天美传媒

By Robert A. Scott, President, 天美传媒

What do Henry Kissinger, Jack Welch, Condoleezza Rice, and Jon Bon Jovi have听in common? Each credits sports with teaching lessons fundamental to their success.

We believe that sports are important because of the values that can be learned,听including good sportsmanship, believing in others and learning that others can help us听achieve more by being united than by acting on our own self-interest.

Yet, in past months, dozens of athletes have been in the news for steroid abuse,听sexual assault, gambling, hazing, and phony admission standards. More and more we听hear of those who question whether sports do teach positive character traits. NPR听reported that obsession with sports actually retards boys’ academic achievement. “The听Chronicle of Higher Education” calls college athletes “ethically impaired.” A scholar is听evaluating how college athletes rate on moral reasoning.

Sports in the United States represents a $400 billion market, almost as big as the听retail food industry. Young people see the large contracts and bonuses a few athletes听receive and dream of a chance at the pros. Yet, of about 500,000 high school basketball听players, roughly 50 will make it to the NBA. The odds of a high school player becoming听a professional in football are approximately 1 in 6,000. According to the National听Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), fewer that 2% of high school athletes will ever听receive a college athletic scholarship. And only one in 13,000 high school athletes will听ever receive a paycheck from a professional team.

In the face of these facts, there are major policy issues organized sports and their听promoters must face at the professional level, at the college level, and in youth programs?听In the pros, we must include “pay before performance” and performance enhancement.听At the youth level, we should include equity and access, including over-emphasis on听competition among six to eight-year olds, coaches acting like teams are incubators for the听professional ranks, gender balance and race/ethnicity issues, and 11-year olds as听鈥減rofessionals.鈥� At all levels, we must be concerned about the influence of money.

We need to do a better job in managing the parents and coaches who press the听limits. We need to tell the truth about Title IX and other attempts to advance gender and听racial equity. Title IX has not caused the elimination of men’s teams, and has been of听great benefit to our sisters and daughters.

We need to influence media coverage, especially for NCAA Division I. We know听that NCAA Divisions II and III generally have healthier practices overall toward student-athletes,听yet are overlooked by the media, even in markets like Long Island where the听Division II student-athletes were lionized by the same media when they were in high听school.

Some look at sports as a form of “worship,” with stadiums as cathedrals and听coaches and captains leading prayers to surpass their neighbors, even as church听attendance declines. Do we promote a system with prayer in the huddle but foul play on听the field? According to Donna Lopiano of the Women鈥檚 Sports Foundation and Don听McPherson of the Adelphi Sports Leadership Institute, most coaches are neither licensed听nor certified. So those without training and without knowledge of best practices, are听teaching our children without regard to a child鈥檚 psychological or physical development.

There are some good examples of states, towns, and schools attempting to听overcome the apparent “win-at-all-costs” mentality of school, college and professional听athletics. One example is Nassau County鈥檚 鈥淔air Play Agreement.鈥� Now, we need to听address the ills of low graduation rates from college as well as obesity due to a lack of听exercise in a nation obsessed with sports. It is ironic to have both this growing obsession听and an epidemic of obesity among school-age youth.

We want to have hope that sports will in fact advance individual and group听development for the good. Each of us, educators, parents, school board members, and听collegiate boards of trustees must work to help ensure that sports are organized to achieve听the maximum benefit for individual development, and that play does not lose out to听prime-time.

Boulevard Magazine听漏 Copyright Robert A. Scott, 2006. All rights reserved.

For further information, please contact:

Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications Director听
p 鈥� 516.237.8634
e 鈥� twilson@adelphi.edu