• Teen suspended for tweet critical of high school sports
    125 replies, posted
The difference between sports and other clubs/whatever is that sports generate income and publicity, both of which are good for schools. Teams that drop tons of money into their sports programs tend to have tons of people go to the games. When thousands and thousands of people are buying shitty overpriced concession food and merchandise every game, a large chunk of that cash is returned. Can you say the same for things like robotics clubs and whatnot? Do thousands and thousands of people go to weekly robotics competitions? On top of that, sports are a magnificent way of taking trouble children and making them actually teachable. I went to school in a poor area, a lot of kids entered my school already in gangs with no interest in doing anything school related at all. No teacher was ever going to change that. But the football coaches could, they could give those kids something fun to pour their heart and souls into, something those kids could actually value. Because once you get a kid to value something, he suddenly becomes more conscious of his actions because he doesn't want to risk losing it. Those kids in gangs would leave them, because going out at night doing drugs and getting into fights was hurting their performance in football. The kids who didn't care about school did their work anyways because they wanted to pass in order to play football. Team sports also bring kids together. My school was a good example. The entire placed was laced with racism. If you weren't brown, you were hated. But on a football team, no matter what color you were, you were brothers. Everyone in the school was racist to a heavy degree except for the people who played team sports. Yes, academics are important and should be focused on. But to sit there and go, "Waaaaaah, my school puts all its money into sports and not into things I likeeeee," is outright ridiculous. Sports programs benefit schools, kids, and even academics. Slap a school in an area full of rich white people and yeah, you might not see much benefit from sports. Slap a school in an impoverished area with minorities, and you will find the athletic program being the only reason why those kids keep coming to school.
[QUOTE=Shovelpass;40608381]The difference between sports and other clubs/whatever is that sports generate income and publicity, both of which are good for schools. Teams that drop tons of money into their sports programs tend to have tons of people go to the games. When thousands and thousands of people are buying shitty overpriced concession food and merchandise every game, a large chunk of that cash is returned. Can you say the same for things like robotics clubs and whatnot? Do thousands and thousands of people go to weekly robotics competitions? On top of that, sports are a magnificent way of taking trouble children and making them actually teachable. I went to school in a poor area, a lot of kids entered my school already in gangs with no interest in doing anything school related at all. No teacher was ever going to change that. But the football coaches could, they could give those kids something fun to pour their heart and souls into, something those kids could actually value. Because once you get a kid to value something, he suddenly becomes more conscious of his actions because he doesn't want to risk losing it. Those kids in gangs would leave them, because going out at night doing drugs and getting into fights was hurting their performance in football. The kids who didn't care about school did their work anyways because they wanted to pass in order to play football. Team sports also bring kids together. My school was a good example. The entire placed was laced with racism. If you weren't brown, you were hated. But on a football team, no matter what color you were, you were brothers. Everyone in the school was racist to a heavy degree except for the people who played team sports. Yes, academics are important and should be focused on. But to sit there and go, "Waaaaaah, my school puts all its money into sports and not into things I likeeeee," is outright ridiculous. Sports programs benefit schools, kids, and even academics. Slap a school in an area full of rich white people and yeah, you might not see much benefit from sports. Slap a school in an impoverished area with minorities, and you will find the athletic program being the only reason why those kids keep coming to school.[/QUOTE] sports killed my parents and raped my sister and gave me autoimmune disorders
[QUOTE=WeekendWarrior;40603327]Most athletes I've met who are semi-pro train to become personal trainers anyway but that doesn't mean they should give up on trying to play professional sports. The sports sector is a vast and rapidly expanding industry, you can't just say to someone they won't make it when it's obvious that they can if they put the effort into it.[/QUOTE] Okay, whatever. Believe what you want but it doesn't change the fact that it's fucking retarded to give 2-3X the funding to athletic programs instead of the academic apartments, especially while they're laying teachers off because they "can't afford it". School is school, there are recreation centers for sports.
[QUOTE=Daniel M;40610077]Okay, whatever. Believe what you want but it doesn't change the fact that it's fucking retarded to give 2-3X the funding to athletic programs instead of the academic apartments, especially while they're laying teachers off because they "can't afford it". School is school, there are recreation centers for sports.[/QUOTE] Cite sources, seriously, instead of just saying that.
[QUOTE=WeekendWarrior;40586054]One end of the spectrum involves sitting on your arse and pressing some buttons, the other end involves gruelling physical play. Literally incomparable. [editline]9th May 2013[/editline] British football clubs often maintain close links to their local communities and usually have foundations aimed towards funding programmes for a plethora of areas; hospitals, helping underprivileged youth, fighting poverty etcetera. Most teams do make a concious effort to give back to their communities.[/QUOTE] the idea that high end players of video games are no more skilled at their craft than a high end sport player is stupid and you're missing the point when they're both, at the end of the day, games they're not incomparable, and people are paying to watch those people play. People are making a lot of money off of competitive video games, clearly there is a market for this. [editline]11th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Zambies!;40610095]Cite sources, seriously, instead of just saying that.[/QUOTE] are you saying that the recent trend hasn't been to cut education across the board? because, that has been a trend in the last decade. The sports oriented culture of the US is not a myth. Put two and two together and you can see that a lot of schools in general across the country have their priorities out of wack.
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