School Sports

I love sports. Football on cool (not too cold) crisp day and the marching band is always a bonus. Basketball with the roar of the crowd and the sound of the band bouncing of the walls of the gym. Baseball on a warm spring day (no rain, please.) Swimming, diving, gymnastics yep I went to em all.

Ok, some sports I love more than others. I don't think Rev would have married me had I not been a lover of sports. However, there area few things about school sports that I don't love. I hate how parents make it all about winning and not about learning sportsmanship. It doesn't matter what school it is always the same. I grew up living in larger towns/cities and always attended a triple A league school. We currently live in a small rural area which means a small rural school. The school here is a C-league school. The improtance on winning is no diffent no matter what school you go to. When you lose the coach still yells at you in the locker room and storms out no matter what division you are in.

The part that really gets me though is how as a parent now I see how the pressure affects the kids (or at least in our area). Our basketball team has a JV and Varsity just like everywhere else. However 1/2 of the Varisty play on the JV as well which mean that some of the JV sit the bench becuase they are not "good enough" to make a "winning" team. Those players that play on both teams play almost the entire JV game and then play very limited time on the Varsity team because there are enough players already on the Varsity. Why put them on Varsity if there are already enough players there to begin with? The answer comes through loud and clear for those players who get to play only 0-5 minutes of every game, it is albout winning. They all love to play, they have a good time at practice, but those not so good players don't count on anything more cause it is more important to win.

I have several thoughts on this: 1. kids should either be on the JV or the Varsity, not both. 2. It should be manditory that ALL kids get a chance to play for a minimum of time or there would be a penalty. Imagine if you will the score is team A 63 to team B 64, Oh but wait team B forgot to play one of its players, deduct 2 points. Now the score is team A63 to team B 62. Hmmm!! Then would the kids of the losing team get to yell at the coach and storm out of the locker room in disgust for the loss, because it wouldn't be the kids fault now would it?

Of note we recently had senior night on the basketball court. It surprised me to note that we have only one senior girl player and only one senior boy player. A town not far from us has their whole senior class going out for the game. Maybe it is just the town I live in or maybe theat other town manages it better, but one has to wonder why the difference. Is there to much pressure on winning in our gym and more pressure on team work in that one. I dont know. I hope so.