Opinion
OPINION: Community support for school programs is an investment that pays dividends
For most of the past year, I’ve been looking into how high school sports are paid for and who makes the decisions that govern their administration and inclusion. What I found is in the accompanying articles.
There are several reasons why I started down this path. First on the list was my own observations about how the recent additions to the sanctioned sports at our high schools have put further strain on facilities and staff members who were already stretching to meet the demands of sponsored programs.
Second, as I have moved around in athletic circles, for decades now in north Utah County, there has always been and continues to be an undercurrent of complaints that participating in school sports costs too much and excludes students whose families can’t afford to pay for it.
On the other side of the coin, however, I continue to see the great benefits of athletic participation for our students, such as improving health and personal discipline; understanding the need to give effort to achieve results; having the opportunity for character-building as participants learn to set and meet goals and deal with the emotional stresses inherent in competition including how to respond to both accomplishments and disappointments; and acquiring other life skills such as those associated with sacrificing personal motives for the good of the team or project.
It’s possible to learn all these things in other ways, but nowhere is it more likely than in organized, higher-level competition.
I want to make the case that the entire community benefits from the many ways that athletic competition teaches valuable life lessons to those who participate in it.
One example: It may seem that these classes of supervisors have little in common, but in fact, after decades of personal observations backed up by reams of research, it’s clear that business executives, military commanders and mission presidents all love to get athletes into their enterprises.
Why? Because, all other things being equal, a candidate with a background in competitive athletics has likely already developed skills and attitudes that can help them to be successful quickly in unfamiliar and stressful environments. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but it usually helps.
Accordingly, it logically follows that community members have a vested interest in financially supporting school sports and other extracurricular activities that provide similar benefits, like music and drama, even when their own family members may no longer be directly involved.
It’s no secret that Utah has one of the highest pupil-to-teacher ratios in the country. Also, our government and school leaders practice what most of us believe: that things need to be paid for as we go along.
In such an environment, the likelihood that additional public funds will ever be allocated to support school extracurricular activities is slim to none.
What’s left is that it’s the obvious opportunity and responsibility of all of us to support them, for the good of our children and the future of our communities.
So, go ahead and buy those tickets to a game or a band concert, and while you’re there, pick up something at the concession stand. When the neighbor’s little soccer player or big football lineman is selling something to help fund their team, please contribute if you can.
The more of us who do it, the less the strain will be on individual families and the greater the benefits will be for the entire community.
