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

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Parker and Schröder are just two of the thousands of examples that demonstrate that both systems can produce elite athletes. The difference lies in the degree of direct connection to education, and how we define, at various levels, academic eligibility to compete in sports. In theory, the American system, with its combination of participating in sports while getting an education, sounds like a perfect match. Unfortunately, the academic component has been abused and often outright ignored at all levels of our education-based sports system virtually since its inception (Falla 1981; Ridpath 2002). In short, the goals of scholastic sports often do not mesh with the goals of academia, most notably when substandard academic performance might keep superstar athletes off the court and field. When those two worlds collide, it is often sports priorities that win out—but it does not have to be that way. There is room for both sets of priorities in a new world of American sports development. The current stress our education system is under from an ever-growing and increasingly expensive athletic-industrial complex cannot and does not need to go on. There are better ways to define sports development in America while preserving educational primacy.