcase/camp circuit. Outside of high-level football matchups, recruiters rarely if ever scout high school games anymore. When there is a scheduling conflict, high school loses.

    Also soccer is not a niche sport, at least not in terms of high school and college participation. But soccer has the model of the future, its academy program having eliminated virtually all of the top players from the high school ranks. Other sports are sure to follow.
     
  8. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    I think we are very close to the tipping point where you start seeing basketball players, in particular, go to college without EVER playing on the high school team. Volleyball and soccer will follow quickly (college coaches already pretty much totally ignore HS team competition).

    We are already there in college hockey -- the majority of players who go to NCAA D-I schools (to say nothing of getting drafted) never, ever set foot on the ice for their high schools.

    In the end, we may end up with a better arrangment. But it is going to be a rough transition.

    Football will be the last holdout. The obstacles (financial, facilities, participation) to setting up "independent" competion in football are almost insurmountable.

    Although it won't take THAT long -- as school funding continues to be cut and the costs of running a program continue to skyrocket, districts will pull the plug.
     
  9. CHETtheJET

    CHETtheJET Member

    My kid skipped her senior year of high school sport. 1. No competition 2. Knucklheaded coach 3. Wanted to train harder than HS team ever would or could 4. No interest in awards. Won everything already. 5. Future college coach saw travel ball play.

    Called future college coach (scholarship): no big deal. Whatever makes you better.

    Started every game frosh year.
     
  10. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Those hockey players in Canada never play a minute of high school hockey. If there is high school hockey it is a very poor level.
     
  11. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    My basic thought is that this is a terribly argued piece, and I say that as someone who likes to be swayed by unpopular, against-the-grain ideas. It is an exercise in cherry picking statistics. Cheerleaders get more money per student than math students? OK. That's a start. It sounds good in a piece like this. But what does it mean? What constitutes those dollars? Books? Teacher salaries? And do math students need $1,348 to thrive? Has the author ever heard of the theory of diminishing returns? Has the author ever taken an economics course, ever?

    And she taps her inner-Gladwell with anecdote after anecdote, mistaking correlation with causation repeatedly. And why the need to resort to colleges? What does Oregon have to do with your average high school in 2013, where only girlfriends and boyfriends attend games?

    There is a great piece to be written about how sports affect education, particularly financially. Holy shit was this not that piece.
     
  12. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

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