High School Sport

1)  What were the social conditions in which high school sport emerged?
-High school sport emerged shortly after college sports were created in the late 1800's/early 1900's (depending on the sport). They were sanctioned for the same reason as the college game: to build teamwork amongst young people and prepare them to work together on factory floors.

2)  What are the objectives of high school sport?  How successfully are they being met?
-Officially: to promote academic and athletic performance amongst student athletes. In reality: to prepare high school students for the college game, which will then prepare them for the professional game. How successfully these goals are being met depends largely on the school itself, and how much money they have at their disposal. Certain programs are run more like pro football teams with a school attached, while the rest need a greater emphasis on the student side of the student-athlete equation as most NCAA athletes don't usually go on to pro sports.

3)  What is the status of interscholastic sport in America?
-It's in a weird grey area. For the above average or better athletes, the system works pretty well, fast-tracking capable athletes to the pro game with few bumps along the way. For everyone else, it's a mixed bag. The education value of athletics is pretty dubious; then again, so is the education value of America's public school system in general.

4)  What are some of the problems associated with interscholastic sport?
-It can create over-conformity to the sport ethic in athletes who take it very seriously; the big focus on sport also alienates students who have no interest in sport.

5)  Provide one solution to one of these problems.
-Athletes need to be able to live their lives before they get to the pros. If a professional athlete spends 12 months per year training, that's totally fine. They get compensated in actual money for what they do, as opposed to, say, college scholarship money, which does cover major expenses but is far more restrictive. For this reason it's a bit murkier in college, and for high school, that sort of year-long training regiment can actually be harmful (Coakley pg. 497).

My proposed solution: switching to the European system of sporting development. In Europe, collegiate and high school sports are not anywhere near as omnipresent as they are on this side of the pond. This is because athlete prospects are actually contracted to youth divisions of actual pro teams. Each team has their own under-21 team, and under-19, under-17, and so on all the way down to under-11. These young players are given access to quality education, food, housing, financial training, and the potential to play in the pros as soon as they are able without having to wait to reach a certain age or complete a certain number of years of school. Also, they compete against other pro-level youth teams in U-21/U-19/U-17/etc. leagues, giving fans an early look at the future of their favorite teams.

By adopting this model, I am also suggesting that the US would radically overhaul its education system to get our public education on par with the rest of the "First World." This would necessarily involve either getting rid of or greatly reducing the role college athletics play in our society while also giving athletes a more direct path to the pros (while also making it easier for the rest of us to afford college, presumably). These intercollegiate athletic contests are lots of fun to watch, but they have dubious academic value at best, and as evidenced by the huge majority of former NFL and NBA players going broke post-retirement, they are clearly not teaching these athletes skills they can use for their whole lives. An education that stops being useful after age 35 is no education at all.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
-overview of Ajax (Dutch soccer team) youth development

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/
-article about the US and its public education system

[edited for spelling and grammar]