Ridger Sports

Sports are beneficial for many reasons

Sports, at least in the United States of America, is a big deal.

Billions and billions of dollars are expended every year in sports-related things - everything to high priced professional sport stars’ salaries to the costs of running toddler T-ball programs. Sports are evident in early every community in America and most Americans have participated in a sport or sports in one way or another.

My parents grew up in Depression-era Oklahoma and had very limited involvement in sports. My mom was a 5-foot, 90-pound high schooler who was too small to play but had extremely athletic brothers and sister who were very involved. My uncle even pitched for awhile in the Pittsburg Pirates farm program. My dad’s father was a construction engineer who moved around quite a bit and so my father and uncle had no real chance to play anything if they had wanted to.

As I generally spent my first-grade year in hospitals for a variety of things and was physicallyrestricted for a long time afterwards, I did not get much chance to participate in sports until I was in the upper grades (fifth and sixth). I played some basketball and baseball with mixed results. Although I was tall and fairly fast on my feet, I had no ball skills compared to my much more experienced classmates. My speed led me to a career in track which I had the good luck to extend into college.

The point I am getting to is that I really wanted to get involved in sports as I think most boys do at one time or another. I think bad experiences in sports drive some boys out of the desire to participate, and while I had some of those experiences myself, I still wanted to play something badly.

I have heard, over the years, college officials who say that a college or university hasn’t really made it until they can field a competitive sports team, usually meaning football. This overwhelming desire to win has led many a coach or official to break rules in order to get an edge on their competitive opponents. This same desire to succeed led to the epidemic of chemically-enhanced high school, college and professional athletes.

But, in spite of the cheating, the hype, the sometimes overemphasis on, sporting programs are a needful and useful thing to support and operate.

The Greeks were the first folks who felt that for a person to be complete, he needed to be mentally alert and trained and physically alert and trained.

Their establishment of the first Olympic games were meant to be enjoyable but they were further meant to strengthen their country, producing well rounded and physically sound adults who could work and achieve in any field.

In the U.S.A., I guess a lot of people don’t really think much about the “why” of sports, just that they like them. Coming up into the tail end of December, television willbe awash in one venue of bowl game or another. The amount of money spent on the total bowl game experience, team travel and gifts, fan expenses, television revenues and all the other costs associated in putting on these spectacles, would probably equal the budget of a lot of small nations.

While nearly all nations on earth have some sporting experiences, the variety is very limited and usually restricted to soccer. In America, I don’t know that I would have the room to list or the knowledge to recount all the sports that go on in our fair nation. At Pea Ridge schools, we have football, baseball, basketball, track, cross country, golf and volleyball. I recently read of a memo of a committee being launched to explore the possibilities of adding other sports, and trying to bring more of the student body into involvement of one sport or another. I’d like to see bowling added, as it would bring a whole different group of kids into the sporting experience.

Being an art teacher has placed me into some interesting conversationsover the years. When I was coaching on the secondary level, other coaches could not believe that I was teaching elementary level art. I have had some art colleagues incredulous over my involvement in sports as there are quite a few art educators kind of down on sports in schools.

I think it stems from many schools having the skimpiest, cheapest art program in place while lavishing a lot of money on athletics, particularly football.

Every child should be involved with something extra curricular in their junior high and senior high lives. Working with others, sweating for a common goal, putting team before self and learning the real meaning of sacrifice are lessons that can’t be learned in many venuesbut sports is one of them.

Are there bad sporting programs? Of course, and it is sad that there is but their presence doesn’t demean the importance of honest, clean and worthwhile programs.

It is now the end of my column and the end of the year. I am nearly out of print space and more importantly, I am out of time as I have to check into the hospital in 30 minutes.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

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Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.

Sports, Pages 10 on 12/21/2011