Do High School Athletic Programs
Encourage Violent and Irresponsible Behavior?
By Jill Jenkins
The newspapers
and television news programs blast with stories of the
Blade Runner, Oscar Pistorious, shooting and murdering his live-in girlfriend,
Reeva Steenkamp. Ray
Rice of the Baltimore Ravens punches his finance, Jayna Palmer, knocking her
unconscious. Aaron
Hernandez of the New England Patriots is accused of murdering two people. Kanas
City Chiefs, Jovan Belcher murders the mother of his infant child, flees to the
field and commits suicide before his coach.
The list of acts of violence and irresponsible behavior by the heroes of
the gridiron and track seems endless. Is
this behavior just a reflection of a violent society or are athletes taught
from their childhood that they are an exclusive group of individuals who are
above the rules of society?
Parents often
encourage dishonest behavior in order to increase their child’s changes of
winning, even in little league. Take
fourteen year old Jimmy Gronen who in 1973 won the Soap Box Derby. Later
it was revealed that his uncle Robert Lange, owner of the Wonderland Drive In
in Boulder, Colorado had installed a magnet in the front of Jimmy’s car giving
him a significant advantage from the starting gate. Interesting, Robert Lange’s son had won the
same race years earlier. In Denver
a baseball game of twelve year olds ended with three
arrests for parents brawling over what they believed was a bad call.
One suburban New York mother was
arrested when she sent threats because her son did not make the little league
baseball team. In Florida an assistant coach, Dion
Robinson of a youth football games
assaulted a referee and was arrested. In Utah a soccer referee, Ricardo
Portillo, was assaulted by teen who did not agree with one of his calls. He
later died from his injuries. Parents have assaulted
little league coaches, little league
coaches have assaulted referees and
teenage players have assaulted and killed referees. The verbal abuse and physical assaults only
serve to teach the young players that this behavior is acceptable.
When these young
athletics are in high school this immoral and inappropriate behavior gets
worse. To alleviate this problem,
athletic associations have created rules and guidelines to teach student
athletes good sportsmanship and to ensure playing sports does not interfere with
getting a quality education. In the eighties, to play on a team a student had
to maintain a 2.0 GPA with no “F’s” and no “unsatisfactory” citizenship grades. This all sounds good, but the truth is
coaches and administrators put pressure on teachers to change grades or excuse
athletes from tests and assignments.
When that didn’t happen, some administrators even changed some students’
grades to keep them eligible. Since that
time, the athletic association under pressure reduced the qualification for
eligibility. First, they eliminated the
requirement for a 2.0 G.P.A. and the citizenship grade. Next the requirements were relaxed allowing
students to fail no more than one class. Finally, the requirements became so
slack that students could fail no more than two classes. Reducing these requirements does not help
students. Instead, it hurts them. These are not gladiators meant to emblazon
the school’s image. These are students
who are trying to get a quality education.
Student athletics are never held accountable for their behavior.
Contact
sports like Football, soccer, and hockey are violent sports. The energy level and the emotional level are
high not only for the players, but for the coaches, the parents and the
watching students. It is easy to see how
things can easily get out of control. Students
are often encouraged to violate the rules and play as roughly as possible to
ensure the team wins. After all the
coaches job is dependent on the team’s success and the expedient way to achieve
that is to cheat or play increasingly roughly.
As a result there are many injuries in these sports and worse yet, the
plays learn that the end justifies the means. . . win at any cost.
Since schools
offer the athletics time out of class to perform on the field and teachers make
specific adjustments to their requirements, the athlete begins to feel
special. He interprets this to mean that
the rules do not apply to him. Since
these students have been encouraged to cheat on the field, they believe the
same rules apply in the classroom. They
begin to cheat to keep their grades up. Granted there is a lot of pressure on them
from coaches, parents and they believe the entire school, so they do the
expedient thing, they cheat.
Regardless, I
have known parents, some even coaches, who have held their student athletic to
a higher standard. These are the parents
who won’t have to worry about a call from the police because their son has been
incarcerated. These parents taught their
child the consequences of immoral behavior while still in school. I have had parents contact me and ask to set
up a conference with their son, both parents and me (the teacher), because they
found evidence that their son had cheated.
These conferences have not been easy.
There have been serious discussions, consequences, and tears (not just
from the student, also the parents and yes even the teacher, me). These parents have demanded their child be
held accountable and this has been a learning experience for their child. My hat goes off to these parents, because they
chose to do the right thing, not the expedient thing.
In a world where
attorney generals are charged with fraud, police
officers are charged with murder, and
football stars charged with domestic violence, it is difficult for parents
to teach their children that one should always do the right thing, not the
expedient thing. We should all hold
students accountable: teachers,
administrators, parents, and athletic associations. Honor is more important than winning. As Socrates once said, “I would prefer
even to fail with honor than to win by cheating.” Sports programs can increase violent and
irresponsible behavior, or they can teach good sportsmanship and character
building skills like being a good team player.
It is all how we choose to approach them.