It was thirteen years ago, in March, and I was playing the last game of my first and only year as a member of the Huntsville Havoc, a minor professional ice hockey team based in northern Alabama. I had enjoyed a successful college career, and I was proud to earn money as an athlete, living out a smaller version of one of my wildest childhood dreams.
After throwing the largest bodycheck of my hockey-playing life on Knoxville (TN) IceBears’ largest forward, #7 Rob Flynn, the bigger player soon chased me down, grabbed me by the side of my helmet, and gripped my whole head like it was nothing more than a softball. He tugged me toward him the slightest bit before shoving with all his might, sending my head crashing against the Plexiglas that circled the rink. I bounced off and hit the ice, my vision flashing a cloudy scarlet, my mind moving in and out of slow motion. I lay on the ice, disoriented. Flynn reached down and slammed my face against the cold sheet, laughing.
I don’t know if I decided right then—struggling in pain in front seven thousand spectators, trying to hide my glassy eyes from the training staff—or not. But if it wasn’t right then, it was very soon after. I was done playing competitive ice hockey. And I was haunted by the question of how did I get here and why?
In his book, The Geography of Genius, author Eric Weiner highlights hotspots of creativity and innovation throughout human history; things like philosophy in ancient Athens, music and psychology in Vienna, and tech companies in Silicon Valley. The major takeaway is that ideas and actions flourish in communities that cultivate those very ideas and actions.
We cultivated athletic achievement where I grew up, and we cultivate athletic achievement almost everywhere in this country, including our schools.
That’s how I ended up with flashing vision and a pounding headache that day on the ice in Alabama. I’d succeeded. I’d made it. If Eric Weiner had visited my hometown, he would have learned that we cultivated baseball and hockey players and that I was one of the “geniuses.”
And the only reason I can look back on my time in the sport with that type of reflection is because I’d gotten lucky that day. I didn’t have a serious head injury. I’d already had way too many. The mild ones and the medium ones, and the fiery hot ones that had left me with a couple of blank spots in my memory.
I’d devoted so much to that sport, that game, and I had next to nothing to show for it.
I say next to nothing because I’m willing to admit that there were—and are—positive links between competitive athletics and long-term wellbeing. A simple internet search will lead to more resources than you’d be able to read. However, I’m here to help you think about a different layer of the conversation; one that hopefully makes you question what is normal and why, and one that might make you ask questions of the folks who don’t necessarily want you to.
Here are five theses on why I think our obsession with athletics in schools is misguided:
- We spend too much time and energy on athletics.
Our students who play sports spend more time on athletics than any single thing in their life other than sleeping. This is not an exaggeration.
At my school, a class is three hours one week and four and a half the next, for an average of about three and a half hours a week, after passing time. When the varsity football team has a week with five days of practice and a Saturday home game, players spend about fifteen hours at football. Add several hours a week to that total when the team goes on the road for a game in one of the four southern Vermont counties. Many of our upperclass-students have three or four free blocks in their schedule, which means that a certain portion of our athletes play sports for more hours than they attend all of their classes combined. Additionally, dismissals for sports happen way too frequently, furthering the sport to class ratio inflation. I taught a class that met the last period of the day during the first semester that included a member of the boy’s soccer team. They had eight games on our class days, and he missed all or part of the class seven times. Seven. That’s a big number. And I never had a choice in the matter. The sports schedule is seen as doctrine. Once the announcements list the dismissal time for the day, Creative Writing Workshop loses to soccer at Rutland every single time.
Most of us can wrap our minds around students missing a single class for a trip to Lake Champlain to view sunken ships, or a singing performance at an elementary school, or even an advisory trip once a year. But seven times in one semester? That just doesn’t compute. My debate team student didn’t miss any class time for his activity. My thespian didn’t miss any class time for their theatre rehearsals. My GSA member didn’t miss any class time for her club meetings. I think you get the point. We are sending the message that sports are more important than everything else. We have created a culture where a teacher is just supposed to take the absence, no questions asked, and I don’t agree with that.
My school’s girls’ hockey team recently missed a half day of class to travel to Manchester (hours away) on a Tuesday before playing in Essex (20 mins away) the following Saturday. That’s not right. Why wasn’t it flipped? How is there not a scheduling algorithm that can find some kind of balance? We need to make sure students are given the most possible access to the most activities, and we need to level the playing field (pun intended) between our co-curriculars.
- Our educational choices based on brain science should apply to athletics.
Many of our students have been diagnosed with athletic-induced concussions, and I feel confident in stating that many, many more concussions have occurred without notice, for a number of reasons. How is this allowed to happen? How do we justify facilitating and celebrating activities that cause traumatic brain injuries? If a chemistry experiment was causing student concussions, do you think that teachers would still be able to perform such an activity in class? Absolutely not. I think most of you would scoff or laugh or scream at the idea of a school assignment that injures students being allowed to continue. It’s pretty near unfathomable, actually. Yet that’s what happens every day on the football field, lacrosse field, hockey rink, wrestling mat, etc. There’s even a sizable amount of new research that frames soccer as one of our most brain-dangerous sports for adolescents because of the act of heading a ball with underformed neck muscles.
Additionally, the latest research from Boston University illustrates that we need to reframe our understanding of concussions. In short, what we traditionally think of as a concussion is simply the symptoms that sometimes show up from head trauma. The real danger is the repeated hits to the head, whether the symptoms show up or not.
And, our brain-based choices shouldn’t be limited to preventing concussions. Almost every expert agrees that teenagers need to start their day later than most of them currently do, and our Wednesday late-starts give them a much needed respite once a week. But, I have to ask, why have most schools not made the switch to a 9:00 or 10:00 AM start time to match the science? Is there something called practice that needs to begin around 3:00 PM to maximize daylight? I know I’m being slightly cynical with this particular point, but is there any truth to it? I keep landing on yes.
We have recently made many changes to our educational practices based on brain science, and for good reason. It’s time we turn our gaze toward the athletic fields and arenas and put our students’ health first.
How can we have one set of standards for our students during the classday and quite another set for the afternoon?
- Athletics heighten equity gaps.
You’ve heard it before. Some form of Athletics are the great equalizer.
They aren’t.
I’m going to ask a series of rhetorical questions in this section. They’ll be rhetorical because I think you’ll be able to guess the answers based on the tone I’m using in the sentence you’re currently reading.
Do students from traditionally marginalized racial and cultural backgrounds and identities have the same access to athletic opportunities as their more privileged counterparts?
Do agender, transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students have the same access to athletic opportunities as their cisgender peers?
Do students from households most impacted by income inequality and/or generational poverty have the same access to athletic opportunities as their more affluent classmates?
Are opportunities, funding, and resources equally distributed between boys and girls sports?
- Privilege is often the number one reason behind athletic success.
My school has the largest student body in the state. We pull from some of the wealthiest towns in the state. Before our students even step on the field, they are already leaps and bounds above most of the competition. We need to recognize this and name this. We need to own our privilege. I don’t mean to detract from the successes our students and coaches have had (because some of it has been extremely impressive, no matter our privilege), but many of our students are erroneously judging their worth as people in this world based on their athletic win-loss record, and I think that’s a dangerous precedent to set. Vermont is a very small fish in a very big pond. There are always outliers and exceptions, but, in general, our sports teams would rarely beat the best in New Hampshire, who’d rarely beat the best in Massachusetts, who’d rarely beat the best in New York, who’d rarely beat the best in California…
When was the last time you heard a coach ask this question: How does our privilege (or lack thereof) relate to our record of wins and losses, and how does that answer contribute to the way we view ourselves, how we view our opponents, and how we interact with the world?
- Competition and physicality hurt democracy and community.
I know that some of you may think that equating the Dalai Lama’s reference to “force” with our obsession with interscholastic sports is an overreach on my part, but is it? Isn’t that what sports are? Isn’t it one person or one team trying to physically defeat another person or team? Even tennis players use force. Even cross country runners use force. Even gymnasts. Even skiers.
As long as we continue to judge our worth in wins and losses and hierarchies and rankings and times, how can we ever come together as a democratic community?
Let me bring this back to my own experience as an example.
I hope you won’t be surprised to learn that the misogyny and toxic masculinity in high school locker rooms is an epidemic. It was the same or worse when I was there. When I was in the younger grades, team leaders held a kangaroo court every Monday before practice. Guys on my team were fined for behavior deemed unfitting of the group and had to put between $1 and $5 in a jar that would add up and be used for a party at the end of the season. Fines were handed out for things like hooking up with a girl considered fat or ugly. Fines were handed out for failing to hook up with a girl, even the ones considered fat or ugly. Fines were handed out for saying or doing things that were “gay.” Fines were handed out for reading books on the bus to away games. Fines were handed out for excessive studying, like if you were seen using flashcards.
I think you get the point. After all, it’s not called toxic masculinity for nothing.
And, when the existence of a court like that combines with the culture of force and winning, the results can be devastating. When the leaders on the team are pressing younger boys to hook up with girls at all costs, and when our coaches are using terms that sound like we’re in a military battalion to describe how we should deal with the other team, it’s not surprising to me that several of my hockey teammates were accused of commiting sexual violence.
They all denied it was true. I didn’t know what to think back then. I know now that there is an almost statistical certainty that they were guilty.
Aggression and conditioning are not light switches. You can’t tell a young athlete that it’s okay for them to hit people one moment, and then try to counteract that with talk of social emotional learning and community in the next. The external reward will beat the internal one almost every time, especially considering the time and focus disparity that we know exists between sports and other aspects of school life.
I’m currently of the mindset that we can never eradicate (or even minimize) sexual and physical violence perpetrated by men until we stop sending them the mixed message that there are some places where it’s okay to act that way. Can’t you see how Kill em!!!!! in the afternoon and No means no at 2:00 AM could be confusing?
That’s out fault. That’s society’s fault. How can we educators reconcile with that, and what can we do about it?
I have other thoughts about less violent sports and their links to grade grubbing, college admissions, and capitalism that will have to be left for another time.
So I leave you with one final question: Do interscholastic sports help us grow healthy, compassionate citizens, or do they actually cause more harm than good in their current form?
I’d love to know your answer to that question and continue the conversation.
Peter Langella is a librarian at Champlain Valley Union High School, an English Instructor at Northern Vermont University, a library instructor at the University of Vermont, and a 2017 Rowland Fellow. He is currently reading Savage Gods by Paul Kingsnorth. You can find him on Twitter @PeterLangella.