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There Is A Place For Athletics (MC) Since the beginning of schooling, there have always been extra curricular activities for students to participate in. Participation in these activities is becoming more and more emphasized, and students sometimes even get more wrapped up in their activities than they do with their schoolwork. One of the more popular extra curricular activities that is in place at almost every school nowadays is sports.

In high school especially, sports can define the school, define the cliques within the school, and can even help determine what a student does after his or her senior year. That being said, one cannot forget about the real reason for school- education. As media and teens become more involved with pop culture and less with learning reading and ‘rithmetic, the emphasis on sports during high school needs to be reassessed.

Central High School is one of many high schools that boasts a large offering of extra curricular sports. More than half of the students here participate in some sort of sport, according to a survey of 100 students at the high school. The school has a freshman team, a junior varsity team, and a varsity team for girl’s soccer, boy’s soccer, girl’s basketball, boy’s basketball, girl’s field hockey, and more. There are also hockey, swimming, track and field, cross-country, and lacrosse teams. Every single one of these sports is popular and has great participation. While this is a positive in many ways, sometimes the value of academics comes into question.

Every few months, everyone’s classes are cut short and the entire school shuffle into the gym to participate in the school pep rally. Here, students cheer on athletes of the season- one teacher even says that students “idolize” these athletes. While cheering on extra curricular activities like sports unites students, it also cuts out of class time. Does this send a message about the value of education in high school? Do students begin to believe that sports are more important because the administration allows them to leave class to “idolize” the school’s sports players?

Pep rallies are popular, as are other sports related events. The annual homecoming game gets attention all over school, with ticket sales, psyches, and king and queen votes. But do academic events get the same type of attention? The annual NHS induction isn’t publicized at all, but it celebrates the top academic students in the school.

In academic classes, athletes oftentimes don’t do all of their work because sporting achievements alone can get students into college. There have been ongoing debates for the past few years regarding the minimum grade requirement for athletes. Some view athletics as a privilege rather than as a right, and they are calling for the minimum to be raised. But others want the grade to be lowered so that more students are given the change to participate. This specific issue is not the largest problem in Hopewell, though, as athletes do have a certain grade that they need to maintain to continue playing, and it hasn’t been up for debate as of late.

In Hopewell, a lot of teachers feel that athletics are generally not too emphasized. Teacher Jeff Losch says that, “There are some individual athletes who may spend less time on academics than they should because of athletics, but the majority have a good balance.” He even says that he has “had more students fail to do their work getting ready for a Musical/Play than I have athletes during their season.” Sometimes schoolwork from other classes even serves to be the major distraction, he says.

Despite controversy, high school sports can have positive effects too. They can get members of the student body involved with school that wouldn’t be otherwise. Coaches can be mentors for students, and the busy schedule can even help students in that they will be less inclined to spend their free time participating in illegal activities, such as drinking or doing drugs. Simple life skills such as teamwork and hard work can be emphasized in sports more than they can be in academic classes.

Mr. Losch believes that athletics are just as important as other extra-curricular activities like band, chorus, drama, and more. “The discipline, work ethic, comradery, communication, etc. are all extremely important life skills that can be enhanced through extra curriculars,” he says.

We live in a time when the media emphasizes partying, socializing, and sports more than learning and intelligence, but the importance of education needs to remain. A balance between athletics and academics is not too difficult to achieve, so as long as education continues to be more emphasized in school, society will continue to thrive.