Texas Ed Spectator

Spring high school football camps have started here in Texas. As far as I can tell, if you expect to play in the fall, you better be at the camps in the spring. They even “ask” promising eighth graders to join the spring camps so that they will have a head start on the fall.

So do you think that the advanced placement teachers have a spring camp for those planning on taking ap classes in the fall? I know band is pretty involved, do they have spring practices for the football marching season? How about the debate team?

My contact with high school athletics is only tangential in that I see it effecting everything else in the community that has to do with sports. Do high school athletics truly develop the athletic potential of students? No. What they do is generate businesses for various private athletic training programs. You want your daughter to make the volleyball team, better have her do some strength training at one of these private businesses. Your son wants to play baseball? Better get him some hitting lessons because everyone else who wants to make the team does.

High school athletics is in no way a level playing field with everyone having a shot at the team. How can it be when not only does it cost money to play on the team, it costs money to prepare to even have the chance to play on the team?

Nor is this about having “well rounded” student-athletes. How many 5a football players are involved in any other extracurricular activities? How does demanding total time commitment to one activity better prepare our students? Ultimately, high school athletics is about exclusivity and it’s affects reach far beyond the school walls.