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Especially in high school, an astounding amount of time, money, space, and personnel are dedicated to sports, and this does not just impact the athletes. In ma

Especially in high school, an astounding amount of time, money, space, and personnel are dedicated to sports, and this does not just impact the athletes. In many schools the entire day is structured around the football team's practice schedule. Make school sports a truly after-hours extracurricular activity and remove their impact from non-participants, and I'd estimate you could see around 20% improvement time spent on classroom instruction on core subjects.

brightball 4y ago
The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. You have players on the team and coaches, yes. But you also have cheerleaders, marching band, trainer assistants (usually students who want to go into medicine or physical therapy). There are homecoming pagents and dances plus the social event every weekend for the school that goes along with it. There’s no sport in high school that comes close to pulling everybody together the same way as football. There’s more to it than just classroom education vs sports in this case. It’s helping to foster a sense of community and school pride. Often there will be charity drives that coincide using the games as a place to make announcements.
- buildsjets 4y ago
  If football is so disruptive to the primary purpose of school, which is education, then it should be completely eliminated from schools. No taxpayer money should be used for this entertainment nonsense.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I mean... Good luck? Often accounting tricks will be used such that it can look like taxes don't support it, too.
  - izzydata 4y ago
    This is what I'd personally like to see. Anything not related to education should not be part of the education system. If some third party wants to establish various sport systems then that's fine. There are so many non-traditional ways and skills to teach kids that I think would be worth exploring, but sport doesn't even register on the scale of usefulness. Apparently we don't even teach finance in highschool yet or any kind of professional development skills.
    - auspex 4y ago
      If you play competitive sports you would see there is a huge skill set that is learned via sports. Teamwork, acting/thinking under pressure, detailed preparation, controlling nerves, performing in front of crowds (with high expectations), pride in your body and performance. These are just a few high level/low hanging fruits learned from competitive sport.
- rufius 4y ago
  > It’s helping to foster a sense of community and school pride. You forgot part: > It’s helping to foster a sense of community, school pride, *and brain damage*.
  - corrral 4y ago
    I can confirm that coaches, admin, and parents are still pulling the whole "oh little Bobby's not got a concussion, he's just falling asleep in class and having obvious memory problems (true fucking story) because he's really tired, not because he took a terrible hit last Friday—he's fine to play in the next game" shit. Even after all the revelations about the risks of CTE and other brain-related harm from repeated concussions. Then there's the issue of discipline. The stereotype of athletes getting a pass on bad behavior or a little "help" on grades, because enforcing the rules would mean they'd have to miss a game or two, is based on real behavior that is very much alive today, not some relic of 1980s teen movies.
  - brightball 4y ago
    FWIW, the rules are so strict now that football's probably safer than it's ever been to play. Additionally, I've read a ton of studies of this stuff and everything that I've found said the risk at the high school level is virtually nonexistent when compared with the general student body. In the college and professional level where everybody is bigger, stronger and faster it's an entirely different situation.
    - rufius 4y ago
      I’m just gonna go ahead and go out on a limb and say that getting hit in the head repeatedly isn’t good for you, especially if you’re a developing child. But to each their own.
      - brightball 4y ago
        It’s just not that simple. You aren’t repeatedly being hit in the head playing football. Even the linemen who have aggressive contact each play aren’t banging their heads together, they are using their hands. The helmets are largely protecting against incidental contact. Head trauma comes from rapid changes in momentum that cause the brain to bounce around inside the skull. Those from “horse collar” tackles, which are illegal now. Those from intentionally or unintentionally having helmet to helmet contact, which is also illegal. Virtually every type of helmet hit is penalized at this point. Soccer headers are probably much worse I would imagine.
- taeric 4y ago
  This is silly. There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. Often in an arms race against neighboring schools. To try and prop it up as a natural thing that is good just feels like a major problem.
  - toast0 4y ago
    > There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. It's awful hard for the band to take the field at halftime at water polo. Those uniforms don't really want to be wet.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Congrats on picking a straw man sport. That said, no reason band couldn't be pushing more concerts than sideline offering at a game.
    - danShumway 4y ago
      I'm not sure. If every halftime band show involved someone trying to desperately play a saxophone while swimming, I vaguely suspect more people would actually watch halftime shows.
  - brightball 4y ago
    There is. Other sports play a lot more games. Football has a predictable and consistent schedule, Friday nights in the fall. The limited number of home games (only 5 or 6 usually) also keeps involvement at a level that's not overwhelming for the student body. Additionally, football teams can support a lot more players than any other sport with rosters typically 50 players or more. Especially in smaller schools, this means almost everybody will know somebody who plays. Lastly, football is the most diverse sport in the US. There's a role for everybody. From smaller faster guys playing receiver, more medium sized athletes playing defense at linebacker or defensive back and bigger stronger guys playing offensive and defensive line. Even the soccer players can find a role at kicker / punter. It brings together more people from different racial backgrounds than any other sport as well. I was not an athlete in high school by any stretch. I was an overweight kid who played MtG, DnD and Duke Nukem all the time who just happened to be 6 feet tall. I played football for 4 years and learned a lot about hard work while I got in much better shape. Even though I was never a starter, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > There’s no sport in high school that comes close to pulling everybody together the same way as football. Wow, that's not my high school experience. Sports divided the student body into the popular athletic kids and the unpopular academic kids. If you celebrate the football team and not the math team, the results are predictable, and they won't be to promote math.
  - brightball 4y ago
    All of the strongest academics kids at my school were also involved in athletics in some way. We had two valedictorians, one who was excellent at cross country and soccer while the other was a fantastic golfer. Our salutatorian was homecoming queen and a cheerleader too.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    Everyone has unique experiences but growing up, some of the smartest kids I knew with athletes. Not sure if it was because sports can often force you to give your all in all ways (sports and education) or if wanting a better shot at a college team required they be diligent in their studies. The top guy in my school ended up going to GA Tech on a baseball scholarship.
- corrral 4y ago
  Football's the reason I dropped band when I no longer needed an arts elective. I'd have stayed in all four years, otherwise. Being required to waste an entire evening at a football game to play for a few minutes here and there was insulting. I'm pretty sure it's also the reason the curriculum was built almost entirely around the microscopic musical niche of marching band, rather than instruments & skills that were more likely to be useful in life beyond college.
  - brightball 4y ago
    The more I keep reading replies to my comments the more I'm realizing what a great high school I must have gone too. Our marching band always got superior ratings every year in their own competitions and had a blast playing throughout all of the games. Everybody in our band seemed to have a great time with it, especially the drummers.
    - taeric 4y ago
      This is classic survivor and selection bias. You likely didn't notice all of the people sidelined by this. I suspect selection bias also plays in to all of the negativity. But variety reigns and places that had more offerings almost certainly had more success.
      - brightball 4y ago
        How could someone be sidelined by this? EDIT: Since we've hit the reply nesting limit. I still don't see how having an activity that involves so many people sidelines anyone or how a lack of that activity would improve the involvement? I can't think of any school sanctioned activities that discriminated against any student based on their appearance, even cheer. I had giant glasses that slid down my nose, a belly and braces. Believe me, the only thing that kept me from feeling included was my own perception of myself. Having coaches and a routine that forced me to exercise and lift weights was one of the best things I ever did.
        taeric 4y ago
- ryandrake 4y ago
  > The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. For many small town High Schools in the US, it's not just a school-wide event, it's a town-wide event. I remember in my small town, during High School football season, the entire town mobilized around the event. Sales at local stores, drinks and catering to the field/bleachers, specials at bars post-game for the grown-ups, and so on. The football game was quite literally the most exciting and important thing going on within a 25 mile radius of the school. As for it becoming a school-wide event, your post is only part of it: Yes, football manages to pull together a lot of the students, not just the athletes, which is positive. But it also can very negatively disrupt the academic routine. Teachers would plan lighter days and/or skip topics because "It'S FoOtBaLl DaY" and they knew everyone was mentally checked out because football game. Athletes would get special exceptions from academic expectations, get special treatment in the classroom, get treated with kid gloves discipline-wise. High School athletics was so important to the entire town that it kind of established the entire local area's social totem pole.
Steltek 4y ago
Well, to anecdotally back you up, in Massachusetts with the #1 public schools in the country, I hear and see nothing about football. I think I hear more about the HS plays and concerts than HS football. The last football funding discussion at the town level was whether to fund better helmets to protect against CTE or make the players' parents pay for it, so the town isn't seen supporting/encouraging brain damage to children.
- sndean 4y ago
  And to add another anecdote, the overall #1 high school in the US in Virginia (by some rankings at least) doesn't have a football team. Sports like cross country get more attention.
  - richwater 4y ago
    TJ might be one of the best high schools in the world not just VA.
  - justsocrateasin 4y ago
    This anecdote is misleading. TJ is a magnet school with a formal application process. Students study for years to get into TJ. Although many of their sports teams are excellent, students don't go to TJ for sports - they just happen to be over-achieving outside of the classroom as well.
  - acid__ 4y ago
    They had a football team when I attended ~10 years ago.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    That's just a fancy way of having a proxy for "rich people". Football, baseball, basketball, hockey. Those are the sports of the unwashed masses. That a magnet school that attracts the students of wealthy parents who are deeply invested in their kids eduction doesn't have a sport the those demographics turn their nose up at <insert low effort quip about brain damage here> is expected. I bet they have rowing and lacross to make up for it.
Talinx 4y ago
I'm from Germany, here sport is integrated into the timetable like every other subject. Sport is not that important here so I might underestimate the amount/impact of sports in US high schools. I'd say that more sport is generally a good thing. What matters most to me about high school learning is that IQ does not decline. Grades are just a bad IQ test and most things you learn in high school don't matter. Sport is healthier than sitting in a dim classroom all day. I am the kind of person that likes to learn by myself so all learning in school is time spent ineffeciently (from a pure learning perspective; reading a book instead is better). But I think that for most people many things that are taught in high school are useless while more important things (understanding how social media affects you, how to declare taxes, how credit cards work) are not covered (at least here in Germany, I suspect its no different in the US).
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  >Grades are just a bad IQ test and most things you learn in high school don't matter. Well, speak for yourself. It may be a very unpopular opinion here on HN but I learned a lot at school, be it elementary, middle, high or university. But I went to school in Italy, and it was a good school. >But I think that for most people many things that are taught in high school are useless while more important things (understanding how social media affects you, how to declare taxes, how credit cards work) are not covered (at least here in Germany, I suspect its no different in the US). This are thing that you can easily google. Why would I want to waste time teaching such trivial things while there are subjects much more interesting and intellectually engaging. Talk about inefficiency. If someone does not want to study academic subjects it is not obliged to finish school, they can simply abandon once they reach the appropriate age (in Italy, 16 y/o): I know someone who did it and went the trade route and was very happy, but please, please, let us, academically inclined people have our own habitat.
  - gokdisjtrdcvv5 4y ago
    Grades are not very accurate indicators of learned maternal. 4.0s only mean you worked really hard or, in very rare cases, are extremely intelligent. I know a guy who got a 3.2 in calc 3. Doesn’t sound very good right? Well the only reason is because his teacher was test heavy and those tests were quite difficult. My teacher was much more focused on homework so I could work harder to get a good grade. After working with him I realized we almost exactly the same amount. However, if you looked at our grades I would seem significantly “smarter” than him.
w0m 4y ago
I'm curious how many schools this is actually true for. I played football 'back in the day'; but despite winning our district/traveling mid-state for playoffs; I never felt like the team got any special treatment. We showed up an hour before school for weights and stayed a few hours after every day + Saturdays; ~nothing mid-day at all outside of the Misc rally the entire school attended.
- a_f 4y ago
  Presumably the space and facilities to train, both outside and inside, the time of dedicated teachers/coaches and travel costs (speculating) might all be considered special treatment. I think physical activity in school is important; but you could definitely argue that these are special treatment.

brightball 4y ago

The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. You have players on the team and coaches, yes. But you also have cheerleaders, marching band, trainer assistants (usually students who want to go into medicine or physical therapy). There are homecoming pagents and dances plus the social event every weekend for the school that goes along with it. There’s no sport in high school that comes close to pulling everybody together the same way as football. There’s more to it than just classroom education vs sports in this case. It’s helping to foster a sense of community and school pride. Often there will be charity drives that coincide using the games as a place to make announcements.

buildsjets 4y ago
If football is so disruptive to the primary purpose of school, which is education, then it should be completely eliminated from schools. No taxpayer money should be used for this entertainment nonsense.
- taeric 4y ago
  I mean... Good luck? Often accounting tricks will be used such that it can look like taxes don't support it, too.
- izzydata 4y ago
  This is what I'd personally like to see. Anything not related to education should not be part of the education system. If some third party wants to establish various sport systems then that's fine. There are so many non-traditional ways and skills to teach kids that I think would be worth exploring, but sport doesn't even register on the scale of usefulness. Apparently we don't even teach finance in highschool yet or any kind of professional development skills.
  - auspex 4y ago
    If you play competitive sports you would see there is a huge skill set that is learned via sports. Teamwork, acting/thinking under pressure, detailed preparation, controlling nerves, performing in front of crowds (with high expectations), pride in your body and performance. These are just a few high level/low hanging fruits learned from competitive sport.
rufius 4y ago
> It’s helping to foster a sense of community and school pride. You forgot part: > It’s helping to foster a sense of community, school pride, *and brain damage*.
- corrral 4y ago
  I can confirm that coaches, admin, and parents are still pulling the whole "oh little Bobby's not got a concussion, he's just falling asleep in class and having obvious memory problems (true fucking story) because he's really tired, not because he took a terrible hit last Friday—he's fine to play in the next game" shit. Even after all the revelations about the risks of CTE and other brain-related harm from repeated concussions. Then there's the issue of discipline. The stereotype of athletes getting a pass on bad behavior or a little "help" on grades, because enforcing the rules would mean they'd have to miss a game or two, is based on real behavior that is very much alive today, not some relic of 1980s teen movies.
- brightball 4y ago
  FWIW, the rules are so strict now that football's probably safer than it's ever been to play. Additionally, I've read a ton of studies of this stuff and everything that I've found said the risk at the high school level is virtually nonexistent when compared with the general student body. In the college and professional level where everybody is bigger, stronger and faster it's an entirely different situation.
  - rufius 4y ago
    I’m just gonna go ahead and go out on a limb and say that getting hit in the head repeatedly isn’t good for you, especially if you’re a developing child. But to each their own.
    - brightball 4y ago
      It’s just not that simple. You aren’t repeatedly being hit in the head playing football. Even the linemen who have aggressive contact each play aren’t banging their heads together, they are using their hands. The helmets are largely protecting against incidental contact. Head trauma comes from rapid changes in momentum that cause the brain to bounce around inside the skull. Those from “horse collar” tackles, which are illegal now. Those from intentionally or unintentionally having helmet to helmet contact, which is also illegal. Virtually every type of helmet hit is penalized at this point. Soccer headers are probably much worse I would imagine.
taeric 4y ago
This is silly. There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. Often in an arms race against neighboring schools. To try and prop it up as a natural thing that is good just feels like a major problem.
- toast0 4y ago
  > There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. It's awful hard for the band to take the field at halftime at water polo. Those uniforms don't really want to be wet.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Congrats on picking a straw man sport. That said, no reason band couldn't be pushing more concerts than sideline offering at a game.
  - danShumway 4y ago
    I'm not sure. If every halftime band show involved someone trying to desperately play a saxophone while swimming, I vaguely suspect more people would actually watch halftime shows.
- brightball 4y ago
  There is. Other sports play a lot more games. Football has a predictable and consistent schedule, Friday nights in the fall. The limited number of home games (only 5 or 6 usually) also keeps involvement at a level that's not overwhelming for the student body. Additionally, football teams can support a lot more players than any other sport with rosters typically 50 players or more. Especially in smaller schools, this means almost everybody will know somebody who plays. Lastly, football is the most diverse sport in the US. There's a role for everybody. From smaller faster guys playing receiver, more medium sized athletes playing defense at linebacker or defensive back and bigger stronger guys playing offensive and defensive line. Even the soccer players can find a role at kicker / punter. It brings together more people from different racial backgrounds than any other sport as well. I was not an athlete in high school by any stretch. I was an overweight kid who played MtG, DnD and Duke Nukem all the time who just happened to be 6 feet tall. I played football for 4 years and learned a lot about hard work while I got in much better shape. Even though I was never a starter, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
lapcat 4y ago
> There’s no sport in high school that comes close to pulling everybody together the same way as football. Wow, that's not my high school experience. Sports divided the student body into the popular athletic kids and the unpopular academic kids. If you celebrate the football team and not the math team, the results are predictable, and they won't be to promote math.
- brightball 4y ago
  All of the strongest academics kids at my school were also involved in athletics in some way. We had two valedictorians, one who was excellent at cross country and soccer while the other was a fantastic golfer. Our salutatorian was homecoming queen and a cheerleader too.
- xeromal 4y ago
  Everyone has unique experiences but growing up, some of the smartest kids I knew with athletes. Not sure if it was because sports can often force you to give your all in all ways (sports and education) or if wanting a better shot at a college team required they be diligent in their studies. The top guy in my school ended up going to GA Tech on a baseball scholarship.
corrral 4y ago
Football's the reason I dropped band when I no longer needed an arts elective. I'd have stayed in all four years, otherwise. Being required to waste an entire evening at a football game to play for a few minutes here and there was insulting. I'm pretty sure it's also the reason the curriculum was built almost entirely around the microscopic musical niche of marching band, rather than instruments & skills that were more likely to be useful in life beyond college.
- brightball 4y ago
  The more I keep reading replies to my comments the more I'm realizing what a great high school I must have gone too. Our marching band always got superior ratings every year in their own competitions and had a blast playing throughout all of the games. Everybody in our band seemed to have a great time with it, especially the drummers.
  - taeric 4y ago
    This is classic survivor and selection bias. You likely didn't notice all of the people sidelined by this. I suspect selection bias also plays in to all of the negativity. But variety reigns and places that had more offerings almost certainly had more success.
    - brightball 4y ago
      How could someone be sidelined by this? EDIT: Since we've hit the reply nesting limit. I still don't see how having an activity that involves so many people sidelines anyone or how a lack of that activity would improve the involvement? I can't think of any school sanctioned activities that discriminated against any student based on their appearance, even cheer. I had giant glasses that slid down my nose, a belly and braces. Believe me, the only thing that kept me from feeling included was my own perception of myself. Having coaches and a routine that forced me to exercise and lift weights was one of the best things I ever did.
      - taeric 4y ago
ryandrake 4y ago
> The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. For many small town High Schools in the US, it's not just a school-wide event, it's a town-wide event. I remember in my small town, during High School football season, the entire town mobilized around the event. Sales at local stores, drinks and catering to the field/bleachers, specials at bars post-game for the grown-ups, and so on. The football game was quite literally the most exciting and important thing going on within a 25 mile radius of the school. As for it becoming a school-wide event, your post is only part of it: Yes, football manages to pull together a lot of the students, not just the athletes, which is positive. But it also can very negatively disrupt the academic routine. Teachers would plan lighter days and/or skip topics because "It'S FoOtBaLl DaY" and they knew everyone was mentally checked out because football game. Athletes would get special exceptions from academic expectations, get special treatment in the classroom, get treated with kid gloves discipline-wise. High School athletics was so important to the entire town that it kind of established the entire local area's social totem pole.

Steltek 4y ago

Well, to anecdotally back you up, in Massachusetts with the #1 public schools in the country, I hear and see nothing about football. I think I hear more about the HS plays and concerts than HS football. The last football funding discussion at the town level was whether to fund better helmets to protect against CTE or make the players' parents pay for it, so the town isn't seen supporting/encouraging brain damage to children.

sndean 4y ago
And to add another anecdote, the overall #1 high school in the US in Virginia (by some rankings at least) doesn't have a football team. Sports like cross country get more attention.
- richwater 4y ago
  TJ might be one of the best high schools in the world not just VA.
- justsocrateasin 4y ago
  This anecdote is misleading. TJ is a magnet school with a formal application process. Students study for years to get into TJ. Although many of their sports teams are excellent, students don't go to TJ for sports - they just happen to be over-achieving outside of the classroom as well.
- acid__ 4y ago
  They had a football team when I attended ~10 years ago.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  That's just a fancy way of having a proxy for "rich people". Football, baseball, basketball, hockey. Those are the sports of the unwashed masses. That a magnet school that attracts the students of wealthy parents who are deeply invested in their kids eduction doesn't have a sport the those demographics turn their nose up at <insert low effort quip about brain damage here> is expected. I bet they have rowing and lacross to make up for it.

Talinx 4y ago

I'm from Germany, here sport is integrated into the timetable like every other subject. Sport is not that important here so I might underestimate the amount/impact of sports in US high schools. I'd say that more sport is generally a good thing. What matters most to me about high school learning is that IQ does not decline. Grades are just a bad IQ test and most things you learn in high school don't matter. Sport is healthier than sitting in a dim classroom all day. I am the kind of person that likes to learn by myself so all learning in school is time spent ineffeciently (from a pure learning perspective; reading a book instead is better). But I think that for most people many things that are taught in high school are useless while more important things (understanding how social media affects you, how to declare taxes, how credit cards work) are not covered (at least here in Germany, I suspect its no different in the US).

annyeonghada 4y ago
>Grades are just a bad IQ test and most things you learn in high school don't matter. Well, speak for yourself. It may be a very unpopular opinion here on HN but I learned a lot at school, be it elementary, middle, high or university. But I went to school in Italy, and it was a good school. >But I think that for most people many things that are taught in high school are useless while more important things (understanding how social media affects you, how to declare taxes, how credit cards work) are not covered (at least here in Germany, I suspect its no different in the US). This are thing that you can easily google. Why would I want to waste time teaching such trivial things while there are subjects much more interesting and intellectually engaging. Talk about inefficiency. If someone does not want to study academic subjects it is not obliged to finish school, they can simply abandon once they reach the appropriate age (in Italy, 16 y/o): I know someone who did it and went the trade route and was very happy, but please, please, let us, academically inclined people have our own habitat.
- gokdisjtrdcvv5 4y ago
  Grades are not very accurate indicators of learned maternal. 4.0s only mean you worked really hard or, in very rare cases, are extremely intelligent. I know a guy who got a 3.2 in calc 3. Doesn’t sound very good right? Well the only reason is because his teacher was test heavy and those tests were quite difficult. My teacher was much more focused on homework so I could work harder to get a good grade. After working with him I realized we almost exactly the same amount. However, if you looked at our grades I would seem significantly “smarter” than him.

w0m 4y ago

I'm curious how many schools this is actually true for. I played football 'back in the day'; but despite winning our district/traveling mid-state for playoffs; I never felt like the team got any special treatment. We showed up an hour before school for weights and stayed a few hours after every day + Saturdays; ~nothing mid-day at all outside of the Misc rally the entire school attended.

a_f 4y ago
Presumably the space and facilities to train, both outside and inside, the time of dedicated teachers/coaches and travel costs (speculating) might all be considered special treatment. I think physical activity in school is important; but you could definitely argue that these are special treatment.