A current radio ad extolls the virtues that high school sports play in the lives of students and our local communities. It states that sports create future community leaders and teach values such as teamwork and discipline, all while bringing the community together. The ad got it right - mostly.
High school sports do all these things and more, for those able to participate. However, unnecessarily high participation fees and a misguided application of the vision of what high school sports are all about nearly ensures that these goals never make it past first base for far too many would be high school athletes. In turn, our communities miss out on citizens with better training and teamwork skills, and even on better developed athletic talent.
With a few bold but simple innovations, many times the number of students who are currently able to participate can have these opportunities. Our communities can be strengthened, while costs can be maintained or reduced. The current system is good, but the potential and responsibility to accomplish much more is eminent.
It’s easy to see that our communities need more high quality leaders to guide the future. However, opportunities for students to become leaders who can face difficult odds, work with their peers, and overcome physical, emotional, and mental challenges are severely limited because openings to play on school sports teams are so restricted. At nearly every major high school sport team tryout such as basketball, football, volleyball, and more, students are cut because only one Varsity and J.V. team are offered. Others never even try out or stop after just one year because they feel the teams are already decided on before tryouts are even held.
It’s time for a new system. Depending on the number of students who try out, each school should be permitted and encouraged to have multiple teams per sport, at least for J.V. Benefits would range across the board. The most talented players would be given more exposure and playing time to hone their skills. Those with less-developed skills would get the chance to discover their talent level (eliminating the conundrum of ‘needing experience to get playing time’). As well, opportunities for hundreds of area university students eager to volunteer and enhance their resumes with coaching and referee positions would be opened.
To put the issue in another light, if 50 students were to show up to an educator’s office and state that they were willing to pay extra money and put in time after school to develop leadership skills, healthy physical habits, and represent their community, it’s hard to imagine anyone telling them, “Sorry, we’ll only take 12 of you...”
Now, cost. As the radio ad claims, high school sports make up a small part of the Idaho education budget. However, much of that likely has to do with the hundreds of dollars in direct and indirect fees paid per student per sport. Expensive uniforms, warm-ups, and equipment are only a few items on a long list for each season. Facilities and other items add to the equation.
If the goals of the program really are to build the values already discussed, then, safety equipment aside, maybe items such as a new hooded sweatshirt for each sport or new uniforms every other season ought to be reconsidered. Perhaps instead, student athletes could be asked to purchase one jacket for all sports and add a simple insignia for each additional sport. Instead of bussing students to various locations at various times during the week, multi-game events on Saturdays could be used. These events would bring together teams from multiple schools to play two or three games each in a central location over several hours, thereby lowering transportation and other “overhead” costs. Other innovative ideas and adaptations can surely be developed.
The biggest challenge such positive changes could face will likely not come from lack of funding or facilities, but from a condition known as Uncle Rico syndrome. Uncle Rico, for those who haven’t seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, is a character who constantly bemoans how, “back in ’85, if coach just woulda put me in during the fourth quarter, we coulda gone to state! We coulda won! Back in the day, I could throw this ball over them mountains Napoleon...”
Infected parents, coaches, and others display symptoms such as putting something like winning the state tournament above helping as many students as possible gain values like shared sacrifice, hard work, respect, and building character. If untreated, it can result in a total loss of vision and even spread to young athletes. Remember the radio ad. It didn’t say the goal was to win college athletic scholarships (less than two percent of high school athletes receive even partial athletic scholarships), nor did it even mention winning games. Sometimes, our logic on this subject is completely backwards. Coach and teach first things first, give more students more chances to play and grow, and the rest of what’s truly important will fall into place. In the words of another famous movie, “If you build it, they [wins, and other incidentals] will come.”
This approach does not imply that winning is not important. It simply states that how we win and what we really win are too. Nor would such a system necessarily degrade the level of competition. In fact, as more previously untapped talent is exploited, competition could exceed current levels.
In the effort to build a high school sports system that truly reaches its stated goals, we must first know and believe what our goals for high school sports really are. Then, we’ve got to act boldly, and work as a team to achieve them. If we follow this same advice we give our student athletes, we can take a system that is good, and make it great while strengthening the entire community for generations to come.
