The United States has the biggest athletic culture in the world. How did this develop, and what has been its impact on American High School Students?
Nathan Smith December 2016 Education/Sports
Bzzzzzt. Getting up for school is a momentous task, done with down-turned lips and tired eyes. Sometimes it can only be done with a coffee. Sometimes people decide that it just isn’t worth it.
Yet, back in high school, no matter how leaden my limbs felt as my alarm clock rung (and got promptly snoozed) at 7 a.m. on a school day, I was always light as a feather when my alarm rung at 4 a.m. on a Saturday to wake me up for a volleyball tournament. I only needed to set one, and as soon as it beeped, I sprung out of bed ready to drive three hours to the tournament site. There, I would spend an hour warming up and play five matches in a row with my team before returning home at 8 p.m., utterly spent.
What’s more, to my infinite appreciation, my father readily drove for hundreds of miles to these tournaments. He found the best camera with a wide-angle lens, filmed every match, and poured hours into watching film with me so I could improve.
Volleyball is something I have dedicated a large portion of my life to. I’ve spent countless hours playing it, and came all the way across the country from my home in California to be part of the Penn State Division 1 Varsity men’s volleyball team.
My parents initially introduced me to the sport as a way to have a good experience, meet friends, and exercise more. However, as my career progressed, it became something that my parents and I began to place much more importance upon. We invested a great deal of time and money for me to be successful. They saw playing volleyball as a way I could gain opportunities for scholarships and to further my education.
Coincidentally, my own experience with volleyball mirrors the shift in the history of how high school sports have developed in American Society. No longer are sports seen as mere recreational activities for young athletes; they have become a prominent cultural and economic center in American life. This is illustrated by the attitude, values, and lifestyle of competitive athletes on elite sports teams. Sometimes this borders on militant discipline, responsibility, and punctuality. For example, if any of my teammates or I was late to a club volleyball practice, the entire team could be forced to spend the next hour doing sprints.
Further indication of this trend can be seen in the insanely high viewership in sports stadiums at the high school level. For example, in 2013, 54,347 were in attendance for the High School Division I Texas State Championship football game.
Pick-up games at family gatherings and on after-school basketball courts still have their place in society. However, competitive and organized sports have surpassed the role of merely being fun activities. Rather, they have gained a significant amount of prestige, and become an integral part of some student’s identities and prospect for success in the future.
How and why has this shift occurred in society? More importantly, has this shift benefited the lives of young student-athletes, or detracted from them?
Although sports can be such a stressor and have such prominence today, prior to 1850, they played a marginal role in American life. Basketball hadn’t even been invented until 1891, and volleyball until 1895. American football wasn’t fully developed from rugby until the 1880’s. During this time, popular sports were not the center of attention for the average American youth, and were just beginning to make their way as intramural leagues on college campuses. Athletics as a whole were still in their infancy, without a widespread established infrastructure. They were most often seen played in the schoolyard, not commonly in grand gymnasiums and expensive AstroTurf fields by athletes in expensive Nike gear.
It was in the early 1900’s that a rapid change was initiated. Organized sports began to gain popularity. The first high school leagues came to being in New York, and students at universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Springfield college (the birthplace of basketball and volleyball) began to organize intercollegiate competition.
However, like many things that we take for granted in society today, widespread organized athletics didn’t come to being without a fight. Various sports, especially football, were viewed by university and high school officials as a potential cause for dishonesty, cheating, and rowdy behavior. Athletics were perceived as a detractor from education, so different than the pride schools take in their sports teams today. School officials tried to curb many intramural sports initiatives, but to no avail. The wants of the student bodies could not be stopped, and institutions gained little control of the development of student run athletic organizations at several prominent universities. They slowly became a way of life.
By 1905, intercollegiate competition had developed past the point of no return. However, regulations for the competitions remained almost nonexistent. Athletic injuries and even deaths became a growing concern, prompting precautionary measures. Most notably, a meeting was called by President Roosevelt that ultimately led to the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, an agency that developed rules for all intercollegiate competition. In 1910, this organization would be renamed the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). Initially, rule-making was the extent of its role in athletics, but how this role developed parallel to American sport culture further illustrates the importance of modern athletics to our society, and the impact it has had on high school athletes.
The expansion of the NCAA began in the 1920’s, where successful and entertaining sports teams garnered a great deal of public interest. Attention was multiplied again as higher education became more readily available after World War II. Desire to win and commercialization of athletics had grown out of proportion, and as a result the NCAA’s regulatory role increased as well.
Today, the NCAA dictates all rules of intercollegiate competition for all division one, two and three institutions, conducting significant research and gathering empirical data to justify every one of its regulations. It leads investigations into athletic scandals, and sets rules for recruitment and endorsements. In addition, the NCAA makes a significant impact on the lives of high school athletes through its recruitment and eligibility guidelines. It has become relevant and necessary for the NCAA to exist because of this shift in commercial potential and omnipresence of intercollegiate sports that could lead to exploitation.
I myself have had to go through several compliance meetings and paperwork sessions to learn the intricacies of various rules that the NCAA sets for gambling (don’t do it), doping (don’t do it), and failing classes (don’t do it). All of these regulations were set in order to prevent people from cheating the system, something incentivized by money and America’s massive athletic culture. It also limits corruption that could come from the commercialization of collegiate athletics and boundless zeal that university’s students, faculty, and alumni take in their sports teams. The NCAA also regulates athletics scholarships.
Scholarships are a great contributor to the rise in importance of high school athletics, and, like the NCAA, came about as a result of the increasing presence of sports in American society. In the 1960’s, grants were mostly confined to revenue producing sports such as basketball and football. However, by 1970 athletic scholarships for such sports as track, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, baseball, and swimming began to rise in numbers due to increasing viewership. As these came into being, paying for club sports outside of high school became more of an investment to save on college rather than money wasted on an extracurricular activity. The creation of Title IX of the Educational amendments of 1972 also made for equal amounts of athletic scholarships for women as men ($1.2 Billion annually), as well as equal funding for their programs. From this, female athletics as well as programs and media coverage of women’s sports grew exponentially because the sport provided the means to have an education.
Along with the already emergent fanaticism with sports in society, scholarships have resulted in an immense pressure and incentive to perform for pre-college athletes. No longer are you putting a ball in a basket to prove your strength and ability to your peers. Rather, hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarship money could depend on how you perform on a single given day where a college coach is watching you.
I know that feeling. Everyone in the gym knows when a scout, usually an assistant coach at a university, struts to the court at a large tournament with a binder full of names of players they may only watch for a total of five minutes each. They sit down and take notes with purpose, silent and staid. The whole mood of a match changes. Your sweat turns cold. You realize the stakes have gone up. There is now a premium for every play you can make for the rest of the time he/she is watching.
It’s a hard feeling to ignore.
The desire to be recruited has created somewhat of a craze in the sports world. In order to give their child more opportunities in the future, parents have begun to push their children to be involved in sports earlier and at a higher level. My good friend David was introduced to a volleyball at the age of 3, and played on a travel team for 11 years that went to venues across the country to compete. Although this is an extreme example, starting an athletic lifestyle early prevails in many sports. Where young boys used to begin carpenter or silversmith apprenticeships at the age of 12, nowadays many begin their sports careers. Training hard for many years, groomed into their student-athlete profession. From this norm, sports have become intensely competitive. Many of my friends who play women’s volleyball have told me stories of parents on a team fighting with the coach about playing time, and nasty rivalries between player’s competing for a starting position. It is understandable, as families can pay upwards of 40 thousand dollars to put their child through travel volleyball if they are part of a prestigious club as an investment for future athletic scholarship.
However, it also illustrates the extremity of measures that can be taken in the name of athletics for high school students.
Along with expensive athletics clubs, as sports became more important to society, the high school sport infrastructure grew as well. 7.8 million high school students in America are now given the opportunity to play a sport and develop a passion for it for a relatively low cost. It is taken for granted, but some wouldn’t get to play a sport otherwise.
Today, parents balk at the idea of their school district not providing a means for their child to engage in athletics because it has too much of a tradition in American society. Like my father, they attend games, become members of the athletic-boosters club, and organize fundraising events. For some, being an athlete is almost looked upon as a necessity. There are even several articles circulating on Forbes.com and Parents.com about how parents can cope with a child who doesn’t want to play sports, ensuring that everything will be OK.
However, high school sports also take a toll on the education of students in school districts around the country. Many high schools are de-funding the athletics programs at in favor of increasing the budget for academic courses. For example, Premont Independent School District’s Ernest Singleton, suspended high school sports after the district was put under scrutiny for financial mismanagement and academic failure. The school immediately saw profound results in pass rates (80 percent versus the 50 percent before suspending sports) and an increase the weight students and parents put on academics. Even the science labs could be renovated with additional funding.
And even if sports do provide opportunities for students to advance their education, they can still detract from a student’s education at a college level. Playing in college is like holding a part time job that puts you in a constant state of exhaustion. I have talked to runners at Penn State who say that they run upwards of 70 miles in a single week. Football players start practice at 6 a.m. every day with an added lift in the afternoon. With the time spent in these commitments, it may be impossible for an athlete get the degree they want, or even a usable degree at all. UNC was recently under investigation for creating classes that their basketball players received credit for that didn’t even exist. These so call “paper-classes” had a single essay that needed to be completed independently and turned in at the end of the semester. The paper was often written by a tutor for the players. The easy A allowed them to remain eligible to play without ever attending class. It seems that Americas sports craze has caused athletics importance to surpass education, even in the proud academic beacons that our universities are. By playing a sport to represent a university, an athlete’s education that you receive could be severely compromised. From this information, it is questionable whether the sacrifice that high school athletes are making are really worth the opportunities they create.
But has America’s sports culture been purely detrimental to pre-college athlete’s?
There are definitely concrete benefits to playing sports. Even if a child doesn’t want to continue at a collegiate level, varsity athletics is respected as a major time commitment and extracurricular activity by universities in the college admissions process. According to campusexplorer.com, a college resource website, athletes are seen as capable of teamwork, communication and leadership to application readers, and this reflects positively on their character. Skills that are linked to athletics cannot always be taught in the classroom. Furthermore, athletes on average have a higher college attendance, employment rate, and post-graduate salary than non-athletes according to a study done by the National Center of Education Statistics.
And it is also important to consider the incredible experience that an athlete can have, and the relationships they build through their sport. For me, I wouldn’t trade the long hours bonding with my teammates, traveling everywhere during the season, and pushing my limits every day for anything. My way of life has been shaped so heavily by my passion for volleyball. I love my sport and it is not something I feel like I could live without competing at the highest level. The long hours have also taught me to be disciplined in my studies, to sacrifice and prioritize. It’s a rewarding experience that has shown me what I find important, and without it my time back in high school and currently at Penn State would have less meaning.
It is also important to not forget that for some, athletics is the only means for them to afford going to a university,as well as a very prominent source of school pride. Furthermore, going to sports games, even high school matches, can build bonds between people.
So, what of the shift in sports in our society? We went through thousands of years of civilization without institutionalized football, baseball, and basketball, why is it necessary now? We have developed a love for sports that has trickled down to impacting the lives of high school students through scholarships and societal prominence, and possibly the quality of their education. Personally, I know that volleyball has impacted my life in a very meaningful way, and become very important to my family. I wouldn’t be where I am without it, and my parents are willing to start the whole athletics process once again with my little sister. I’ve already heard she is sharing the same passion I had, and awake far earlier than her alarm on tournament days. I know she will become a better person because of volleyball.
As for college athletes, all of them that I have met at Penn State are incredible people, that have so many athletic accomplishments that are a part of their identity. Athletics has shaped them, but they are also so much more than the sport they play. If they came to represent the university for only one of their talents, would be a shame. It is inarguable that sports cannot overshadow the importance of education. If athletes are failing out of courses or not getting real degrees, it is evident something is amiss. A balance must be found for the perfect storm of athletics and academics in our high schools and at a college level as well.
Athletics can have an incredibly positive impact on a student’s life and the community, and we should value high school level sports in our culture for the positives it can create. It is important to remember to keep everything in perspective, and remember why sports were created in the first place: for fun. Further adding onto the value of sports in our American Society are the institutional prestige and loyalty, the individual development in leadership, dedication, and discipline, and the inspiring athletes that sports create.
America has created an incredible environment for high school athletes to be incredible at their sport, learn valuable skills from it, and be given more opportunities to progress from it in their future.
With just a small shift in mentality, we can make it even better.