The Place of Athletics in the Curriculum

M

F. L. WRIGHT, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION,

COLORADO STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE.

UCH is being said and written today against athletics. This criticism is being answered by the public in an increased attendance at all athletic events, and consequently increased gate receipts. There is also a growing demand for athletic fields and for coaches who can produce or induce winning teams. Some brave educators and even some trained physical directors are advocating "making athletics strictly educational." Physical education is fraught with great possibilities for physical, mental, moral, and aesthetic development-all the requisites of the educated gentleman. It would seem that such a subject should be administered in a way that "all the children of the people" might participate with credit to themselves, their families, and the community.

Such an ideal will not be attained, however, until hygiene and physical education (including athletics) become as much a part of the curriculum as English, history, science, manual training, or home economics. Such a scheme would require faculty-not coach-control of athletics with certain restrictions by the Board of Education. These restrictions would involve such details as the number of years any man might represent his school in any event, the number of games each year in which a team would be allowed to participate, the qualifications-educational and moral, as well as physical-of the coach, the number of sports each individual might compete in during the year, etc.

Even slight investigation on the part of the educator forces him to conclude that up to the present time athletics has had little place in the curriculum of the American public schools.

In 1910 less than 5 per cent of the 2,392 secondary schools studied had a department of physical education; less than ten per cent were giving instruction in athletics; in only one and two-tenths per cent of the schools was the work in athletics prescribed, and in less than six-tenths of one per cent was credit given for athletics.1 Our draft of young men during the World War which revealed the fact that 29.59% of the flower of our manhood were physically incapable of general military service, and recent examinations of children in some of our cities which show that about fifty per cent of the children have some physical disability, are further evidences that too little attention has been given to physical education.

Even in colleges, too little attention is given to physical education. In a recent study of 360 colleges, 215 or 60% reported that physical education is required, while only 167 or a little more than 46% claimed to have departments of physical education. The author concludes also that "A very few (of these colleges) emphasize the correlation of a personal hygiene course with gymnasium and field work."2

Some critics will say that, as managed at present, physical education, and certainly athletics, should have no place in the curriculum of the public schools. This criticism may be met with the statement that management will be changed materially if athletics is made a part of the curriculum.

Old athletes who have fallen over the tape on the track and competed in many athletic events for their Alma Mater, and even a few athletic directors, are beginning to realize the justice of some of the critics when they say a great number of the students who compete in athletics today are worse physically, mentally, and morally because of this competition. These interested persons are not trying to justify athletics-they do not have to do that. They are making a sensible effort to correct the evils which have crept into the sportsevils for which they may or may not be responsible.

1 Inglis, Principles of Secondary Education, p. 641.

2 Ed. R. 65:215.

It cannot be denied that in many instances the athlete receives more exercise than is good for him. He is in a state of exhaustion a considerable part of the time when training for football basketball or for track. In fact, the person who does not train to the limit of endurance today must turn in his suit and let someone take his place who will so train. In the game "the players are so obsessed by the importance of the occasion that all spontaneity is lost." In fact, as someone has said, athletics today takes on the colors of war. It is the combat of teams or of individuals for victory. Not only do the regulars receive too much exercise, but even "the 'scrubs' are urged to become sacrifices for the regulars, and any lack of the sacrificial spirit on their part is branded as rank disloyalty."3

Athletics as conducted today by the average school is not for the health of the pupil. Health is really considered very little, except as it contributes to a winning team. Not how much of a work-out does Smith need for his health, but how much he can stand is the question asked by the coach. The coach, to hold his job, must produce winning teams. He is hired for that purpose and it matters not how much he does for the physical or mental development, he must require the training or over-training necessary to win a large portion of the games. The elements of education, health, enjoyment, sociability are relegated to secondary place and thus sacrificed for the purpose of winning.

If athletes receive more exercise than is best for them physically, they certainly receive more exercise than is best for them intellectually.

Comparatively few high school boys can stand the grind on the gridiron each day for two hours and still feel fit for study. Most college football men, and many high school players as well, confess that after the season they expect to make up the school work they didn't have time for during the season of that sport. It is more likely to be an exception than

3 Ed. R. 62:57.

the case to find a strong athlete in football, basketball, and track, and playing in all these forms throughout the year, leading his class in school. If a leader in both athletics and classroom work is found-and there are illustrations of such individuals—the chances are that he is first of all a good student and then an athlete as well. In other words, to no great extent is athletics conducive or intended to be conducive to scholarship. One seldom hears a coach say, "Get out for football; it will help you in scholarship." It is probable that exercise could be prescribed for the child which would be more valuable to him physically and mentally than athletics— football, basketball and track-as now conducted.

But often boys are taught that the milder sports such as volleyball, tennis, soccer, and other games which could be played through life, or well into life at any rate, are for "sissies" and not for real men. This is one of the most damaging influences which can come into the lives of boys.

One writer has shown how even these milder sports are becoming highly specialized. This specialization is illustrated in the following quotation:

"Lawn tennis, too, has been altered out of recognition. Thirty years ago it was a game for young ladies and curates. of the less muscular type of christianity, and the preliminary matches on the courts were afterwards solemnized at the altar; it was less a sport than a overture to a betrothal. But times have changed. At the recent tournament, the whole world fought out a series of championships; and one of the competitors, conscious of the international importance of the occasion, was fed on champagne and massaged between sets to get the last ounce out of his muscles. At no distant date we may expect the fledgling champions to bring a retinue of highly qualified medical specialists, and it may become necessary to provide a nursing home in the immediate neighborhood, with a variety of twilight sleep for exhausted sportsmen."4

4 Nineteenth Century, Aug. 1921, p. 245.

Not only in the physical and in the mental realm, but in morals as well, athletics is something like a gun in the hands of a child. The child may learn to use the gun, but may become slightly disfigured in the process.

The athlete is given an entirely erroneous opinion of himself. The newspaper comment, praising his wonderful plays, causes him to exaggerate his own worth to the team and to the community. Small boys-yes, adults sometimes-stand along the way as he goes by to secure his recognition. Surely, the time is at hand, when the true worth of any student should be determined, and unless the individual has something other than mere athletics to contribute to the school, he should not be given a greater place than the individual who contributes scholarship and morals.

Athletics is characterized as being valuable in developing self-control, etc. and yet no where does one hear more unsatisfactory language than on the athletic field and in the locker rooms. There is little reason why language should be allowed on the field which is not allowed in the classroom. Furthermore, if athletics is so good for physical development, self-control, mental development and all the moral qualities, it seems unreasonable that the child should be required to wait until he reaches high school before this training is given, and even then he is one of the twenty who receive it, while five hundred other students go without such training.

In spite of the above criticisms, which even athletes will probably agree are more or less well-founded, a large majority of the people today think kindly toward athletics and athletes. Whereas, twenty years ago, athletics was endured by the parents and the school authorities alike as a necessary evil, today, parents, teachers, principals, and school authorities attend games, throw their hats in the air, and yell themselves so hoarse they are unable to participate in the singing at church the following Sabbath.

The junior high school is probably having a great deal to do with this change of attitude; for in the junior high school