Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics

Envisioning a Different Future

63 Progress is impossible without change: and those who cannot change their minds can not change anything. —George Bernard Shaw Athletes often use a technique called “visualization” to improve their chances of success. For example, the athlete imagines an act such as hitting a baseball or envisions reacting during a competitive situation. It is believed that if the athlete sees herself performing a particular skill, it will improve her chances of actually performing that skill successfully. In other words, to achieve success, one must be able to visualize what success will look like. The purpose of this chapter is to encourage the reader to envision success of another sort: the successful transformation of the role that athletics plays in our high schools, colleges , and culture. I am not talking about change around the fringes but a systemic change. A progressive vision of change from the current elite model of sports in America, where the vast majority of resources are heaped upon the few who show extraordinary potential, to one that would ENVISIONING A DIFFERENT FUTURE 64 ENVISIONING A DIFFERENT FUTURE have as its fundamental purposes to use athletics as a tool to supplement the educational development of participants, to support the missions of our educational institutions, and to promote broad-based participation in activities that can be practiced for a lifetime for purposes of public health. In such a model, the responsibility for the development of elite athletes and teams would shift from our educational institutions to private sports clubs and professional teams. Once a youngster is identified as having the potential to compete at an advanced athletic level, he or she would simply pursue that endeavor with a local club or professional team. This model works well throughout the rest of the world. In fact, the United States is the only country in the world in which elite athletes and teams are sponsored by high schools and colleges rather than local clubs and professional teams. This vision is not about whether elite athletics are good or bad but whether the current system is best suited for making the most of athletics’ potential to meet our nation’s education and public health needs. There is a place for elite athletics in our culture. The question is simply whether that place should be in our schools. A BETTER SYSTEM Elite sport is an important American cultural institution. As such, its impact on our schools, communities, and culture must be critically assessed by us as individuals and, collectively, as a society. This is no different from what we must do for other American institutions. From our health 65 ENVISIONING A DIFFERENT FUTURE care system to our welfare system, old ideas, programs, institutions, and philosophies must continually be examined , refined, and, if appropriate, restructured. And the fundamental standard of evaluation should be utility. Do these institutions continue to serve the public in relevant and timely ways? If it is determined, through honest debate and data-based research, that elite athletics have a positive impact on academic values and educational institutions, we should invest more heavily in them. But if elite athletics ’ supposed positive benefits are disproved, we have an obligation to reconsider that investment. To do anything else would be irresponsible. One only needs to look in any newspaper’s sports pages, watch the local television newscast, or tune in to ESPN’s twenty-four-hour-a-day sports coverage to appreciate sports’ popularity and the breadth of its influence in America . There is also no denying that virtually every aspect of the sports enterprise has changed over the past two decades. There is more money, more media exposure, more pressure to win, and that pressure is creeping further and further down the sport food chain. Regardless of how popular sports are, there are serious questions about the ways they have come to influence our lives, families, communities, and culture. We have discussed how the current elite model of athletics undermines academic values and educational institutions . This impact is significant because our high schools and colleges exert tremendous influence over many aspects of American society, including public health, the educational preparedness of our workforce, civic spending priorities , and other elements of our civil society. In short, what 66 ENVISIONING A DIFFERENT FUTURE transpires in our high school and university athletics programs is an issue of vital national interest. Thus, when we speak of athletics...