Do School sports help our kids?

Really, can someone point to any specific data that can demonstrate how School sports helps today’s youth? Seriously, I want your feedback.

Here is one argument for sports "They learn to work within a team environment, get positive reinforcement from their peers, have fun, set goals and build confidence" sorry I don't buy it. Not one word of it here. They can learn to work in a team environment in a class setting, learn to work cohesively as a team to complete projects, and those projects can be fun.

They get the same reinforcement through classroom work, and can even take the classrooms outside to make them more active and appealing. The can set goals and build confidence by doing good work and having that work reviewed by peers for confidence building.

As I have demonstrated all the same goals can be achieved in classroom work as it can by sports. The one component missing would be the physical side, but who says there aren’t activities that can be done in gym class or otherwise that achieve that same end as well.

No I was not an athlete in School, nor did I play any sports. This obviously colors my view. One could go so far as to say the athletes in School and I had a less than amicable relationship in most cases. I saw no benefit save the best sports players were typically pampered and treated as mini Gods in most High Schools. Is that a good thing? I think not. A select few get rewarded and praised while the rest have to try to find room in the wings. It is an unbalanced system.

This post comes about as one of our local Schools did not pass the School budget so Sports are out this year unless the kids can raise some 80,000 dollars themselves. So we get barraged with plea’s of help to give them money for their sports program this year.

Instead of listening to the voters, aka tax payers, they are going about and pleading, begging for money for a program that the tax payers decided was not warranted.

Listen to the message folks; find a better venue for building a child’s self esteem and confidence. How about going to Church on Sunday instead of a sports game. How about some camping trips or hiking trips instead of sitting on a hard bleacher. How about rooting for your teachers, and doing more creative assignments instead of rooting for a football hero.

How about volunteering at the local food pantry or mission instead of the prom or homecoming event. What is wrong with serving your community instead of taking from it. Spots consumes funds without a serious benefit.

As the Bible states, we cannot serve two masters.