Amanda Ripley, the author of “The Case Against High-School Sports”, made many good points that can create much controversy when it comes to high-school sports, due to the cost and the academic problems it may be creating amongst the students. She interviewed many people who have experiences banning high-school in order to save money for their school district and the school itself. Ripley wants to bring into attention all the money that is used on high-school sports when districts tend to use a minimal amount on academics. I have come to an agreement with her point-of-views due to several reasons: sports are the main focus of any high-school that may have sports, the tax money being provided to the school district has been used on sports than
Is it time to get rid of the American tradition of school sports? In the article, “Yes, It’s Time to Scale Back” the author Amanda Ripley expresses how sports are harmful to the students and school funds. However, in the article, “No Sports Are More Important than Ever” by Tim O’ Shei discusses how school sports benefit students. The article, “10 Reasons Why High School Sports Benefit Students” by Grace Chen also backs up why school sports are important. School sports are a reason for failing grades; on the other hand, there are many positive benefits to having them in schools.
The stress can get so intense, it feels paralyzing. That’s why it is important than ever for schools to invest in their athletic programs,” states the sports article “Should Schools get rid of Sports.” Schools should keep their sports programs because they help improve academics, help improve mental and emotional health, and improves social skills like being on a team. Schools should not get rid of their sports programs because they help with student’s academics.
According to Amanda Ripley, maintaining a grass field, and cleaning supplies cost at least $20,000 each time (11). If schools got rid of sports, it is said that they could save $150,000 which could then go toward more important things in school (Ripley, 11). This shows that if schools were to persuade their students into getting rid of sports, they could save more money that could then go into educational activities. This is important because this can help school owners save more money than they would have before removing school sports.
While some believe that athletes should have their own choice at making a decision to go pro straight out of high school, they should not do so because they will not be able to manage their million dollar contracts respectively. Speaking of contracts, the NBA should eliminate guaranteed contracts for rookies drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. They should do this because a careless high school kid, could just go into the draft not knowing, or caring on how much they are going to make, with the lack of experience on handling millions of dollars. This is very unrepsonsibible for a teenager, and not only for the high school athlete, but also for the basketball association as well. This is because of there noncommitment to have these players
Colleges are scouting or looking at kids from the age of ten years old. For March Madness (college basketball tournament) a student athlete would miss up to six days of class that they would have to make up later on, due to traveling and having to be with the team. Football player dedicate 43.3 hours of their own life to college sports. Whether it’s going to the weight room, film sessions, or just putting some type of work for the team. It is also more common for athletes who play football or basketball to go pro than in any other college sport.
In this community lately, there has been discussion lately on sports possibly being removed from the high schools. Although, they get the most recognition that does not mean that just because one little thing it gets removed and completely forgotten about. In fact, so many people do high school sports in the text “Are High School Sports Good For Kids” it explicitly states “Here in Michigan almost 300,000 young people take part in high school sports every year.” This scene particularly shows that many youth athletes participate in high school sports in only one state alone.
A lot of people may have arguments against the reasons to get rid of sports, but there are are plenty of counter reasons to those as well. Some common arguments and questions include: What will all the kids do now that they no longer play sports? How will we motivate our students to make good grades? What happens to the skills kids would have learned from these sports? Well the individual students that do not participate in the sports anymore would have other activities that do not involve rising health concerns or long term damage to the body.
Schools are debating on whether or not to take away sports. Students are constantly getting serious injuries from playing them. Therefore, recreational exercise should be eliminated because they cost too much , students will have better grades, and schools are being distracted by sports and are not focusing on education. Schools are spending great deals of money on new equipment for sports and they don’t realize how much cash they are actually spending. According to Amanda Ripley in her article “Should Your School Get Rid of Sports?”
Frances is a field hockey player for her school team. One day, she got her report card and saw she got a C+ in Spanish. The next day at practice, her coach told her she was off the team--Even though Frances had been trying her best in Spanish. Frances thought this was unfair and ceased putting effort into Spanish. This is an example of how a child could be negatively by the No Pass, No Play rule.
This notion is supported by Dr. Daniel Gould, who believes that “Children who participate in sports have increased educational aspirations, closer ties to school and increased occupational aspirations in youth” (1). People against the funding of high school sports think that parents and society are placing more emphasis than ever before and, “[P]ressures athletic personnel to deviate on winning from the athlete- centered educational and personal development mission” (Gould 1). However, athletes strive to do better in class. Michael Lorenc, a high school basketball coach believes that “those who seem to have an overwhelming schedule where they’re playing maybe multiple sports, and high academic schedules, they tend to do better than those who don’t do anything extracurricularly” (Gray). Balancing sports and school makes athletes put more effort into keeping up grades while playing the sport they love.
It is true that obesity and physical inactivity can be unhealthy and dangerous for a child; it is the 4 leading cause of death after all (Myer); but banning contact sports wouldn’t necessarily cause obesity or physical inactivity. If contact sports are to be banned children can still choose to play a different sport; there are plenty of other sports like soccer and basketball. In fact, sports are becoming a much more popular thing in the US and more children are getting physically active. According to Terry Adirim : “Half of all children aged 5-18 years in the US are thought to participate in organized sports programs, This nears that an estimated 30 million school aged children children are involved in sports, which represents a substantial increase over the last 20-30 years (Adirim). Now that more and more children are playing sports, obesity and physical inactivity isn’t as high as it once was.
Kids can translate the hard work they've put into their sport by working harder to be a better student or employee and a better person overall. Kids sports can most definitely help in the area of working together with someone or a
Health and contact sports are something parents worry about as over 500 deaths in the past 3 years from contact sports alone are making parents stand out against these sports and if the government doesn 't do anything about it the number of 7% overall contact sports drop will just keep getting lower and lower each time. Dr. William Speight also had this to say “Many other kids have suffered paralyzing spinal injuries”(Pennington). Kids being paralyzed is the fear for many athletes these days and the number f kids getting paralyzed has increases 2% which is equivalent to about 8,000 kids each year which is crazy to think about kids can 't play sports for the rest of thrie and maybe not be able to live their life because of it so next you hear mom or dad i wanna play sports your answer should be a simple NO. Kids under 10 need to stop playing contact sports because 45% of kids under 10 getting hurt are from contact sports and 5% of the time its ending that kids chances to play sports in the feature, Not to mention contact sports can also make kids go to their fullest and being burned out and although contact provide some kids will useful tools in life most of the time there is more negative than positive. Health, Age, Contact, parents, are some of the many reasons contact sports can be very dangerous for the youth.
Competitive sports tests us in so many different ways, our ability to work with others, our skills. The beauty of competitive sports is that it not only serves the kids but everyone around them. This is why all kids should have the opportunities to join competitive