My American Sport in the 21st Century class examined whether varsity sports contribute to education on February 23, 2016. This class focused on high school and college sport. We examined the arguments for and against interscholastic sport, the cost of high school sport, and a brief history of college sports. Varsity sports are a part of the American culture, we are an outlier in the fact that we have high school varsity teams. They make up a big part of our society and both sides of the argument surrounding them are strong. See them below:
Arguments for and against Interscholastic Sports
Against:
-Distracts attention from academics
-Increases passivity and injuries
-Create superficial and transitory spirit
-Waste resources
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-Create pressure and distort status system
For:
-Involve students in activities
-Build self-esteem
-Enhance fitness and lifetime participation
-Generate spirit and unity
-Promote support
-Develop and rewards skills
The answer to whether sports contribute to education is answered by the "Against" category but not specifically in the "For" category. In this one can assume that sports may take away from education. If you examine the "For" category sports does also provide other things that may be hard to come by in other activities. In addition to distracting attention from academics, sports also waste resources. Here you can see the cost of high school sports as well as the brief history of intercollegiate sports:
Cost of High School Sports:
-United States High Schools cut $2 billion in funding for athletics last year
-A HS athletic program is no longer a given
-Schools in 43 states charge students to participate (average
is $150-200 per sport). Ohio legislature just passed pay for play law for high
schools-$625 per sport (2015)
-Led to schedule reductions, travel restrictions, cutting
coaches, eliminating athletic directors and feeder teams (JV, freshmen).
Brief history of intercollegiate sports:
-First contest 1852 (Rowing)
-First football contest in 1869
-Initially student run, based on British model
-Faculty get involved in 1880’s
-First league formed in 1895 (Big 10)
-Intercollegiate athletic association formed in 1905
-Becomes NCAA in 1910
-A highly commercialized entity- 400,000 NCAA athletes
(116,000 have Financial Aid)
Robert Greenwald wrote an article titled "College Football is Stealing Your Education" for the Huffington Post: Huffpost College on October 13, 2015. In this article he describes how college tuition is skyrocketing and how athletics are leading to faculty and degree programs being cut from universities. He also provides a short educational clip about these events, which you can see below the link to the article.
Full article:
Video:
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