by Kenneth O'Mally

Created on: May 21, 2008

In the movie Coach Carter Samuel Jackson, an award winning Hollywood actor was known to say "I came to coach ball players and you became students. I came to coach boys and you became men". The saying in a way speaks a lot for the necessity of high school sports. Why? you ask.

In the movie the team of boys had in a sense given up on themselves because they where looked at as rejects by society. After participating in Carters basketball program their self esteem, discipline, and sense of team had essentially been rebuilt. They participated in a high school sports program. Programs at the secondary level such as Carters mold boys and

girls by toughening their mental bearing, instilling motivation, self esteem and other intangibles classrooms are not designed to provide.

Mental toughness is a human element we all aim to have. Wrapping your fingers comfortably around a No.2 pencil, studying Physics, or Chemistry somehow does not develop this. It is the repeated workouts, pushing yourself to your physical and mental limits, getting a trophy, and knowing you can do even better, that builds the mental concrete in high school aged kids.

In addition to mental toughness high school sports builds motivation in teens like no other program. Most of the speeches or one-on-one talks given to students by coaches include a lot of motivational catch phrases such as "mind over matter". There are also many instances where the student presents a problem and the coach or physical education teacher resolves it by presenting the "you can do it" reasons that cause the student athlete to dust themselves off and try, often achieving success where they thought it was not possible, subsequently building self encouragement. We have to remember that motivation does not discriminate, and is quite infectious. The motivation the student develops from the track & field, or gym, follows them into academic life, and complements other elements of a persons personality such as self esteem.

Self esteem is also one thing that grows among student athletes engaged in high school sports. Whether at the intramural level, district level, regional, or interstate level it is easily recognized that the more students win trophies for their various schools and advance in championship classes their level of self worth increases. In mainstream society we see it everyday at any high school where otherwise average students grow in popularity and acceptance because of their skills in the sports arena.

Sports is something we do that also builds reflexes, a natural characteristic we develop as humans. Experts in the field would most likely tell you that an average student who repeatedly participates in competitive sports is more apt to have better reflexes than one who does not.

High school education in general is supposed to build the students intellectual reasoning, mental, and physical well being. Be it self esteem, or motivational level of the student, since sports at the high school level is responsible for building those human elements not readily provided by academics is it not sensible to say that the hours and dollars pumped into high school sports is worth it?

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