Help Wanted
November 22, 2011
You probably wouldn’t be much attracted to a “Help Wanted” posting in the classified ads of your local newspaper that read:
Help Wanted!
Long hours. Late nights. Low pay.
Frequent criticism.
Almost every paid or volunteer position associated with local school sports would fit that description.
And yet, legions of people enlist in service to school sports each and every year.
Many do so because their own kids are involved as participants. Many others do it “to give back” to a program that provided them so many benefits as a participant years before.
I commend to your reading the Winter 2011-12 issue of benchmarks now online which features a very few of the very many people who have answered this “Help Wanted” call. We are thankful for them all.
School Sports’ Influence
June 20, 2017
As I sat a year ago in an audience consisting of my colleagues from across the U.S., I shared the general frustration – or perhaps it was exhaustion – when a veteran member of our national sports medicine advisory committee discussed the role of high school sports leaders in addressing what he said posed the greatest threat to students.
That threat was nothing we had been working on so very hard for so very long. It wasn’t heads, heat or hearts. Not extreme weight loss in wrestling or, increasingly, in other sports. Not communicable diseases, especially in wrestling. It wasn’t specialization. Not performance enhancing drugs.
He reported that the greatest threat is accidents. Away from the practice and competition venues, and especially traffic accidents. He wondered what our role should be.
He acknowledged much we’ve done regarding so many issues in the past, and all the newer issues – such as opioid addiction, depression and suicide – that are pressing for our attention; but he said it was the same issue today that it has been for decades that most threatens students. Accidents. Especially automobile accidents.
He admitted that the time and place of this threat was not under the control of athletic coaches and administrators. But his point was that the time and place is still under the influence of coaches and administrators.
Say all you want that school sports is irrelevant in this age of video games and ubiquitous non-school sports. This physician knows the score. He knows that school sports still matters mightily to kids, and that those in charge of local school sports programs still yield great power over young people.
Pick a problem – almost any problem – and people want school sports to address it. From bullying to bulimia, from obesity to overuse injuries. It is unfair to ask us to do all this, especially when funding for school sports is considered a frill in so many places.
But it’s a heck of an honor to work in an area where people think we’re the solution, or at least a deterrent. So we keep trying.