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

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One of the other and arguably most significant differences between US school-based sports participation and the European sports club system is the connection or lack thereof between academic results and athletic eligibility (Barber, Eccles, and Stone 2001; Broh 2002; Marsh and Kleitman 2002). In the United States, essentially, students are not eligible to participate in interscholastic and intercollegiate sports if they do not meet academic eligibility criteria, usually by maintaining a certain grade point average.¹³ As noted previously with regard to intercollegiate athletics, the tie-in with academic eligibility is both a blessing and a curse. It creates numerous issues that call into question the entire concept or model of educationally based sports. The idea behind these eligibility criteria in the United States is maintaining a balance, even with trade-offs, between academic work and school athletics. Although negative effects are indeed observed by some—including myself, on many points—it can be argued that these eligibility criteria can intensify the interest of athletes in their own academic achievement, since they will be unable to play if they neglect their academic priorities (Coleman 1961; Marsh and Kleitman 2002; Stokvis 2009). On the other hand, eligibility requirements have led to many academic scandals in interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics over the years, when decisions were made to keep top athletes eligible to compete, no matter what damage was done to the value of educational primacy. The constant tension between academics and athletics in sports development in the United States has been an increasing concern, recently illustrated by a massive academic scandal at one of the finest public universities in the United States, the University of North Carolina. This particular scandal involved a curriculum being developed for athletes that involved no-show classes and classes that required very little work, just to ensure athletic eligibility.¹⁴