By Ed Piper
A wise owl--I won't say who--asked, "What do you think if schools stopped having sports?"
I was almost floored, though not literally. I have never heard someone, inside the system or out, present this possibility.
This not-old coot (my mother was fond of saying, "You old coot" to us kids) is knowledgeable about the present state of high school sports, a participant from the inside as a long-time coach in multiple sports in various seasons, a classroom teacher (not in P.E.), a parent, and a former high school athlete.
(No, it's not someone at LJHS. I substitute-teach at many different schools in the county.)
Here's this person's thinking: "I think schools are headed toward dropping all sports. Look at it this way: School districts are always struggling with budget problems, and athletics are very expensive."
For example, for football, schools have to cover themselves with insurance in case of liability when a student-athlete sustains a major injury. Look at Scott Eveland, the football player at Mission Hills who collapsed in 2007 and had major medical issues. The school and district were sued in court.
"School teams are becoming a thing of the past," said our conversant. "Students participate on club or travel teams to pursue their sport. Playing on the school team is their 'fun time'. It's not as serious and competitive."
I've seen that in my reportage on high school sports. A star softball pitcher at Bishop's, Shelby Maier, conference pitcher of the year, and her father echoed that very thing: "Shelby's playing on the school team is her 'fun time'. She can enjoy it with her classmates, and it's not serious the way club/travel ball is."
"Kids are so busy now, they play on club or travel teams, they have homework. We had a football game at our school, which went into overtime, and there were no students there.
"The students," this coach/parent revealed, "come to the game to find out where the after-party is. They may come for the halftime show at Homecoming, but then they leave after halftime."
Our busy young people maximize their time, with one result being a drop in attendance at games. "Our basketball game last night, there were no students there."
I had never thought of a total school-sports apocalypse before this conversation. I think football will die a slow death over a period of time, just because of the brain injury issue. Numbers of students going out for high school football over the past decade bear that out.
But here, in this re-made world, this opinionator wonders if club and travel sports organizations will be the only ones going.
How about the argument school people use that "sports help keep some students who don't enjoy school in school--it gives them a reason to be there"?
"No, sports are a reason students are not in school. They're too busy. Rather, it's only the old guard that argue sports are a draw to keep kids in school. That generation will die off in several years."
"Classroom teachers don't coach anymore," Wise Owl says. In my days as a high school student, all P.E. teachers were coaches. They were expected to. They relished doing it. That was part of their honor, their prestige at the school. "Coach Lercari" (football). "Coach Riley" (basketball). "Coach Ihne" (baseball).
"Why would they want to coach for the school? The coaches on the lower levels give up their Saturdays and weekdays for three months, and we give them $300. They can coach for a club team and make that much in one week."
Another money issue is the use of school fields: "The school can rent the baseball diamond to the so-and-so team (sponsored by a shoe company) for a thousand dollars a month. That will bring in money."
Academically? "It could make schools better. The focus would go back to what schools were intended for originally, teaching students."
Taxes paid by citizens that don't have kids in school? "How many people want to pay taxes so that public schools can have sports?" the coach/parent asked. Not too many, I would surmise.
One other issue I thought of was the free-for-all transferring of student-athletes from one school to another to play a sport at a different school for a different coach. A student living in Clairemont High's attendance area enrolling at University City High because of the running program would no longer have that incentive to go there, if there were no school-sponsored sports.
Students who transfer to Eastlake to play football or basketball would no longer have those teams to draw them, if club and travel were the only sports and school sports no longer existed.
Imagine the Heinz 57 challenges that newly-named CIF San Diego Section head Joe Heinz will have to deal with, come July 6, 2010, the official start of his new tenure. There is talk of student athletes being able to transfer willy-nilly between schools with no sit-out time. Why? Parents will threaten to hire a lawyer to take CIF to court if the section attempts to block or limit transfers. It just isn't feasible to fight this anymore. The old rule of "transfer for academic reasons" went out two years ago, never to rear its head again.
Cutting all sports would end all this rigmarole. Walking over to a wall socket in the classroom at the end of a period, our source poses, "What if schools just did this to sports?", pulling the plug out of the socket.
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