High School sports gone way too far

OK, where I'm from, people eat, breath, and sleep sports. My family especially has always been involved in sports of any kind, but this weekend I saw something that even I found amazing.

I was staying in a hotel on Friday and was flipping through the tv channels when I saw a high school football game. Now, I'm used to having highlights of my own games shown on the late night news, but this was an entire game. Not only that, but they had several commentators and stats about each player that they showed whenever someone did something good. And get this- the refs had microphones! It was just like a big-time college game!

The two schools that were playing were huge, but they were from a town almost 100 miles away. Each school has around 6,000 kids in three grades; the athletes are treated like celebrities. I was just wondering if anyone had ever heard of local sports being taken to this level of publicity before.

In the Netherlands, we don't have that many channels, but we have this one channel, SBS6 (I think that is what it's called), which is extremely commercial. It airs a 'news'-program in the evening. Today, they showed an extensive news article about a car wreck of a 21 year old soccer player and his subsequent death. Had he not been a soccer player, he would not have been mentioned. In fact, they would not have even mentioned the whole carwreck!

It's absurd! I'm involved with judo/jiu jitsu and it get's very little coverage. Highschool sports here is not that competitive at all. We don't have championships. Our gym classes mainly comprise of competing with each other, or against classes, but nothing like championships. Additionally, there is no money to be made in being a good sporter, you won't get a scholarship.

Aside from that, if you are a top sporter, you are able to get excused from a lot of classes at college/university, which is something I find ridiculous. If I were to read more, and focus even more on my philosophical development, reading near every philosophical book, I would not be excused from college, despite the fact that I was working on 'top' level. The whole idea is moronic. Those that do sports should not be covered or treated in a special fashion. For they aren't special. Well, although some do need special care, I guess..

Mr U

No, the LAUSD is too poor to ever do that for its schools. And it's even lamer. Eh...

I plan on getting a sports scholarship for college, but I think that most athletes (especially professional) are glorified way too much. Some of them aren't even smart enough to pass high school, let alone get a full-ride college scholarship.

And say a party is busted for underage drinking- the cops always ask who the athletes are, and they don't get into near as much trouble as the non-athletes because they will get punished enough for their sport. The minimum is sitting out for the first third of the season.

Around here, basketball and soccer are the major sports, not football (contrary to popular belief for the midwest). It annoys me to no end that athletes become exempt from the rules, both at a high school and college level. It doesn't help anything- it makes these idiots believe they're above rules in every facet of life, and think about what it'll do to them once they graduate and are no longer considered athletes. All this does is breed arrogant idiots, who slide through classes with ease because no one wants to be responsible for our team losing their winning streak or whatever. It's all far too stupid.

Law is equal for everyone. There goes your constitution. It is not only the right, but also the duty of the oppressed to rebel.

Mr U

If you've ever followed high school football, you undoubtedly have heard of De La Salle High School from Concord, CA, about 30 minutes from where I grew up. They hold the record for the longest winning streak in high school football history, 151 games. It's a private school, and they recruit kids. If you know of Miami University, you know who DJ Williams is, who now plays in the NFL. I went to junior high school with this guy, and he was supposed to go to the same high school as me, but De La Salle gave him a full scholarship (about $10000 yearly for tuition) and picked him up/dropped him off every day from his home over half an hour away from the school. Now, sure you've got the choice to go to any private school you want, and they do offer scholarships to the less fortunate kids, but there's no way he would've got this treatment had he not been an exceptional athlete.

And sure, it's easy to indict everyone involved, but more often than not, Williams wouldn't have gotten the same exposure, recruitment, and life opportunities if he hadn't gone to a prestigious program like De La Salle and been coached over there and been given the connections they have because of this system. This is a pickle for me, though. Do I think it's wrong for them to recruit kids and maybe get them better grades or special help that isn't going to kids who might really need it? Yes. Is it wrong, though, to offer someone with the potential, such as Williams, the chance for a better quality of life just because he's a cut above everyone else his age at sports? I'd say that's debatable. Sports, where I'm from are still extremely important, but not to everyone, and definitely not as far as the public schools are concerned. The only teachers that granted preferential treatment to athletes were the ones that coached student-athletes in their classes. I know it isn't like this everywhere, though, and it doesn't strike me as really being fair. And although it may not be fair that some kids are helped to pass because of talent in the field of play, if the act is in good faith, to give a kid an opportunity that the coach or his parents never had, how harshly would you criticize the act if it was your own child? It's almost easy to say that I wouldn't want that to happen to my child, but being the recipient of such treatment given the circumstances may also be pretty hard to pass up.