High School Sport

High school sports have become commonplace in modern American society. The idea of interscholastic sports emerged in order to give youth an outlet for physical activity and (ideally) to provide structure and discipline. According to Coakley, in an ideal world, high school sports should do all of these things and more. Student athletes should be upstanding individuals that embody values such as teamwork and practice. High school sports were designed to help youth become well-rounded individuals, giving them an outlet for physical activity in the land of academia.
I do think that some high school students are able to encompass all of these ideas. However, as with the case of Demetrius Walker, the corruption of interscholastic sport has resulted in an ambiguity between success in sport and success in school. Some student athletes are forced to choose between athletics and academics, and the result is devastating for education. Some high school athletes are expected to value practice over studying in order to get a "scholarship" to play for a college. While it is not true for every student athlete, many struggle in college due to the fact that they were always taught to put sports over academics in high school. High schools and colleges try to combat this by requiring strict study schedules and mandatory GPA requirements for student athletes.
Even with this problem, interscholastic sport is regarded highly in American society. We celebrate our student athletes like celebrities, always pushing them to reach for the next level of athletic success. We place great pressure on them to succeed because every school loves for their team to win.
It is difficult to determine a solution to the problem of the seeming "choice" that student athletes have to make between academics and athletics. I honestly don't know what we could do to change this other than encourage academic success as well as athletic success for these student athletes.