The sports connection

Are athletics really all that necessary in an academic setting?

Lacey Rees - lrees@sierrastar.com

Why sports?

There is a contingent of the population who thinks sports in public schools, especially high school, is a waste of time and money.

Forbes magazine, for instance, in its February 17 issue, had an opinion piece by an Etta Kralovec, suggesting sports be moved out of public schools, letting the community sponsor them and all extracurricular activities. The focus on sports, she says, “saps the time, attention and energy that students should put into academics.” She spent three-quarters of the article discussing how much school districts spend on sports programs. Ms. Kralovec compared the cost to schools of sports versus academics.

 There are those, however, who see sports not as a detractor from academics, but rather as threads to be woven with academics to make up the fabric of a student.

 

All-important connection

Ellen Peterson, a Yosemite High School U.S. history teacher and cross country coach, sees sports as providing a connection to school for the student. “The more connections you can provide, the better,” she says. “Sports provide something that the academics can’t, both emotional and physical. Every connection further enhances their involvement to the school.” It is that sense of connection that keeps the child in school.

“I can’t emphasize it enough,” she says. She tells incoming freshman to get involved, so they can say, “I am in soccer or football or volleyball.” Within a week, they have a sense of belonging. And then they get the trappings — the T-shirt, hat or jacket. They develop a great sense of camaraderie. She does not discount the connections also made through choir, band, clubs and other extracurricular activities.

But it is sports that attract the most students. “Athletics is a huge arena,” she says. “The percentage is staggering.” Even for those non-athletes, she continues, there is a sense of school pride through sports when one from another school says, “I hear your football team kicks.”

For some students, she says, “It is the only thing keeping them here, the absolute salvation for a few. Then when they suddenly aren’t able to play, we lose them. ‘Why should I be here?’ they say.”

“I have had kids at risk academically,” says Aaron Eames, physical education teacher and football and baseball coach at Yosemite. “Sports gives them a reason to come to school every day. It is their carrot.”

Mrs. Peterson agrees, “I know if they are in my class, they are learning something. I don’t care if the carrot is sports.”

Even on the junior high level, students have to be eligible to play sports by maintaining a 2.0 average. Bob Guizar, principal at Oak Creek Intermediate says, “Getting them to maintain a 2.0 is the only thing we have over them.” Especially for students whose forte is not academics, “It keeps them excited about coming to school.”

Bob Yahn, a counselor at YHS, who thinks the 2.0 requirement is too low, nevertheless believes in the sports connection to academics. “[Students] don’t realize the importance of education. They live for the moment,” he says. Besides, “it gives some parents some leverage with some kids, and parents don’t have a lot of leverage with teens.”

 

Delayed rewards

“[Sports] is one avenue where we still hold out for a sustained effort for a delayed achievement,” Mrs. Peterson observes, which, unfortunately, she sees as an attribute  of an ever-diminishing group. “A league championship takes time, and society is losing that.”

Mr. Eames sees sports as giving students a certain work ethic, a discipline. Sports teach that a person “has to be consistent and work hard every day,” he says. That work ethic carries over into academics.

Parents, too, see the positive effect of sports on their children. “They learn teamwork, cooperation and competition,” says Wayanne Markley, whose daughter Melissa, a sophomore, plays JV basketball. “They learn how to follow the rules, no matter what. It keeps them healthy, too.” Melissa, on the “A” honor roll, also plays golf.

“She is more well-rounded because of [sports],” continues Mrs. Markley. “They learn things they will need all their life.”

Even losing is part of life, says Mrs. Peterson. “You sit on the bench, keep working and you will get in. Of course, tribulation is part of life.” Sports teaches people to deal with set-backs constructively, she says.

 

Relationships

Sports crosses all academic levels. A “C” student can team up with an “A” student, and be equally yoked. “A kid might not be in IB chemistry, but he can hang out with an IB student in cross country,” says Mrs. Peterson.

Mr. Eames has observed that athletics develop relationships with other students. “It’s a great thing, how to work together and how to be a team,” he says. As a student eventually gets out into the work force, the ability to get along with other people is equally as important as knowing how to do a job.

The coach, alone, is another person, a confident or a counselor, with whom the student can share intimate questions or thoughts, says Mrs. Peterson. She considers her being with kids all day a “calling,” and savors, as a coach, the chance to “be something other than an academic counselor. I get to hang with them,” she says.

 

The physical part

Of course, the beneficial effect on the body of physical activity is obvious, as students are in what Mrs. Peterson calls a “fat epidemic,” due in part to reduced PE requirements in schools.

And Mr. Eames has heard rumors that the PE requirements, which used to be four years and now are two, could be reduced even further.

Both Mr. Eames and Mrs. Peterson cite studies that show learning is enhanced by physical activity. “If you were to …  exercise and then take a test, it would promote better thinking,” says Mr. Eames.

Mr. Yohn thinks that the busier students are, the better they do in everything. He sees fitting sports into their lives as a lesson in time management. “It keeps them out of trouble,” he says.

“When kids are connected through school with sports, drama or music, they are more successful in general,” observes Valinda Clevenger, a Yosemite counselor. She is a former coach who started the volleyball program at the school. “As the mother of two boys [now grown], I know [sports] can have more influence on their life than anything else.”