Robust Benefits
February 6, 2015
Here are some research-based opinions that track with the personal experiences of most of us who have given our careers to educational athletics. The words are those of Kevin Kniffen, who teaches leadership and management at Cornell University (from NYTimes.com [Oct. 22, 2014]):
“Research shows that people who play high school sports get better jobs, with better pay. Benefits that last a lifetime.
“Those lessons presumably help to account for the findings that people who played for a varsity high school team tend to earn relatively higher salaries later in life. Research to which I contributed, complementing previous studies, showed that people who played high school sports tend to get better jobs, with better pay, and that those benefits last a lifetime.
“Hiring managers expect former student-athletes (compared with people who participate in other popular extracurriculars) to have more self-confidence, self-respect and leadership; actual measures of behavior in a sample of people who had graduated from high school more than five decades earlier showed those expectations proved accurate.
“We also found that former student-athletes tend to donate time and money more frequently than people who weren't part of teams.
“In other words, there are clear and robust individual and societal benefits that appear to be generated through the current system of school support for participation in competitive youth athletics.
“With respect to whether youth athletics should be part of educational institutions, it’s certainly true that there’s no necessary relationship between the two; but, what would happen if schools were to drop all of their interscholastic sports programs?
“Any policymakers who took such action would effectively be privatizing – and, in turn, limiting – an important set of opportunities that schools presently provide in a significantly more democratic and open fashion than likely alternatives would. Beyond raising a basic barrier for anyone to gain the kinds of experiences that appear to be rewarded in the workplace, the privatization of competitive youth sports would also create the largest barriers – and cause the greatest long-term losses – for those whose families are not able to bear the costs of participation outside of the public school system.”
The “Extra” Ingredient
December 20, 2016
Every meeting agenda of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Representative Council opens with the “Ten Basic Beliefs for Interscholastic Athletics in Michigan.” Here’s No. 1:
Interscholastic athletics were begun outside the school day and curriculum and remain there as voluntary, extracurricular programs in which qualifying students earn the privilege of participation.
There are those who prefer to substitute “co-curricular” for “extracurricular.” Their hearts are in the right place. They mean well; but they’re wrong.
Competitive interscholastic athletic programs can be educational without being part of the school’s curriculum. If sponsored by schools and conducted by schools, these programs must be a positive, educational experience. But these programs are outside the academic curriculum, and almost always outside the classroom day; and no student has the right to participate in these programs. It’s a privilege students earn by meeting standards of eligibility and conduct; and often these students have to compete to earn a spot on the team and playing time in contests.
Interscholastic athletic programs are important after-school activities that enrich the lives of participants. No student has the right to participate in these programs, but we are right to fight for the presentation of broad and deep interscholastic athletic programs in our schools.