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I want to clarify. My son made a select travel lacrosse team that he will participate in this summer before he enters 8th grade. I have paid an embarrassing amount of cash for multiple rec league teams for my kids. We have often scheduled family things around our kids' activities. By no means have we opted out of American Sports culture and I agree that a busy kid helps defray *some* of the teenage proclivity to find trouble. *I said some. Sports often is the way that guys make buddies. For girls, sports offer a chance for them to view their bodies as something different than an object. Athletics and team work are a great parable for life.
What bugs me is that invisible line that gets crossed: Crazed parents in the stands yelling at their kids and refs, the overlooking of rule or ethical violations for sports players, and kids not being able to go on family vacations because sports practices reign supreme. Even the schools are complicit in honoring sports above other things. This discussion can take a macro level, e.g. Penn State, Tiger Woods, Steubbenville, or a micro level within our individual communities. If your kid goes on a family vacation: unexecused absence. If your kids go to a cross country meet and has to leave school early: excused absence.
WTH are we telling our kids? I read somewhere that 1 in 17,000 kids will go on to become a professional athlete. Let's just be REAL honest about the eventual outcomes of spending that 10,000/year for select teams and coaching for a kid that's got talent. That is almost a year of State U. college tuition. Some people act like a Superbowl ring is on the line at every game. Our society treat sports more importantly than family, religion, or community events. Honestly, when did all these select teams become the norm and/or the only way to make the high school team? Remember when kids used to be able to be three sport athletes? Good luck doing that unless you are crazy athletically gifted or live in the sticks. Hell yes I want my kids to play on some team. We specifically choose a smaller district to help stack the deck so that our kids might try activities without having to be a prodigy. Obviously smaller school district don't guarantee spots on a team, but lower numbers help.
I just want society to step back and reconsider the place that athletics/sports/activities have in our lives. It is crazy out there.
/soapbox
What bugs me is that invisible line that gets crossed: Crazed parents in the stands yelling at their kids and refs, the overlooking of rule or ethical violations for sports players, and kids not being able to go on family vacations because sports practices reign supreme. Even the schools are complicit in honoring sports above other things. This discussion can take a macro level, e.g. Penn State, Tiger Woods, Steubbenville, or a micro level within our individual communities. If your kid goes on a family vacation: unexecused absence. If your kids go to a cross country meet and has to leave school early: excused absence.
WTH are we telling our kids? I read somewhere that 1 in 17,000 kids will go on to become a professional athlete. Let's just be REAL honest about the eventual outcomes of spending that 10,000/year for select teams and coaching for a kid that's got talent. That is almost a year of State U. college tuition. Some people act like a Superbowl ring is on the line at every game. Our society treat sports more importantly than family, religion, or community events. Honestly, when did all these select teams become the norm and/or the only way to make the high school team? Remember when kids used to be able to be three sport athletes? Good luck doing that unless you are crazy athletically gifted or live in the sticks. Hell yes I want my kids to play on some team. We specifically choose a smaller district to help stack the deck so that our kids might try activities without having to be a prodigy. Obviously smaller school district don't guarantee spots on a team, but lower numbers help.
I just want society to step back and reconsider the place that athletics/sports/activities have in our lives. It is crazy out there.
/soapbox
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