July 2011 Archives

It's no secret that the AAU basketball circuit doesn't always carry around the best reputation, whether it's the me-first style of play encouraged or the behind-the-scenes culture that promotes a swath of entitled superstars. Sports Illustrated's George Dohrmann wrote a book last year that peeled the cover back on some of the seediness of the AAU circuit, and parts of the book are genuinely stomach-churning.

With all that in mind, CBSSports.com's Gary Parrish is here to remind us that the summer sports circuit isn't all bad.

Parrish recently wrote a story about Dillon Graham, a high school basketball player at the Orlando First Academy in Orlando, Fla., who started landing scholarship offers left and right after playing in front of college coaches at NCAA-sanctioned events this summer.

Graham initially only wanted a scholarship offer from the University of Central Florida, which is "just a long 3-pointer away from Graham's Orlando-area home," according to Parrish. But once the 6-foot-4 rising senior helped his summer team, the Florida Rams, win the Adidas Invitational in Indianapolis earlier this summer, the big fish started trying to snap him up.

"Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, Miami, Kansas State, Florida State, and USF" all offered Graham scholarships, he told Parrish. "I kind of had a small idea that I could play at this level, but I never thought it would happen because I never thought I'd have the opportunity to showcase my skills."

Up until now, Graham had been completely unheralded on a national level. Both Scout.com and Rivals.com currently rank Graham as a 0-star prospect; in other words, his national profile was zilch until July. (In fact, that lack-of-national-ranking caused some consternation on a Louisville message board after news broke that the Cardinals had offered Graham a scholarship.)

"There's no question—none of this would be possible without summer basketball," said Graham's mother, Renee Graham, to Parrish. "We've had mixed emotions with AAU in the past. But this whole circuit thing that he's doing right now is really terrific. These coaches would've never seen him without it. With him being at such a small school, he just wouldn't have had these opportunities at all. We're just grateful."

So, while the youth-basketball circuit certainly has its warts, it also produces opportunities for players like Dillon Graham, who almost certainly would have never received calls from Kansas, Louisville, etc., if not for the summer circuit.

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If you're not too wrapped up in the ongoing U.S. debt-ceiling debate, you may have heard that the National Football League reached an end to its 132-day lockout on Monday.

I won't bore you with all the nitty-gritty details of the league's new collective bargaining agreement (here's a summary of the nitty-gritty from Sports Illustrated), but one aspect of the new deal deserves a mention here: the improvements to player safety.

The NFL hasn't been shy this year about encouraging all states to pass youth-concussion laws, as officials say that they hope to protect the more than 3 million student-athletes playing football. More than that, the NFL has done a complete 180 in terms of how much more seriously it treats concussions at the professional level in the past 18 months.

Now, with the new bargaining agreement, it's taken the next step toward improving football safety standards, which should influence youth and collegiate football as well.

The NFL will allocate $20 million to the players' association each year for health, safety, and former-player issues; guarantee contracts against injury up to the third year for the first time; create a $620 million "Legacy Fund" for players who played before 1993; eliminate the dreaded 2-a-day practices; limit teams to only 14 total padded practices in the entire regular season, 11 of which must be held within the first 11 weeks; allow only 3.5 hours of field time per day in training camp; and reduce the maximum number of organized team activities in the offseason from 14 to 10.

That's a mouthful, to say the least. But these standards set a new precedent in terms of player safety, and it's likely only a matter of time until K-12 schools and colleges begin considering adopting many, if not all, of them.

Take the new restrictions on the total number of padded practices allowed. How many high schools and colleges currently could fit under the 14 padded practices a year limitation? Here's guessing not many. Same goes for the restrictions on 2-a-days; how many high school football squads have already started gearing up for two weeks of 2-a-days in the sweltering August heat?

Some players, like linebacker Bart Scott of the New York Jets, believe the NFL is "wimping out ... making football more soft" by banning 2-a-days, as ESPN's Howard Bryant reported.

But Bryant spoke with Kevin Mawae, the president of the NFL Players' Association, and gathered the seminal counter-quote to Scott's argument.

"When he's 50 years old and he's taken off 65 hits a day from his head," Mawae said of Scott, "he'll thank the players."

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed his state's student-athlete concussion bill into law this morning, making Illinois the 31st state with a youth-concussion law on the books, by this blogger's count.

So, in other words: We've now got as many youth-concussion laws in the U.S. as Baskin Robbins originally had flavors.

The law, called the Protecting Our Student-Athletes Act, requires all school boards to establish a concussion policy that complies with the protocols of the Illinois High School Association. The IHSA recently announced an update to its policy, which now requires student-athletes to be removed from play if suspected of having a concussion. They must obtain medical clearance before returning to competition.

The IHSA policy only allows licensed physicians and certified athletic trainers working in conjunction with licensed physicians to give the medical clearance to concussed student-athletes.

The new law requires that the IHSA make concussion-information materials available to each school district for schools to use to educate coaches, student-athletes, and parents about the dangers of concussions. It also mandates that information about the school board's concussion policy be included on any form that parents must sign before student-athletes can participate in sports.

With these requirements, Illinois' new law includes all three components of Washington's Lystedt Law, which the National Football League considers model legislation.

The Illinois law passed the state Senate on May 17 and the House on May 29. It was sent to Gov. Quinn on June 3.

Other youth-concussion notes: I'm in the midst of wrapping up a nationally focused youth-concussion story, which you'll see online at edweek.org in mid-August.

We're also building an interactive youth-concussion map, where you'll be able to see the status of each state's concussion law, the highlights of each law, and a link back to the full text of each law. Stay tuned, sports fans. Once the story and map go live, rest assured that you'll find links to both right here on Schooled in Sports.

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The drumbeats have been only growing louder for the concept of a pay-for-play system for NCAA student-athletes. Two high-profile cases in college football this past year—Cam Newton of Auburn and Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State—have raised serious questions about the viability of a multimillion-dollar college-sports empire that pays student-athletes only in the form of scholarships.

The Big Ten conference discussed paying student-athletes' living expenses at its recent spring meetings, noting that athletic scholarships leave student-athletes paying roughly $3,000 out of pocket each year for transportation, clothing, and food. University of South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier also concocted a plan earlier this year wherein football coaches would pay 70 players on the team $300 each for every single game of the season.

Even NCAA President Mark Emmert plans on discussing the possibility of paying student-athletes' living expenses at a two-day retreat he'll hold with roughly 50 college and university presidents in early August. Granted, it's tough to say how open for debate Emmert will be; back in January, he said, "Student-athletes are students. They're not professionals, and we're not going to pay them and we're not going to allow other people to pay them to play." (He made similar comments in May.)

One aspect of the pay-for-play debate that's largely gone unexposed: the effect that such a system could have on high school sports. While high school student-athletes wouldn't be directly affected, there's no denying that a pay-for-play system would have a trickle-down effect at the high school level.

What's Being Discussed?

ESPN.com ran a weeklong feature on pay-for-play earlier this summer, and in one piece, had Mark Schlereth break down the different proposals circulating around, with one major exception (*see below).

Beyond the full-cost scholarship idea and the stipend idea discussed above, Schlereth examined the concept of allowing star athletes to receive royalties from the sale of their college jerseys, with the money potentially going into an escrow account until the player exhausts his/her eligibility.

As Schlereth noted, NCAA communications veep Bob Williams rained on that parade in a recent ESPN.com chat, saying, "The school name, the colors, that's really the school's and the institution's property. It's hard to say that the student-athlete "owns" that jersey or it's his jersey."

Schlereth's article last tackled the "pay players who actually make the schools money" idea—one that he openly admits won't stand a chance against Title IX, which requires schools that receive federal funding to provide equal athletic opportunities to both males and females.

One of the fundamental problems with the pay-for-play debate is that very few college-sports teams are actually profitable. In fact, only 22 programs reported profitability in 2010, according to the NCAA's 2004-2010 Revenues & Expenses report .

Not a single women's program (in whole) was profitable, and a grand total of one women's college-basketball team turned a profit last season. (The report didn't name the women's team, but here's guessing it's either Geno Auriemma's dynasty at the University of Connecticut or Pat Summitt's squad at the University of Tennessee.) On the other hand, 69 football teams (58 percent of the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision) and 67 men's basketball teams (56 percent) reported profitability last season. Over the past seven seasons, between 50 and 60 percent of the football and men's basketball teams have been profitable, according to the report.

Long story short, colleges can't only pay the stars who make the schools money, because Title IX would require those same opportunities be afforded to females. Seeing as not a single women's program in Division I was profitable last season, it's hard to imagine schools jumping for this plan.

*The one proposal that hasn't yet been mentioned, but has been championed by ESPN analyst Jay Bilas frequently in recent months: the Olympic model. In other words, not having schools directly pay student-athletes, but allowing them to sign endorsement deals and profit off their likenesses (which they're currently prohibited from doing).

Sports Illustrated's Michael Rosenberg summed up the Olympic model proposal well earlier this week:

The simple fact is that college athletes want to get paid (who wouldn't?) and there are literally thousands of people out there who would like to pay them. Why are we stopping this? What is the big deal? What do you think would happen if your starting quarterback was allowed to take $100,000 from somebody who enjoyed watching him play? Would the Earth crash into the sun?

The High School Impact

Hypothetically, if the NCAA were to establish a pay-for-play system for collegiate athletes tomorrow, it wouldn't directly affect high school student-athletes (at least, not until they went to college). The high school players still wouldn't receive money for competing while in high school. But, in this scenario, they would have the opportunity to turn their athletic talents into some hard-earned cash if they decided to continue playing sports at the collegiate level.

What does that mean for high school sports? No one can say for certain. Let's examine a few possibilities:

• An increase in competitiveness: This, of all the possibilities presented, would appear most likely to happen. If student-athletes knew they could make money off their athletic talents in college, high school competitions could become that much more cutthroat.

That, in turn, could cause student-athletes to focus more on displaying their own talents—"getting theirs" on the field or on the court—instead of learning solid fundamentals and the importance of team play.

Many basketball experts lament that the AAU basketball circuit has already led to the degradation of skills in young players, as too many are trying to prove that they're the next Michael Jordan. Players attempt to shine to impress college scouts, but sacrifice the ideals of teamwork in the process.

This could apply to parents, too. We've already heard countless horror stories of soccer moms gone wild when something doesn't go their kid's way; what happens when Little Johnny isn't just competing for an athletic scholarship, but some extra cash on the side?

• More agent "runners" around high school sports: While NCAA rules strictly prohibit agents from contacting high school and college prospects, it's no secret that those rules aren't being enforced 100 percent of the time. As a workaround, agents often send so-called "runners"—third parties directly tied to the agent, who push the agent's agenda to a student-athlete.

Say the NCAA enacted the "pay-the-superstars" proposal, or allowed players to profit off their likenesses. Like it or not, either of those proposals would likely attract more agents to the high school players likely to make money in college, as the agents would stand to profit from the players' newfound freedom.

• An emphasis on athletics over academics: You already don't have to look far to find someone lamenting how schools overemphasize athletic success in comparison to academics. Now, what happens when you add future financial gains for student-athletes into the equation?

Chances are, the student-athletes who plan on playing at the next level would only focus harder on their athletics, knowing the new financial stakes. And who could blame them?

That said, it's worth remembering that very few high school athletes end up receiving athletic scholarships in college, and even fewer go on to play sports professionally. Of the 400,000+ student-athletes participating in collegiate sports in the 2009-10 school year, roughly 126,000 of them held athletic scholarships, according to the NCAA. More than 7.5 million student-athletes participated in high school sports in the 2009-10 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Say even half of those 7.5 million student-athletes start focusing primarily on athletics instead of academics, given the lure of cashing in on their talent at the collegiate level. That'd be roughly 4 million student-athletes aiming to fill roughly 125,000 athletic scholarships. Suffice it to say, those numbers don't exactly add up well.

• Potential decrease in dropouts: For student-athletes whose families are in poor financial shape, a collegiate pay-for-play system could be motivation for them to remain in school. Not only could they receive an athletic scholarship to cover most of the costs of college; the pay-for-play system would likely cover most additional student-athlete expenses. The parents of said student-athletes could then be absolved of major financial responsibility for their kids while in college.

Some student-athletes may end up prioritizing their athletic development over their academic growth, but wouldn't it ultimately be better for a student-athlete to remain in school, no matter what?

Keep in mind, we're likely many months away from a pay-for-play system being installed in college sports, assuming it even happens. That said, here's hoping the NCAA considers the impact a pay-for-play system could have on youth sports before diving right in.

Photo: Cam Newton, the Carolina Panthers' No. 1 overall draft pick, arrives at Bank of America stadium in Charlotte, N.C., the day after the NFL lockout ended. Newton's father, Cecil, was involved in a pay-for-play controversy late in 2010. (Chuck Burton/AP)

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The NCAA will host an "educational summit"in Indianapolis on Aug. 22 to discuss the airing of high school sports on collegiate networks, as some colleges have expressed concern that those networks could provide recruiting advantages to their respective schools.

The University of Texas, which earlier this year signed a $300 million, 20-year agreement with ESPN to form the 24/7 Longhorn Network, received an invitation to the gathering from the NCAA, dated Monday, according to CBSSports.com. Beyond covering sports at Texas, the Longhorn Network planned on giving high school sports coverage on an authenticated website, according to the original press release from April.

Texas isn't the only university to have its own network, as Brigham Young University runs footage of their sports teams on BYUtv.com. The Big 10 conference has its own Big 10 Network with FOX, and the newly-formed Pac 12 conference also announced a new conference network in partnership with ESPN and FOX earlier this year.

The high school exposure aspect of the Longhorn Network rubbed some fellow Big 12 conference members the wrong way. Texas A&M, a rival of the Longhorns, hasn't been shy about voicing opposition to the network because of a potential recruiting advantage it may create.

And the furor over televising high school games on the Longhorn Network skyrocketed in early June, after Dave Brown, the network vice president of programming, spoke on Austin radio station KZNX-FM about the specific plans regarding televising high school games.

Brown said that the network planned on broadcasting at least 18 high school games this season and hinted that it would try to feature those with prospects being recruited by Division I schools—particularly Texas or other Big 12 schools. (SportsByBrooks.com provides a partial transcript here.)

At the Big 12 media days on Monday, University of Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel added his name to the list of Longhorn Network detractors. "It's a lack of common sense there to think that the network, the university network, can have high school games," Pinkel said. "I'll leave that to some other people to make those decisions."

For his part, Texas football coach Mack Brown believes that televising high school football games won't be an advantage to Texas alone; he thinks the network could benefit the Big 12 as a whole.

"I think the people that would be hurt if you don't show high school games will be the high school coach, the players who 99 percent (sic) will not even play college football," Brown said at the media-days event. "My gosh, the Big 12 is full of Texas high school football players. So if you think about it, there would be a lot more prospects from the other teams in the Big 12 on the network than the ones from Texas."

Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds has repeatedly stressed that Texas will take every necessary step to ensure that the Longhorn Network remains in compliance with NCAA rules. "ESPN will select the games based on what they feel is best," Dodds told the Houston Chronicle in mid-July.

"I'm stunned [at some of this]," said Dodds on Monday, according to CBSSports.com. "We've been saying the same thing from the beginning of this. We are not and will never do anything [to violate rules]. I'm a little surprised people would be concerned about us doing something."

Dodds noted that the Big 12 athletic directors will meet on Aug. 1, three weeks ahead of the NCAA summit, to discuss the issue of airing youth sports on collegiate TV networks. Until the Big 12 and NCAA convene, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe has put the televising of high school games on the Longhorn Network on hold, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The National Federation of State High School Associations has been invited to attend the one-day summit, as have broadcasting experts. At the summit, invitees are expected to discuss how these new television networks could affect NCAA rules governing amateurism and recruiting.

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Kevin Riley of the LeaderTalk blog wrote yesterday that the success of the U.S. soccer team at the recent Women's World Cup suggests that "we are all beneficiaries of Title IX."

Title IX, which came to be law in 1972, forces schools that receive federal funding to provide equal athletic opportunities to both males and females. As Riley notes, Title IX was based on the equal protection clause of the Constitution—the same clause responsible for defining student rights in special education, bilingual education, and school desegregation.

Riley writes:

Title IX represented a vision of opportunity and equal treatment that has, forty years later, inspired our daughters to excel in every walk of life. And not just our daughters because many of those Japanese athletes grew up watching Mia Hamm and now play professional soccer here in the U.S.

Engraved in the golden walls of the World Cup is (at least metaphorically) a kind of promise—that when you provide every person with legitimate opportunities to fully develop their natural gift, the boundless potential of the entire human family comes closer to fruition.

He quickly follows up by noting that Title IX hasn't resulted in total educational equity, as many other subgroups—immigrant students, LGBT students, homeless students, and bullying victims, to name a few—remain unprotected by any federal law. Those subgroups of students deserve equal attention, Riley writes.

After all, as the U.S. women's soccer team proved at the Women's World Cup, we now know "what happens when we let all of our kids compete," he says.

That is the legacy of Title IX which we all inherited—a promise to our children that they can play, too. As equals. That is what makes the quest for the World Cup worthy of your journey. And mine.

It's worth noting that Title IX isn't universally revered, even as we approach its 40th anniversary. The American Sports Council filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Dept. of Ed. regarding the use of Title IX's three-part compliance test in high schools. The ASC argues that using the three-part test in high schools could sideline over 1 million male athletes, and violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Photo: Team USA players celebrate after scoring the opening goal during the final match between Japan and the United States at the Women's Soccer World Cup in Frankfurt, Germany, on July 17. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The heat wave sweeping across the nation has brought heat indexes of 120 degrees Fahrenheit in certain parts of the country in recent days. In Tennessee, the sky-high temperatures prompted schools to change the times of sports practices to keep their student-athletes safe.

Jim Glover, football coach at McNairy Central High School in Selmer, Tenn., told The Jackson Sun that his team had been starting practices at 6 a.m. to avoid the heat.

"We're going to have two-a-days in the last week of July without pads," Glover said. "We're going to go from 6 to 8 then 10 to noon. Then we'll have the rest of the day to do whatever we need to do. The coaches enjoy it and have wondered why this hasn't been the way it's been done all along."

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association prohibits schools from sending students out to practice when the heat index exceeds 105 degrees. When the heat index falls between 95 and 104 degrees, coaches in Tennessee must provide ample water at all times in practice, take mandatory water breaks every 30 minutes for 10 minute periods, and re-check the heat index every 30 minutes.

The TSSAA also recommends pushing practice back later in the day or sending student-athletes into indoor, air-conditioned spaces for practice. Coaches, with few other options, have had to schedule practice early in the morning or later at night to avoid the hottest parts of the day.

Coaches at Heritage High School in Maryville, Tenn., told WBIR.com that they measure the heat index every 30 minutes with a tool called a digital psychorometer. The Heritage coaches also give their football players water breaks (with ice) every 20 minutes.

"All of our camps were scheduled for 6:30 p.m. originally," University School of Jackson head coach Mickey Marley told the Sun. "But there were a couple of days last week when we checked the heat index then, and it was up to 112."

This marks the third year for the TSSAA's heat-index rules, according to the Associated Press.

The National Weather Service issued an alert yesterday warning that the heat wave would continue sending heat indexes above 120 degrees in certain places. Much to our chagrin at EdWeek, it appears that the East Coast is currently falling victim to the heat wave.

According to weather.com, it's supposed to be 102 degrees in Washington, D.C., today, with a heat index around 115 degrees. Stay safe and stay inside as much as possible if you're in temperatures like this, folks.

UPDATE (12:50 p.m.): H/T to ASCD SmartBrief for this one. Tennessee isn't the only state adjusting sports practices due the the heat wave, according to the Associated Press. Schools in Oklahoma and Kansas are adjusting their practice schedules accordingly as well.

"Ultimately, we never want to take a chance on a player or a coach's health and well-being," said Allan Trimble, the football coach at Jenks (Okla.) High School. "It's simply not worth the risk."

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive kicked off his conference's media day on Wednesday by proposing a number of reforms for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, all of which would ultimately benefit student-athletes. And he didn't just stop at colleges—high schools were well within his sights, too.

In no particular order, Slive proposed:

• An increase in the required GPA for initial eligibility, from 2.0 to 2.5. Any athlete who has a 2.0 GPA but falls short of the 2.5 standard would be allowed to practice with his or her team, but could not compete until their sophomore year.

• A progress bar in core classes that high school student-athletes must pass on a yearly basis to maintain their eligibility for college sports.

• Multiyear athletic scholarships. Currently, athletic scholarships must be renewed on a year-to-year basis, which sometimes comes as a surprise to student-athletes.

• Full-cost attendance athletic scholarships. Studies suggest that current athletic scholarships leave student-athletes paying $3,000 out of pocket each year. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany recently broached the subject of full-cost scholarships as well.

• The return of partially-qualifying athletes. These are student-athletes who don't qualify academically but can still practice with their teams. They can only compete once they straighten their grades out.

• Extending the six-year window for student-athletes to finish their degrees while under scholarship. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently spoke out in favor of a plan that would allow athletes extra time to obtain their scholarships. Duncan also said he'd be "more than open" to the idea of multiyear, guaranteed athletic scholarships.

Slive admitted that his proposals wouldn't suddenly cure college sports from some of the not-so-kosher happenings that have made headlines in recent months.

"It will have some impact. But you know, in all the years we've been doing this and raising standards, kids are competitors and tough and tenacious and they appear to rise to the occasion," Slive said, according to ESPN. "To me, the crux of the academic proposals is the high school satisfactory progress. We've just seen too many youngsters who don't wake up until they are juniors or seniors to realize they are talented."

"Now all of a sudden to be eligible they've got to pass all these core courses. That's where some of the problems came from. If you take the 16 core courses and you require a certain number to be passed every year then you force the young person to realize that if he wants to play in the first year he's got to start now."

Granted, proposing these reforms and actually adopting them for the conference are two entirely different beasts. There's no guarantee that any of these will become a rule in the conference, much less the NCAA as a whole.

Still, proposals like these only stand to benefit one group of people: the student-athletes. It's tough to find fault with that.

Photo: Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive talks with reporters during Southeastern Conference Football Media Days in Birmingham, Ala. on July 20. (Dave Martin/AP)

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Posted by Bryan Toporek at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The now-renamed American Sports Council (formerly the College Sports Council) filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Education over the use of Title IX's three-part compliance test in high schools, arguing that this type of enforcement violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

It's worth noting that lawsuits with similar arguments, such as the Equity in Athletics Inc. v. Department of Education case decided by an appeals court in March, haven't yet found success in the legal system. [UPDATE (2:30 p.m.): Joshua Thompson, an attorney for the Calif.-based Pacific Legal Foundation, said on a conference call today that "the method and the way that {the ASC is} challenging the three-part test has never been challenged in court."]

Title IX, passed in 1972, requires any school receiving federal financial aid to allow both boys and girls to participate in any educational program or activity. If schools fall out of compliance with the law, they could lose federal funding.

In order to comply with Title IX, schools must satisfy one of three participation requirements:

• Ensuring that female athletic participation is in proportion to total female enrollment;

• Demonstrating a history of expanding athletic opportunities for females; or

• Proving that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of their female students.

The ASC believes that Title IX's three-part test has forced districts to eliminate certain men's sports in order to remain in compliance with the law. Back in February, the then-CSC urged high schools to ignore Title IX's three-part compliance test, predicting that the rule could sideline upwards of 1.3 million male athletes.

In the lawsuit, filed today in federal district court in Washington, D.C., the ASC claims, "If high schools are required to submit to the same regulatory burdens as have colleges over the past three decades, high school athletes and their teams will face similar discrimination in the form of numerical quotas on sex-specific athletic participation."

The basis of the ASC's claims can be seen in a letter from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative think tank, that was sent to the Dept. of Ed.'s office for civil rights in February. Thompson, a PLF attorney, said earlier this year that "no federal regulation or interpretation has ever said that high schools must abide by the three-part test and the sex-based quota system it fosters." The ASC's lawsuit maintains that all further interpretations of Title IX specifically say that they were designed for intercollegiate athletics.

Technically, they may be right. The main policy interpretation they reference, issued in 1979 by what was then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, does specifically say that it's designed for intercollegiate athletics. That said, the next two sentences read, "However, its general principles will often apply to club, intramural, and interscholastic athletic programs, which are also covered by regulation. Accordingly, the policy Interpretation may be used for guidance by the administrators of such programs when appropriate."

To date, these two sentences have provided the backbone for federal courts upholding the constitutionality of applying Title IX's three-part test to high schools.

In June 2007, the then-CSC petitioned the Dept. of Ed. to clarify the rules regarding applying Title IX to high school athletics, particularly in regard to the three-part test. The Ed. Dept. denied the council's petition on March 27, 2008, and the ASC is now suing to overturn that decision, according to the suit filed today.

In the ED's 2008 letter to the Pacific Legal Foundation, then-Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings wrote, "The three­-part test neither violates equal protection nor creates a gender-conscious affirmative action or quota system. The three-part test provides three separate ways to measure a school's compliance with one aspect of the Title IX regulations. Federal courts have agreed that the three-part test is not a quota, ... and every federal court that has considered an equal protection challenge to the three-part test has upheld its constitutionality."

Not surprisingly, the Women's Sports Foundation has some rather strong feelings toward the ASC's attempts to free high schools from Title IX's compliance test. (The foundation also has a position statement available online specifically addressing the concerns that Title IX enforcement could lead to a reduction in male sports.)

"Far from imposing quotas, the three-part test is merely a measurement, a benchmark for determining whether schools distribute sex-segregated athletic participation opportunities fairly," said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, senior director of advocacy at the WSF, in a recent email interview. "Courts have repeatedly recognized that the three-part test in no way creates quotas."

"The three-part test has been uniformly upheld as constitutional by every federal court to have considered it, including high school cases," she continued. "In short, the CSC is attempting to inject uncertainty into an area where there is none."

Hogshead-Makar cited comments made by Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, to the New York Times in February: "The law is really clear, and has been since 1979, and it has been applied uniformly to K-12 and colleges and universities across Democratic and Republican administrations."

Check back later today, and I'll try to have a comment from the ED.

As part of the rollout of its lawsuit, the American Sports Council also announced its new name today.

"Title IX enforcement's next battlefield will be American high schools, and we need to change our name to reflect a broader mandate," said Eric Pearson, chairman of the ASC, in a press release.

Back when it was the CSC, the group described itself as "a national coalition of coaches, athletes, parents, and fans who are devoted to preserving and promoting the student-athlete experience." Its press release notes that the now-ASC/formerly-CSC has been leading the fight to reform Title IX enforcement for nearly a decade.

UPDATE (2:30 p.m.): Just got off the ASC's press conference call about 45 minutes ago. Joining us on the call were Pearson, the ASC chairman, Thompson, the attorney from the PLF, and Dwight Johnson, a Colorado parent of three who has been trying to get boys' high school volleyball recognized as an official sport.

Both Pearson and Thompson said that while similar lawsuits about Title IX have been filed previously, with little judicial success, theirs is the first to directly target the use of three-part test in high schools (to their knowledge). Thompson said, "We're suing to protect the integrity and honest implementation of Title IX, which was never meant to create sex-based quotas."

Pearson also noted that their case stems from the 1979 policy interpretation that I referenced above. He mentioned that the interpretation was designed specifically for college athletics, but the problem stems from the language which states that the same policy interpretation "may be used" in interscholastic, club, and intramural sports programs. Pearson stressed that "may be used" doesn't necessarily mean that schools must follow these rules.

Johnson spoke about his specific experiences in Colorado, where he's been trying to get boys' volleyball recognized as a sanctioned high school sport. According to Johnson, the Colorado High School Activities Association has cited Title IX as a deterrent to having boys' volleyball recognized.

Johnson also said that while 30 Colorado high schools have ice hockey recognized as a sanctioned sport, roughly 20 other schools only have ice hockey available at a club level, due to districts trying to remain compliant with Title IX.

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Over the next two and a half months, Sprite will have more than $600,000 up for grabs in the Sprite Sparks Parks contest, a school-based competition for playground and athletic-field upgrades. Schools will compete for one of 25 grants worth $25,000 up through Sept. 30 of this year.

"The Sprite Spark Parks Project for Schools supports local communities and breathes new life into the recreation spaces that are so important to teens," said Michael Mathews, vice president of Sparkling Non-Colas, Coca-Cola North America, in a press release. "We saw an ongoing need for outdoor spaces at schools. Sprite is adding a spark back into school playgrounds and athletic fields by building places where youth can get active and stay refreshed with their friends."

Specially marked packages of Sprite will have "My Coke Rewards" codes, which can be entered online and will allow users to nominate their local schools for the grants.

Sprite plans on spending more than $2 million this year building or revamping a bare minimum of 150 outdoor spaces, such as playgrounds, athletic fields, and basketball courts. The company isn't waiting until October to get started; this month, it's giving seven K-12 schools a $25,000 makeover on their playgrounds or athletic fields.

It's impossible to write this entry without pointing out that soda companies aren't often seen as partners in the fight against childhood obesity. In fact, you don't have to Google search for too long before finding a study suggesting a direct link between soft drink consumption and childhood obesity.

That said, the major soda companies have started chipping in against childhood obesity in recent years. In May 2006, Coca-Cola Co., Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, and PepsiCo Inc. agreed to withdraw all full-calorie carbonated sugary beverages from schools by the 2009-10 school year. According to a 2010 press release from the American Beverage Association, those three companies did deliver on their promise, resulting in a 88 percent decrease in calories shipped to schools from beverage companies since 2004.

I'll guiltily confess: Back in my high school, we had a few soda machines throughout the building, and I'd be known to frequent said machines. Removing that opportunity from K-12 students during the school day certainly won't hurt in the fight against childhood obesity.

Now, with Sprite donating more than $2 million for the renovation of athletic fields and playgrounds—namely, outdoor spaces meant to promote physical activity in students—it's becoming harder to accuse these major soda companies of not pulling their weight in this fight. (Pardon the bad pun.)

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Remember the days when athletes (both student and professional) shook off concussions as no big deal? A new study finds that people who suffer traumatic brain injuries—such as concussions—could be permanently changing their brains for the worse.

The study, which appears online in Brain Pathology, examines the post-mortem brains of 39 longtime survivors of a single TBI (anywhere from 1 to 47 years survival after the TBI), and compared them with the brains of uninjured, age-matched controls.

Strap your medical-terminology reading hats on, folks.

The researchers found higher instances of neurofibrillary tau tangles (NFTs) and amyloid-beta plaques in survivors of TBIs, while the uninjured brains hardly ever contained tau tangles. NFTs occur when tau proteins work their way into the brain's neurons, and often signal degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease.

NFTs are also the primary sign of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition that has claimed the lives of multiple pro athletes in recent years, particularly football players and boxers. Just yesterday, a group of 75 former NFL players sued the league for reportedly hiding information about the damaging effects of concussions, as TMZ first reported.

Amyloid-beta plaques are extra deposits of amyloid within the gray matter of the brain, and like NFTs, signal degenerative brain diseases. For definite diagnosis of Alzheimer's with dementia patients, both the NFTs and amyloid-beta plaques must be present.

Roughly one-third of the single TBI sufferers in the study displayed signs of this widespread NFT accumulation.

The researchers discovered that in the brains of single TBI sufferers who died within four weeks of suffering the injury, the same tau accumulation cannot be found. This suggests that after suffering a TBI, the tau proteins progressively degenerate and eventually cause the accumulation of NFTs, instead of a spread of NFTs appearing immediately.

The amyloid-beta plaques in the brains of TBI sufferers, which had previously been thought to disappear within months of the injury, showed up years after the TBI in some of the brains studied. These amyloid-beta plaques also displayed the same characteristics of plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

"A single traumatic brain injury is very serious, both initially, and as we're now learning, even later in life," said Dr. Douglas Smith, the study's co-author and the director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, in a press release. "Plaques and tangles are appearing abnormally early in life, apparently initiated or accelerated by a single TBI."

Now, don't take this study to mean that any student-athlete who suffers a concussion is fated to a lifetime of Alzheimer's. A single TBI increases the likelihood of a neurodegenerative disease, but doesn't guarantee anything.

What this study does suggest is the importance of ensuring that student-athletes who suffer a concussion fully and completely heal from their injury before returning to competition. Roughly 30 states now have laws requiring coaches to remove student-athletes from play if they're suspected of a concussion and requiring those students to obtain medical clearance before returning. No state spells out specific return-to-play guidelines for student-athletes and coaches.

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The Farmington, N.M., school district has voted to allow 8th graders to play any high school sport aside from football, but those same students could be jeopardizing their freshman-year eligibility under the same policy.

The school board voted 4-1 to allow 8th graders to play at the high school level as long as they remain in their own attendance area in the district, according to The Daily Times. If the students who play high school sports decide to attend a high school outside their attendance area in the district, they'll lose their freshman-year eligibility for playing varsity sports at their new school. All freshmen will be eligible for junior varsity sports, if they're offered.

The ineligibility provision applies only 8th grade students who play for their area's high school sports team, then attend a different high school the next year. Students who don't play high school sports in 8th grade and transfer to a different high school remain unaffected by the new rules as well.

The policy also requires 8th graders to finish their middle school season before competing at the high school level. If their middle school doesn't offer the sport they're interested in, those students can play at the high school level for the whole season.

"We're not harming kids by this policy," said Superintendent Janel Ryan after a school board meeting last week, according to the Times. "What we're saying by this is, try your own school."

The board members cited the concern of waivers as a driving factor behind the new policy, noting that roughly half the district's waiver requests are related to athletics.

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Two studies and a commentary released in the past few weeks have focused specifically on the youth-obesity epidemic that's exploded across the U.S. in the past 20 years. All in all, there's not a lot of good news for the States.

Let's dive right into them:

The Rise of U.S. Youth Obesity

Obesity began spiking in U.S. teens and young adults in the 1990s and 2000s, according to a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health that examines more than 40 years of BMI data.

Young people maintained a relatively steady weight throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, but the researchers noticed a large increase in the weights of early-adolescents around 1990. For reasons unclear to the researchers, females and African-Americans were more prone to weight increases—particularly black women from 1999-2002. (The study's most recent data came from 2002.)

"For young people in particular, it has to do with more of a sedentary lifestyle and an increasing portion of weekly meals that are fast food," said study co-author Kathleen Mullan Harris in an interview with the Health Behavior News Service."There's more TV watching and sitting in front of the computer, as well as more video game-playing."

The study's authors believe that their research speaks to the need to develop preventative obesity measures in childhood, in hopes of discouraging obesity-promoting activities before they become inherent in a child's lifestyle.

Warnings Pointless?

A number of schools around the country have begun gathering body mass index data of their students. As one recent study suggests, those data don't have nearly as much impact on parents of overweight children as one might suspect.

California has required almost all public schools to gather students' BMI data since 2001, giving Dr. Kristine Madsen of the Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, a data pool of nearly 7 million BMI tests. Only some schools sent that data home to students' parents.

Madsen discovered that notifying the parents of overweight children about their child's weight issues had no impact on his or her future weight loss. Overweight children whose parents weren't notified were equally likely to have lost weight.

That led Madsen to conclude that schools should focus on health-based interventions they control, such as increasing the healthiness of school lunches and emphasizing the importance of physical activity.

"Physical education is probably the most underused public-health tool we have," she said in an interview with Reuters. "We really would urge schools to make sure their environments are supporting physical activity to the extent possible."

Madsen noted that her study doesn't conclusively prove the ineffectiveness of notifications in general; instead, the California notifications themselves could be the problem. The schools mostly notify parents with a letter—which, Madsen says, could easily go ignored—and the letters refer to students' BMIs, rarely using the words "overweight" or "obese."

Obesity as Child Abuse?

Should parents of morbidly obese children lose their custody rights? A Harvard researcher and a Children's Hospital Boston doctor argue that they should, in a recent commentary for The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Professor Lindsey Murtagh and Dr. David S. Ludwig write that inadequate parental supervision—such as leaving excessive amounts of junk food around the house or allowing a child to maintain a sedentary lifestyle—can contribute to obesity. They compare this type of poor parenting to the dangers of second-hand cigarette smoke—something that has negative health implications for a child, but isn't technically criminal.

It's worth stressing that the authors aren't referring to every overweight child here—only those whose obesity could pose life-threatening risks, such as type 2 diabetes. (We're talking 300-pound 10-year-olds, not a child who could stand to lose 10 pounds.)

And thus, the authors argue, "In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable from a legal standpoint because of imminent health risks and the parents' chronic failure to address medical problems."

They do say that this type of state intervention wouldn't be ideal, given the varying quality of foster care, and would need to be carefully considered when being applied.

"Ultimately," the authors conclude, "government can reduce the need for such interventions through investments in the social infrastructure and policies to improve diet and promote physical activity among children."

Lessons Learned

The one commonality in all three pieces: The government, schools, and parents alike need to be promoting a physically active lifestyle to set an example for younger generations.

For schools that collect BMI data and report the findings to parents, they must work harder on delivering their messages effectively—especially to parents of overweight children. Whether that means educating parents on healthy BMI levels or using the words "overweight" and "obese" in more forms of communication, the University of California, San Francisco, study suggests that the message isn't yet getting across clearly.

Ultimately, the commentary from the Boston duo is a call for accountability in the obesity epidemic. If parents allow their children to endanger their lives with their weight, the authors argue, those parents should be held accountable for their actions.

As it turns out, a school board member in Virginia Beach, Va., also made a recent call for accountability, saying that phys. ed. teachers should be eventually held responsible if their students don't boost their fitness levels.

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Physical education teachers in the Virginia Beach school district could eventually be facing an accountability crackdown, thanks to school board Chairman Dan Edwards, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

While teachers have faced increased scrutiny about their evaluations, phys. ed. teachers traditionally can't be measured in the same ways as teachers of most other subjects. Edwards wants to take advantage of a growing pool of student fitness data and eventually hold phys. ed. teachers responsible if their students don't boost their fitness levels.

In May 2010, first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign recommended that schools collect "valid and reliable data" to help inform student needs and current fitness levels. Let's Move suggests that PE programs have students engaging in moderate to vigorous activity for at least 50 percent of the time and wants schools to encourage physical activity for all students.

Virginia already requires its schools to test students in five fitness areas, according to the Pilot: aerobic, endurance, abdominal strength, upper-body strength, back strength and flexibility. Before this past school year, Virginia Beach hadn't analyzed its student fitness data.

Now, phys. ed. teachers must report student fitness scores to parents and principals.

Joe Burnsworth, assistant superintendent for curriculum, told the paper that parents can opt their children out of the fitness tests. Students also have the option of taking an online gym class in lieu of exercising with their classmates.

Burnsworth said the district noticed a decrease in physical activity once students reached high school, but can't offer an explanation. Next year, according to Burnsworth, every school in the district will have an electronic fat-loss monitor to measure students' body mass indexes to help phys. ed. teachers keep numeric data on body-fat changes.

"Our goal is to produce students who recognize the value of lifelong fitness," Burnsworth said.

Keep in mind, in late March, Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell vetoed a bill that would have required 150 minutes of physical activity per week in K-8 schools across the state. McDonnell called the bill a "significant unfunded mandate passed from one level of government to another."

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Nearly 30 U.S. states now have laws regarding student-athlete concussion awareness and prevention, but none of those state laws requires schools to administer baseline concussion tests before the start of the season.

According to research recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, that's a mistake. All student-athletes need individual concussion baselines before the start of a sport season for accurate diagnosis, according to the new study.

The study, titled "Sideline Management of Concussions in Adolescent Athletes: Can the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 2 (SCAT2) Be Accurately Used to Determine Return to Play Status?," sought to examine the effectiveness of the SCAT2, a baseline concussion test.

The purpose of baseline concussion tests in sports is to measure a student-athlete's typical brain-activity level (the baseline). When a student-athlete may have sustained a concussion, he/she would retake the concussion test, and medical professionals would compare the results of the two. The more a student-athlete diverges in the responses on the two tests, the more likely it is that he/she sustained a concussion.

But not all healthy athletes have the same baselines, as the researchers point out.

"Our results showed that otherwise healthy adolescent athletes do display some variability in results so establishing each player's own baseline before the season starts and then comparing it to test results following a concussion leads to more accurate diagnosis and treatment," said lead researcher Dr. Anikar Chhabra of the Orthopaedic Clinic Association in Phoenix, according to a press release.

The researchers studied a total of 1,134 student-athletes—872 males and 262 females—from 15 high schools around the Phoenix area. All participants answered a brief questionnaire about their personal concussion history, then were given a baseline score based on their SCAT2 results.

Females scored "significantly higher" than males on the SCAT2 scores, and athletes with no history of concussions also scored much higher than those student-athletes with a prior history of concussions. There's no benefit to scoring higher or lower on the baseline test; it's the variability of the baseline scores that speak to the need of using these tests, say the researchers.

"This data provides the first insight into how the SCAT2 scores can be used and interpreted as a sideline concussion tool and as an initial baseline analysis. With concussions accounting for approximately 9 percent of all high school athletic injuries, accurately utilizing assessments like these to quickly determine an athlete's return-to-play probability is critical to long term athletic and educational performance," said Chhabra.

It's worth noting that the SCAT2 isn't the only baseline concussion test out there. Other companies such as ImPACT and Axon Sports are already working with schools to implement baseline tests for their student-athletes.

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How young is too young for daily exercise? The British government would tell you that threshold doesn't exist, even for babies and toddlers.

The U.K. Department of Health issued new health guidelines this week that call for regular daily exercise for all citizens—including those under age 5.

The new guidelines note that current physical-activity recommendations target only those citizens 5 and older, whether explicitly stated or not. With a recent study revealing that Britain has the highest obesity-related death rate in Europe, according to the Daily Mail, the British government has begun targeting the early-years population to reverse the obesity trend.

According to the recommendations, British citizens should encourage physical activity in their children from birth, particularly in the form of floor-based and water-based activities. The guidelines also recommend that all British citizens—including the population younger than 5—minimize the amount of time spent being sedentary (except while sleeping), calling these activities "obesogenic" (or obesity-promoting).

Ultimately, the guidelines call for three hours of daily physical activity for children younger than 5 who can walk. The researchers note that most U.K. preschoolers already receive anywhere from 120-150 minutes of physical activity on a daily basis, so they're only suggesting adding 30-60 extra minutes per day.

For infants who can't yet walk, the Dept. of Health suggests physical activities such as "tummy time" (any time spent on the stomach, including rolling and playing on the floor), reaching for and grasping objects, and "parent and baby" swim lessons. Included as ways to reduce sedentary behavior: limiting time spent in infant carriers, car seats, or walking aids/baby bouncers.

According to the guidelines, children ages 5-18 should be getting at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day, including bone/muscle strengthening activities three times a week. (For what it's worth, the National Association of Sport and Physical Education calls for similar levels of physical activity in U.S. 5-12-year-olds.)

"It's vital that parents introduce children to fun and physically active pastimes to help prevent them becoming obese children, who are likely to become obese adults at risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers," said Maura Gillespie, head of Policy and Advocacy at the British Heart Foundation, in a statement, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Add Idaho to the list of Western states accused of Title IX violations this year, as 100 Idaho high schools in 78 districts were recently named in a Title IX complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education.

Title IX mandates that any school that receives federal funding must provide equal athletic and educational opportunities. According to the complaint, 78 of the state's 115 school districts did not provide equal athletic opportunities to female student-athletes.

The complaint also charges that certain schools have a disproportionately small number of female student-athletes compared with their overall female population, which would be in violation of Title IX. It further alleges that schools artificially inflated the numbers of girls taking part in sports by including cheerleading and dance.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last July that schools cannot use competitive cheerleading as a sport to comply with Title IX. According to the court, sports only count under Title IX if they have coaches, practices, and competitions during a defined season, a governing organization, and competition as the primary goal.

The complaint also accuses schools of failing to inform female students about other athletic opportunities, reports the Times-News—a clear violation of Title IX, if true.

Schools can demonstrate Title IX compliance in one of three ways:

• Ensuring that female athletic participation is in proportion to total female enrollment;

• Demonstrating a history of expanding athletic opportunities for females; or

• Proving that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of female students.

The government has not revealed the source of the accusations. The complainants request that the Dept. of Ed.'s office for civil rights investigate each school named in the 600-page complaint, according to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

"We have all the confidence in our schools to do the right thing," said John Billetz, executive director of the Idaho High School Activities Association, according to the AP. "We will be compliant and do what needs to be done to get compliant if need be."

Oregon and Washington state have also been named in Title IX complaints this year with the Dept. of Ed. The OCR is actively investigating Washington state's office of superintendent of public instruction as a result, while it's still determining whether to further pursue the Oregon complaints.

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College sports are currently embroiled in a "should we pay student-athletes" debate, largely because the NCAA infrastructure has developed into a multibillion-dollar empire. New York City appears ready to take the first step toward that debate with its high schools.

The New York City public school system is currently negotiating a two-year, $500,000 contract with the MSG Varsity Network—a Cablevision network dedicated solely to high school sports—for the television rights to its high school sports teams, according to the Associated Press. The city's Panel for Educational Policy is expected to approve the contract (once finalized) on July 20, the AP reports.

"We are extremely pleased at the prospect of becoming the official sports network of the Public School Athletic League, and believe that a partnership between MSG Varsity and the PSAL will deliver significant value to New York City students, parents, educators, and the community at large," MSG Varsity said in a statement.

Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the district, told the AP that the school system would use the contract money for high school sports funding.

As the New York Post suggests, the deal stands to benefit any student-athletes looking for extra exposure in an attempt to score an athletic scholarship, as well as fans of lesser-televised sports like lacrosse, field hockey, and wrestling.

Now, there's clearly a difference between this $250,000 annual contract and the $300 million, 20-year contract that ESPN inked with the University of Texas earlier this year. With most high school sports operating at a loss, it's not like $250,000 for the entire district warrants a stipend for high school athletes.

And it would be entirely hypocritical of me to suggest sponsorships as a potential source of revenue for their sports teams while pooh-poohing NYC's TV contract move.

But this ultimately touches on a much larger philosophical conversation: What is the purpose of high school sports? How much importance should sports hold compared to academics?

With schools entering TV contracts for their sports teams and selling sponsorships on their scoreboards, there's reason to believe that sports would only become more heavily emphasized at the high school level.

Then again, a 1989 article from the New York Times about national televising of high school sporting events spoke largely to those fears and proves that we haven't advanced all that far down the slippery slope in the 20 years since.

Back in 1989, the NBC- and Cablevision-owned SportsChannel America was negotiating to televise the first-ever national high school basketball game of the week. The company eventually thought that nationally televised games could lead to the creation of a national high school sports tournament, much like the NCAA basketball tournaments.

Brice Durbin, the then-executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, told the Times that he originally opposed the idea of a national championship, but came around on the idea.

"If it's good, if it's educationally sound, it could happen," Durbin said. "The last thing we want is to make the program so important that it becomes the reason you go to school.''

So, will New York City's still-to-be-finalized TV contract lead to the unraveling of the high school sport structure as we know it? There's little chance of that.

But high schools should keep the current mess of college sports in mind when negotiating these contracts. The last thing high schools should want is to attract more of the seedy subculture that's already pervasive throughout high-profile sports at the college level.

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After nearly two decades of magic on the tennis court, Andre Agassi is ready to tackle his next big challenge: giving large numbers of underprivileged children a chance to succeed through charter schools.

The Los Angeles Times reported last month that Agassi planned on teaming up with a group of Los Angeles bankers to create a for-profit investment fund dedicated to raising money for charter school construction. The group hopes to raise upwards of $750 million for the construction of 75 charter schools serving 40,000 students across the U.S. over the next four years.

Agassi already runs one charter school, the Las Vegas-based Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, which helped inspire this grander project.

"There are 650 children in my school," Agassi said earlier this year at the French Open. "The satisfaction is only momentary, however. There are still over 1,500 on the waiting list. Even though I am helping 650 kids, I feel like my failures are twice as great, because there are 1,500 kids that I haven't been able to help."

The first charter school associated with this project, located about a mile from Temple University in North Philadelphia, is scheduled to open in the fall.

ESPN.com tennis writer Greg Garber recently spoke with Agassi about his commitment to education, as he was "dogged by [Agassi's] comment [from the French Open] for weeks afterward, wondering if Agassi was being truly honest."

Agassi's responses say it all:

"I think that I've always tended to revel in my failures more than my successes," Agassi said. "It's what the game taught me. In tennis, you never had to be good. You just had to figure out how to be better than one person. And as a result, you never stop pushing yourself.

"When I look at my work off the court, it's never enough. Because you never know when that child you help is going to change the world. That's how it is with these kids. You wouldn't believe the results they get when expectations are high."

"They don't fail us, but we can fail them," Agassi said. "So when I look at 1,500 kids on my waiting list, I truly say that I'm failing more kids than I'm helping."

For what it's worth, Agassi admits that charter schools (as a whole) haven't proved to be high-performing. That said, he believes that the top 10 percent of charters—the types of schools he's after—have proved themselves.

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A continuous program of sports helps boys improve their self-control and reduce overall feelings of aggression, according to a new study from Israel.

The study looked at 649 children in grades 3-6 (both male and female) from low socio-economic backgrounds over the course of a 24-week after-school program. Half the participants did not receive sports instruction; the other half took part in a variety of sports for a total of five hours per week. Three times a week, the sports-playing group engaged in group sports like basketball and participated in martial arts the other two days a week.

After the conclusion of the program, the researcher issued questionnaires and evaluations to the students, and compared the responses against those from the same questionnaires issued at the beginning of the study. She found that the sports-playing group exhibited signs of improvement in self-observation, problem-solving skills, and delayed gratification (all relating to improved self-control), which led to a decrease in aggressive behaviors.

Notably, only the children who experienced the higher levels of self-control decreased their aggression.

The boys in the study exhibited a much larger response than the girls. Statistically, the females didn't change much at all, which was attributed to a general lower level of aggression in that gender.

Keren Shahar, a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University's Bob Shapell School of Social Work, led the study and recently presented her findings at Tel Aviv University's Renata Adler Memorial Research Center for Child Welfare and Protection Conference, according to United Press International.

In an interview with Tel Aviv University, Shahar said that parents and coaches should "find something that motivates" students, as they'll be much less likely to act out with aggression if they have a sense of purpose.

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In tough budget times like these, schools would be wise to explore potential revenue sources to prevent widespread cuts. With that in mind, some, though not as many as might be expected, have pursued sponsorships to support their sports programs.

The Tacoma, Wash., school district is one of the latest to bolster its high school sports teams with paid advertisements on their video scoreboards, according to The News Tribune. The district recently agreed to build a video-enhanced scoreboard at one of its high schools, in addition to smaller scoreboards for the gyms of its five high schools.

The district hopes that the scoreboards—which will cost roughly $400,000—will bring in about $106,000 worth of advertising revenue annually, CFO Ron Hack told the paper. After making a $180,000 down payment on the scoreboards, the district plans on paying $44,000 annually over five years to cover the remaining balance, and spending the other $62,000 of ad revenue each year on middle school sports programs.

After the district pays off the scoreboards in full, it plans on using the scoreboard revenue to help support school arts, music, and sports programs.

There are critics. The article quoted Josh Grolin, the associate director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, as saying, "Any time you have advertising on school property, it exploits a captive audience of students ... anything advertised there will have the school's implicit endorsement." Grolin said that while the campaign is sympathetic for schools in tough financial situations, it doesn't believe that schools should be giving implicit endorsements for products by allowing them to advertise on campus.

In the nearby Sumner school district, car dealership Sunset Chevrolet has a $504,000, 14-year contract for the naming rights to the high school's stadium. Most of the contract money will go toward stadium upgrades, although a portion is reserved for scholarships.

District spokeswoman Ann Cook told the paper that Sumner is one of the few high school stadiums that has sold its naming rights, but it's "been a win-win situation" for the district.

With Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently stressing the need for schools to become creative in times of financial stress, more districts could turn to sponsored ads on scoreboards as one way to spare their extracurricular programs from the chopping block.

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More than one-third of U.S. children between ages 10-17 are considered obese (16.4 percent) or overweight (an additional 18.2 percent), according to a report released last week by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That percentage has nearly tripled in the past 10 years, according to former Surgeon General David Satcher.

The report, titled "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011," focuses on levels of obesity for U.S. citizens of all ages. For the data related to children, the report drew from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, which determined obesity levels based on body mass index. The report reveals some troubling statistics for our nation's youth, to say the least.

Nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of childhood obesity were in the South. Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia had childhood obesity rates above 20 percent; Illinois was the only non-Southern state above 20 percent (along with the District of Columbia). In 2003, when the last NSCH was conducted, only D.C., Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia were above 20 percent.

Nationwide, the report found that less than one-third of all children ages 6-17 engaged in at least 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity on a day-to-day basis. While the report notes that every state has some form of physical education requirements for students, it calls many of those programs "inadequate." (See more on that from my colleague Erik Robelen in the Curriculum Matters blog.)

Only 11 of the 50 U.S. states require their schools to provide physical activity or recess throughout the day. Keep in mind, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recommends that children engage in 60 minutes or more of physical activity on a daily basis. It's also worth noting that a Centers for Disease Control report from last year found that increased physical activity can lead to better academic success.

The report looks at levels of physical inactivity in adults (not children), and found that the 10 states with the highest rates of physical inactivity all ranked in the top 12 in terms of obesity. Coincidence? Highly unlikely.

With obesity costing U.S. employers an average of $73 billion in lost productivity, according to the report, the obesity epidemic presents a very real problem in an era where the federal government continuously searches for ways to cut costs. Americans reportedly spend $150 billion per year on health-care costs tied to obesity. And those numbers are only likely to go up if the obesity rates for younger generations don't significantly decrease.

The writers of the report make six key recommendations about how to reduce the prevalence of obesity in the U.S., including expanding the amount of physical activity in school and in out-of-school programs, ensuring that all food and drinks sold in schools meet or exceed the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and reducing youths' exposure to the marketing of unhealthy foods.

Ginny Ehrlich, CEO of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, wrote a personal commentary included in the report titled, "Physical Activity in Schools is a 'Win-Win' From an Academic and Health Perspective." Despite barriers like time, resources, and staff, Ehrlich believes a little creativity can go a long way in terms of schools promoting physical activity for their students.

As the report authors conclude, "As a country, it's up to us to make sure we get our children off to a healthy start in life, and investing in our children is an investment in our future."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had his way, schools would be adding phys. ed. programs and after-school sports despite budget restrictions, the NCAA would rule with a much heavier iron fist, and the NBA would change its one-and-done rule to a two-and-done rule. And that's just the beginning.

Duncan shared his thoughts on school sports last week on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival alongside Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, a gold-medal winner from the 1984 Olympics, and Jay Coakley, sociology professor and author of Sport In Society: Issues and Controversy.

The panel touched on a wide range of sporting issues—the role of sports in society as a whole, the ongoing cheating at the college level, and how to improve and promote school sports at the K-12 level. Intentional or not, Duncan ended up dominating a large portion of the hourlong conversation.

Here's a breakdown of the Duncan quotables from the day:

On athlete pay vs. educator pay: "On a relative basis, to see what elite athletes are making and to see what elite teachers are making, there's a total disconnect, and I think that's a problem."

On the value of sports in society: "For me, it's actually less about the skills of the sport. It's more about the discipline, the teamwork, the camaraderie ... all those skills that whether you're an athlete or going to be a leader in society, I think are actually best taught on the playing field or the court; [they're] much tougher to teach inside a classroom."

On the reduction of phys. ed./sports programs in K-12 schools: "I think it's absolutely devastating. There's zero upside. ... Everywhere I go, I say, 'The cuts you make, the budgets you present—those represent your values.' And if you're cutting out P.E., cutting out the arts, then you really don't understand what's important to our nation's young people."

On a longer school day: "I've said to the Y's and the Boys and Girls Clubs who are all struggling for money, stop building Y's and Boys and Girls Clubs! Get out of bricks and mortar and put all of your money into schools. We should give you the buildings for free. Schools have classrooms and computer labs and gyms and libraries, some have pools. Run the school academically from 9 in the morning to 3 o'clock; let the Y or the Boys and Girls Club take over the school from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 9 at night."

On the benefits of physical activity in schools: "I was always one of those young boys who needed to run around. We had P.E. four times a week at the school I went to, we had recess, and when I ran around and burned off some steam, I could sit down and concentrate. If I didn't do it, I was pretty tough on my teachers. So it's not just about the physical benefits, it's actually about better academic success as well."

On what role the Dept. of Ed. can play in promoting fitness: "I think what we can do so well is to share best practices. To shine a spotlight where folks are doing things well. Again, in the current climate, I don't think a bunch of federal mandates would be too well received. But talking about our values, talking about what's important, and highlighting places that are doing a great job of doing that, there's absolutely a role for us that we need to play and we should be playing."

On the NCAA: "I've said the NCAA, other than the military, is the second-biggest leadership-training program the country has."

On boosting academic importance for NCAA athletes: "Everybody when you go to college, you want to go to the [NCAA] tournament. That's your dream. That's why you go play. If they knew [that] they weren't taking their academics seriously and if their institution isn't focused on their academic success, that that opportunity would be denied them, I think that would be a total culture change. And I think that would draw a line in the sand and force a whole lot of better behavior."

He then brought up Tennessee, where men's coach Bruce Pearl recently was fired for lying to the NCAA, while women's coach Pat Summit graduates "something like 99 percent of her players" and runs a much more successful athletic program.

On reducing NCAA cheating: "The penalties always follow the program, not the coach, and that's just absolutely crazy to me. ... If the penalties followed the coach, and they were barred from coaching for six months or a year, all of this craziness would go away. All the cheating, all the whatever. But coaches are actually incentivized now to cheat, leave the program in rubble, and use that to catapult to the next job. That's a totally wrong structure."

On guaranteed multiyear athletic scholarships: "I'd be more than open to that. I think it's a valid point you hear about players—they come in as a big recruit, then their knee gets blown out, and all of the sudden they're sort of an afterthought. I think it'd maybe not only be a four-year thing, but a five- or six-year commitment. The point is to get that degree, and if it takes five years, that's fine. If it takes six years, that's fine." (Read my entry about athletic scholarships for more details on exactly what an athletic scholarship includes.)

On the NBA's one-and-done rule: "I think they should at least extend that to two. What actually happens is that those players go to class maybe through December of their freshman year [in college], then they just stop going to class after that. So this idea of them getting some college experience, it just doesn't happen. They're out of there three months after they arrive on campus, they're on the way to the NBA. At least if they have to stay for a second year, then at least they have one year and hopefully accumulate some credits and figure out what happens there. So maybe an early-entry [to the NBA] for the elite of the elite, but then have a longer time before you go in [for the others]."

On paying college athletes to play: "Should we pay our college athletes? I'm not sure if we should. These scandals aren't because these folks are necessarily impoverished. These are folks who are just doing illegal things to induce them to come to their university. And I go back: If the penalties followed the coach rather than the institution, I think a lot of this crazy recruiting stuff would go away, because coaches would not have the incentive to cheat and then catapult to the next job." (For more on paying student-athletes, see my entry about the Big Ten conference's proposal to pay student-athletes' living expenses.)

Duke University's Johnny Dawkins, left, shoots despite the efforts of Harvard's Arne Duncan, during first half action on February 8, 1984 at Harvard.
--Sean Kardon/AP-File

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Vicki Huber Rudawsky, a former Olympic runner who competed in the 1988 and 1996 Summer Games, published a piece yesterday on delawareonline.com lamenting the reductions to physical education programs nationwide that resulted from budget cuts.

Rudawsky says that teachers are meant to challenge students, and one of her first memories of being challenged in school came from 3rd grade gym class.

Years ago, few sports had organized teams, with Little League Baseball being really the only sport that started kids at a young age. School gym class was the only chance we had to figure out what our strengths and weaknesses were as athletes, and people. ... I learned how to take direction, handle criticism, be a good team player, fail, and to keep trying until I succeeded.

As a parent, I completely understand wanting our children to feel good about themselves all the time. However, sometimes it is OK to fail. It's OK to only make it halfway up the rope and have your teacher encourage you to work harder next time. It's OK to not be good at something one day because chances were that the next class would bring something entirely different.

Rudawsky's point about failure speaks to something I wrote about recently: the importance of coaches promoting a mistake-accepting culture for their student-athletes. With emerging research showing that humans learn quicker after making a mistake (as opposed to practicing a correct routine repeatedly), phys. ed. classes are one rare instance in the school day where kids can make mistakes with few negative side effects. Tanking an English or math test, on the other hand? Not so much.

Between promoting physical fitness and emphasizing the importance of failure in the learning process, phys. ed. programs contain values that aren't yet being captured in most other subjects.

As Rudawsky concludes:

It is a shame that the physical education programs in schools have been cut so much, and that physical education teachers are not as highly recognized as others in the teaching profession. Sometimes we fail to realize that it is the less-respected things in life that impact us the most.

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Want to give your basketball team a leg up in its next athletic competition? Tell your players to get 10 hours of sleep the night before the big game.

The suggestion may not surprise you, but the potential benefits should.

In a new study appearing in the July issue of Sleep, a group of 11 Stanford University men's basketball players were able to boost their free-throw and 3-point shooting percentages by 9 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, by sleeping 10 hours a night for roughly a month.

The researchers first asked the players to continue their regular sleeping schedule (sleeping anywhere from six to nine hours a night) for two weeks, then to sleep 10 hours each night for the next five to seven weeks. Players were prohibited from drinking coffee or alcohol during the entire study, and the researchers asked them to take daytime naps if travel made the 10 hours of sleep impossible during the night.

At the end of the study, the basketball players shaved nearly a second off their 282-foot sprint time (16.2 seconds vs. 15.5 seconds), and had the aforementioned boost to their free-throw and 3-point shooting percentages.

The study, author Cheri Mah says, proves that "sleep is an important factor in peak athletic performance."

"Intuitively, many players and coaches know that rest and sleep are important, but it is often the first to be sacrificed," she says in the study. "Healthy and adequate sleep hasn't had the same focus as other areas of training for peak performance."

Mah admitted that the sample size of 11 athletes was small, but the Stanford team afforded the researchers the opportunity to study elite athletes actively competing.

The researchers also issued a question-based sleepiness scale to the players at the beginning of the study, which led to one of the most surprising findings, according to Mah.

"The athletes were training and competing during their regular season with moderate-to-high levels of daytime sleepiness and were unaware that it could be negatively impacting their performance," she said in an interview with the Stanford School of Medicine. "But as the season wore on and they reduced their sleep debt, many athletes testified that a focus on sleep was beneficial to their training and performance."

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Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated published a laugh-out-loud, seven-step how-to guide for coaches looking to sidestep NCAA regulations yesterday. (Note: He's not actually serious. Well, not entirely serious, anyway. And Schooled in Sports in no way endorses coaches actually following these steps.)

The guide, which really could apply to coaches at all levels (including professional), revolves around one key principle: Always use cash. That simple rule accounts for three of the seven steps in the guide.

Others include: Never do anything in writing, always pay parties with information that could get your program into hot water, and taking a cue from "The Wire," only use prepaid, disposable phones (paid for with cash!).

From Staples' explanation of why the "never use cash" rule should be adhered to by cheating coaches at all times:

This should seem simple enough. Cash is mostly untraceable. As long as it isn't deposited in unusually large quantities into the account of a player or a player's parent, the NCAA will not find it. Paper trails lead to trouble. ... Don't use checks, wire transfers, gift certificates, or any other form of currency. Don't even make anonymous donations to a handler's 501(c)3 charitable foundation, even though I know you basketball cheaters do this all the time. Simply use some of that green paper with Ben Franklin's face on it, and the NCAA will be none the wiser...

Rest assured, Staples' guide likely won't see widespread adoption any time soon. Sports coaches may make a healthy salary, especially at the collegiate level, but it's not like many coaches can walk around with tens of thousands of dollars in cash on a regular basis.

Ultimately, unless coaches are prepared to lead an underground, covered-up lifestyle more befitting a mobster than a sports coach, they'll likely have to take the hard route and simply not cheat.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

With schools out for the summer, many young athletes end up attending sports camps (if only to give mom and dad a much-needed break every day). But are these camps worthwhile for all student-athletes, or just the elites who hope to compete at the intercollegiate and professional levels?

The Deseret News attempted to answer that question yesterday while profiling a few local athletes. One of the athletes mentioned, BYU sophomore quarterback Jake Heaps, first attended a sports camp at age 11, where he later started drawing the attention of college scouts.

With more than 1.1 million student-athletes playing high school football each year, and only a little more than 66,000 football players competing in college, it's not difficult to see why these athletic camps succeed in drawing in prospects. "It's an investment with a hope of return," said Kelly Heaps, Jake's mom, to the paper.

The major benefit these camps provide their athletes is exposure to college programs. While college coaches are often banned from attending these camps to scout prospects, the camps will often film prospects and send those tapes to major college recruiters. (For what it's worth, specialized recruiting services exist for that same reason.)

Unless a high school athlete completely stands out from his peers during his/her sport's regular season in the school year, said athlete runs the risk of going unnoticed by college scouts. Jake Heaps' parents told the paper that they've seen talented players get looked over for college scholarships, largely because those players didn't participate in skills camps.

But the camp costs can add up, as Trent Hatch, the father of a 13-year-old boy who's going through the football-camp circuit, told the News.

"[Camps have] cost me my retirement," said Hatch. "It's cost me not only financially, as an investment, but emotionally, physically, and a lot of time. It is important to take what we've learned from these camps and practice them and learn from them to improve with your kid in the offseason and over a period of time."

Day sports camps can cost upwards of a few hundred dollars per week; add an extra hundred or two if the campers stay overnight.

So, are camps worthwhile for all student-athletes, or just the elite? For the elite athletes in a given sport, there's little question: Camps provide unique value that can help them land a college scholarship and continue their athletic career.

For the student-athletes who don't plan on playing their sports past high school, the payback may not be great enough to send them to a high-intensity camp environment like Nike's The Opening, which only the top athletes across the country attend.

That said, there's likely not much harm in sending most student-athletes to camps sponsored by local/professional athletes, such as the Kevin Durant Basketball Camp or the LeBron James King's Academy (unless, of course, you don't want your kid to be dunked on by a two-time NBA MVP). How many chances in life do you get to learn from the absolute best at something? Imagine your kid learning to shoot a jumpshot from the 23-year-old two-time scoring champion Durant. Try replacing those memories.

There's typically no shortage of pro-hosted camps in most major metropolitan areas. Being a Philly guy myself, I know Thaddeus Young of the Philadelphia 76ers hosted a basketball camp in late June (see this list for more pro-hosted basketball camps), and the Philadelphia Eagles hosted its annual summer football camps for 6 to 14 year olds.

Being a veteran of many years of choose-your-own-sport day camp, I'll also vouch for their effectiveness. While I never did go on to a successful professional athletic career, I did run around a lot. And in the summer heat, that many hours of physical activity trumps hours otherwise filled with video games, TV screens, and computers any day of the week.

Kids, you'll have enough time in your life spent staring at screens. Expect to do it for all of your 40-plus-year professional careers. Go out and run around in the summertime while you still have the chance.

And parents, as long as you aren't burning through your retirement funds just to get your children out of the house in the summer, you likely shouldn't hesitate when asking yourself if you should send your kids to sports camp this summer. It's tough to imagine many better ways to promote physical wellness.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If a group of Texas students get their way, expect Quidditch (yes, the sport from the Harry Potter novels) to be flying into more of the state's high schools in the next few years.

A group of students approached the Texas University Interscholastic League last month in an attempt to have Quidditch officially sanctioned as a UIL school sport. Keep in mind, the UIL has yet to officially recognize gymnastics, lacrosse, and water polo.

The UIL committee requested more information from the group about the interest in Quidditch across Texas—specifically, it requested signatures from students, teachers, coaches, and administrators from more than 100 middle and high schools. (To put that in perspective, Texas has over 1,500 secondary schools all told.)

In response, the group created an online petition to gather signatures from across the state. As of July 4, the group had collected nearly 330 virtual signatures. According to KDAF-TV, the students hope to collect signatures from students in 200 schools.

"People don't really grasp that it's a legit sport. But, everybody thinks, especially at Keller High School, that it's really cool," said Brooklyn George, one of the co-founders of the Keller Quidditch team, to KDAF-TV.

While you may roll your eyes at the thought of students playing a game from a book series about wizards, the students aren't shy about expressing the physical benefits of Quidditch.

"[Quidditch]'s getting people who may not have played sports before to play sports, and be physically active," said Katie Polaski, another Keller student who co-founded the school's Quidditch team, to KDAF-TV. Polaski called Quidditch an up-and-coming sport.

So, how do you play Quidditch without having the same wizard powers as Harry Potter (notably, flight)? Well, the students still use the same three balls—the Quaffle, the Bludger, and the Golden Snitch—except the Quaffle is a volleyball, the Bludger is a dodgeball, and the Snitch is a tennis ball held inside a sock carried by a human player.

The ultimate goal of Quidditch, a 7-on-7 sport, is for a team's "Seeker" to chase the player carrying the Snitch and to retrieve it. Goals can also be scored by the team's three Chasers, who advance up and down the field trying to throw the Quaffle through an opposing team's three goals (hula hoops). And, of course, all of this must be done with a broomstick between each player's legs at all times. (For more on the rules of Quidditch, see the rulebook of the International Quidditch Association.)

In an era of budget cuts, the thought of adding another sport to the official roster may sound idealistic at best, but to Quidditch's credit, most schools should have the requisite equipment (besides broomsticks) already lying around. And if a game can promote physical activity in a nonathlete demographic, would it be such a bad thing for schools to encourage?

For video of "Muggle Quidditch," check out this footage from KDAF-TV:

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Financial crisis? What financial crisis?

The St. Louis-based Pattonville school district must be surviving better than most these days, as it recently hired a construction company to begin work on $18 million worth of upgrades to the schools' athletic facilities over the next two years, according to a press release.

The district will be constructing a 32,000-plus-foot natatorium that will contain nearly 400 seats, an 11-lane swimming pool, new locker rooms, and a multipurpose room. Officials there also plan on largely renovating the football field by replacing the playing field with artificial turf, constructing a new home grandstand, and replacing the track, high jump, and other related areas.

Inside the school, the district plans on tearing up the high school's gym floor and replacing it, renovating and expanding the parking area, and building new locker rooms for athletes.

"New natatoriums are not commonplace in the challenging economic climate facing today's school districts," said Scott Wilson, president of the construction company. "We are partnering with the Pattonville school district to make this exciting project a success."

The district had a $41 million bond passed in November 2010 dedicated to three key school upgrades: ongoing maintenance and repairs of aging schools, enhancing school security systems, and renovations of the district's athletic facilities. It's worth noting that the bond money, by law, can't be used for day-to-day school expenses like transportation, textbooks, or teacher salaries.

So, the next time your principal tells you that your school can't afford that $300 expense for new basketballs for your phys. ed. class, remember that you can go right back and show him what the folks at Pattonville are up to. There's no way you get turned down after that.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

That's a question EdWeek blogger Walt Gardner tackles today in his Walt Gardner's Reality Check blog.

Gardner examines the case of Herbert H. Lehman High School in New York, whose football field is 20 yards too short for regulation. As a result, the team has forfeited any sense of home field advantage and has been forced to play all its games on other schools' fields.

Gardner writes:

Despite the allocation of almost $5 million by the New York City Department of Education to renovate Lehman's multipurpose athletic complex, the new field will still come up 20 yards shy because the additional land is purportedly owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. The football coach said the deficiency will only exacerbate the inconvenience and embarrassment that have long existed, and parents have threatened to file a lawsuit.

What's disturbing about the whole affair is the inordinate weight placed on athletics at the expense of academics. It's hard to get worked up about a short football field when classrooms are being neglected because of the district's budget woes. Only in this country are athletics accorded such attention and adulation. Our competitors abroad have long found it strange that athletic ability plays such a strong role in awarding scholarships for college.

Be sure to read his whole entry for more details about the Herbert H. Lehman High School case and for more on the debate about overemphasizing athletics in U.S. schools at the sake of academic excellence.

But for what it's worth, there's plenty of research (not to mention school programs) that suggest academics and athletics (particularly physical fitness programs) don't have to remain mutually exclusive.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend