Читать книгу Alternative Models of Sports Development in America. Solutions to a Crisis in Education and Public Health онлайн

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One can also debate the current state of sports delivery and sports development in the United States, both as it compares to other countries around the world and as to whether the primary education-based model should be revised, if not changed completely. Sports development and sports delivery are broad terms that need to be defined. Essentially, there are several definitions, and in this country there are no standard definitions for overall sports development and sports delivery processes. Empirically, elite sports development has been defined as “the skill development of talented athletes in the continuum of elite athlete ‘production’” (Hogan and Norton 2000, 215–16). Sports development can also be described as a delivery system of sports in a certain context, such as how sports are delivered to and accessed by groups and individual citizens of a certain country. In America, sports development and sports delivery are rather fragmented, in that the United States does not have a centralized national sports policy or a governmental sports ministry to provide a governance framework, as is the case in many other countries. What we have is a mishmash of several organizations that are educational, public, and private, which provide sports and exercise opportunities throughout the country. For the purposes of this book, “sports development” is an umbrella term for all sports delivery options that currently exist in the United States, whether scholastic, public, private, professional, or amateur.