Article About What's Killing Sport's Participation

G

Grace T.

DA
Just thought I'd share (not passing an opinion on the article). An article about what's killing high school sport's participation (thought about posting it in high school thread but as travel sports are mentioned it's also relevant here). Basically the takeaway was in the last school year, despite there being an uptick in enrollment, participation in high school sports declined.

The article cites three main bugaboos: the decline of high school football, early specialization which leads to fewer multisport athletes, and that for well-off children participation isn't declining as much (because their parents can afford the training of early travel sports).

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/meritocracy-killing-high-school-sports/597121/
 
Seems about right, but I would attribute more to the screens and fear of injury (often inflated by the media IMO) than the author. I participate in the pay to play machine and that's reality. A reality that the author derides as advantage. No one here is running a charity and most people are trying to pass on their success/legacy to their children. Most of us will probably be able to do that. Maybe it is an advantage or maybe its just sacrifice of my resources (time/money). My first concern is for the betterment of my kids future. The success of your kid is your concern. Don't mistake this attitude for the welfare of you kids, because their welfare and their success are not necessarily the same thing. No one is against the welfare of a kid. So, to the author of this piece; quit being lazy and blaming the mysterious "advantage".
 
O.k. I needed some time from the article before critiquing it. I think Banana is right that it "seems about right". You see the same thing in education too, where there's been a vast divergence between the well off and the working poor. But the question is what do we do about it. From Derek's tone and twitter, he seems opposed to the current system and wants something more egalitarian (where kids all play together).

But we tried that. The vision of AYSO remember is that everyone plays and everyone gets roughly equal time and everyone plays together (from the handicapped to the future pro). It didn't work...those on the end of the distribution curve remained frustrated and needed something else. The future pro wasn't developing if his teammates couldn't execute a proper path and wasn't being challenged enough. The handicapped kid wasn't happy if the coach was having to force players to pass it to him because they knew he'd lose the ball every time against other future pros. They left, but the cycle repeated itself with those now again at the end of the new distribution curve. The other rec sports had the same problem, even if they didn't have as much of a knowledge gap in coaches and officials that AYSO did.

So I'm not sure what Derek would have us do here. At least in education, I suspect he'd sympathize with those that says we should eliminate magnet, gifted, charter or private education (like in the news story recently about the recommendations to eliminate gifted schools in New York City to increase diversity). Maybe he wants to do the same for travel teams to level the play field? We could leave things the way they are, but then I don't see how you keep people from using their money to benefit the kids or (like in the case of the college cheating scandal) doing worse. Particularly since families are smaller and children have become so expensive, people are putting a lot of egg in their few baskets (which encourages behavior like we've seen in say another deleted thread here). When families were big, you could be reasonably sure that one of your kids would be a wreck of a black sheep but that one might make something of themselves, and besides you couldn't keep your eye and throw money at all of them even if you wanted to. We could switch to a true meritocracy (in academics tracking at very early ages...in sports a true academy system in all sports and tiered rec for the rest) but that's unlikely to answer the diversity concerns people always throw up, and those with money will seek ways around it anyways (in Europe, they do that by sending their kids here to play or study...and what are we going to do prohibit people form hiring private tutors and trainers?).
 
I read the article too, and found it pretty spot-on. Depressingly spot-on.

My kid would LOVE to be a multi-sport athlete in high school (water polo/soccer/tennis), but club soccer will not be happy if he takes time off to train for the other sports. If he doesn’t play club soccer (his favorite sport), he will never make our high school soccer team (since they are out, recruiting kids from all around the area). If he plays DA, he can’t play any other high school sport (realistically).

My kid is an 06, so he pretty much has this year to figure out what track he’s going to take. It sucks that it has to be this way. I hate it.
 
multisportson said:
I read the article too, and found it pretty spot-on. Depressingly spot-on.

My kid would LOVE to be a multi-sport athlete in high school (water polo/soccer/tennis), but club soccer will not be happy if he takes time off to train for the other sports. If he doesn’t play club soccer (his favorite sport), he will never make our high school soccer team (since they are out, recruiting kids from all around the area). If he plays DA, he can’t play any other high school sport (realistically).

My kid is an 06, so he pretty much has this year to figure out what track he’s going to take. It sucks that it has to be this way. I hate it.
Click to expand...
It really does suck!!
 
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