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Post by hemlock on Sept 4, 2017 9:39:07 GMT -6
As many of you know, I used to post regularly on the board. I still read posts here on a frequent basis, but have not posted as much for a variety of reasons, none of which are material to this discussion.
I have a concern. I used to coach college and high school ball. I now am a professor at the University of Oklahoma-Norman. Since coming to OU I have had many inquiries about getting back into high school ball. I'd very much like to, but the timing is not right. I mention this because since coming to Norman my daughter, who is 8, has started playing Academy soccer. This is not recreational or anything like that, but the developmental level that leads to competitive. By and large, I find club sports to be an obscenity that is ripping communities apart very much along class lines. If you have $200 per season (Fall and Spring) plus another $80 per month and have the means to travel and take your kids to practice then club soccer is fine. However, club soccer is "lily white" and a haven for the SUV crowd. So, it's basically pay to play. If you have the money, you can do it, if you don't have either the money or the logistical support, well, then you're sort of out of luck. As many of you know, this is definitely not the case with high school sports in general, and especially with football, where one trip to practice shows a wide range of racial groups and economic backgrounds.
I'm torn between the club model and high school sports, especially football. What bothers me is this: the club model clearly has its benefits. Coaches are paid very well. If you coach 5 teams per season, depending on the league you coach in, you can make a pretty good living. By and large, the coaches are all highly certified and good at what they do. Compare that with high school. If we are honest with ourselves we all know that the average high school staff, if its lucky, depending on the region, of course, has a header who is committed to football and hopefully two coordinators who really know the game as well. Everyone else, frequently, not always, falls into that guy who is more often than not just a practice or two ahead of the kids he's coaching and really does not know much about teaching fundies or the schemes to which the former relates. This is not the case with youth soccer. While I hate so many aspects of youth soccer I can see that my daughter has become exponentially better, in part because the coaching is a uniformly high level.
Clearly, pay has something to do with this. We tell ourselves that we coach for reasons other than money. I did it for many, many years, and would still do it. That said, I can't. And I know many, many great coaches, most who used to coach college ball, who work in different fields now who would love to coach, but cannot justify to their families the equivalent of another full time job for $2500 stipend. Now, many coaches, of course, are high school teachers, which is fine, who teach so that they can coach. That's fine, but there are not enough of them in any school and there are numerous coaches out there who, if you they made what youth soccer coaches make, would gladly jump back into it.
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.?
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 4, 2017 22:38:28 GMT -6
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.? Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it.
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Post by RuningOutOfOptions on Sept 5, 2017 10:34:22 GMT -6
I believe I can contribute to this question actually. I coached my first 2 seasons in Sweden, where football is a club sport. I was completely unpaid (got the team swag, paid for my own trips, got my training paid for) and it was a club where the players had to buy their equipment (everything from pads to practice clothes and helmets). I also played in that environment.
I believe soccer is easier to do this with because you need less numbers, less equipment and fewer coaches. When I coached my first year we were 2 coaches. This meant I coached almost every position on offense at least one practice and also helped coach most positions on the defensive side from time to time. We also had to deal with the unknown of if we were going to have 30 players at practice or 5, same issue most semi-pro teams have.
All in all, some things could probably be better, but coaching at the high school has been an upgrade in a lot of ways for me, personally. It helps with the peer pressure and if you are a teacher at the school you get to see the kids more as well.
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Post by gccwolverine on Sept 5, 2017 10:59:53 GMT -6
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.? Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it. You're nucking futs........
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Post by coachd5085 on Sept 5, 2017 18:39:36 GMT -6
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.? Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it. But a school is NOT a business.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2017 19:13:28 GMT -6
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.? Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it. Let's not go down that rabbit hole. School is not a business, parents and kids are not "customers," and the kids who tend to drag down test scores and make "bad schools" bad, for whatever reason, will still need to be taught somewhere. There is a reason that no other industrialized country on earth treats its schools like this. The farther we go in that direction, as we've drifted for the past 20-25 years, the more issues that arise. There was a time when we didn't have compulsory or "free" public education in this country. We also had sky high illiteracy rates and a mostly unskilled workforce in an agrarian economy.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2017 19:34:39 GMT -6
hemlock , personally, I don't know that we want to get too far into the club sports model. The advent of travel teams is killing youth football and it's also turning other traditional egalitarian sports like baseball and basketball into the purview of the rich and upper middle class, who are the only ones who can afford the fees, travel, and sheer time commitment it takes to compete there now. Most of it is, quite frankly, a money racket, so of course the coaches (the real service being provided in exchange for all that money) get paid well and provide quality coaching. Our game is in trouble now, and a lot of it is due to all the pressure to specialize in one sport starting at earlier and earlier ages. Football, by its very physical nature, cannot do the same thing unless you want to get into the world of 7 on 7 passing leagues, which are becoming the football equivalent of travel ball. Now, if you want to take 7 on 7 and start a club system built around that, charging parents an arm and a leg for tournaments... that could be a nice side business for HS and small college football coaches to get in on that gravy train and teach QBs, WRs, and DBs in the offseason, but I would wager the benefits for 11 man tackle football would be quite negligible in the long run. You are right, though, that the money in youth sports (like in education) isn't in the schools themselves, but rather in exclusive private coaching opportunities that are more about marketing. Some people on this board have built successful businesses providing high quality QB training or selling their systems to HS and youth coaches. Others collect handsome fees to train players in the offseason for strength, speed, and agility... stuff that the kids can hopefully get at their local HS for free, but it doesn't have the same aura about it if it's coming from some schlubby middle aged HS coach instead of some jacked former college or pro athlete. Again... all of these make nice side businesses for the enterprising college or HS coach. If a coach can build his true income stream that way, then coach the game as a volunteer or on a stipend basis to build his brand, then he has the potential to make more than he ever would as a lowly college assistant coach or teacher. Those are the benefits of the club system and its socio-economic slot, as coachd5085 points out later in this thread. If you go to public HS in more affluent areas, you'll see that they pay higher coaching/teaching salaries and tend to absorb the more talented coaches from the nearby schools. I've coached in an environment like that before, where our staff included two previous HCs coaching positions and several others who could have easily been HS HCs if they were willing to take substantial pay cuts. The consequence was a lot more pressure from a micromanaging admin to please everyone: parents, boosters, and fans. In club sports (which many of these kids played and excelled at), we could have told anyone unhappy to just take a hike. It was funny: one of the coaches in another sport won a national coach of the year award and multiple state championships. He would tell you point blank that he didn't know anything about the sport he was coaching: he simply had a bunch of kids who got expensive private coaches to teach them the game, so all he had to do was drive the team bus and fill out paperwork for the school team.
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Post by coachd5085 on Sept 5, 2017 19:40:13 GMT -6
What can be done, you think, with our current model to make things better? Youth soccer players benefit across the board because of the quality of coaching that comes with youth sports. What can we take from the youth sport model that is appealing and apply to our game to improve the level of coaching by bringing more high quality coaches back into the game, while, at the same time, preserving all of the good things that our current model provides, equal access, community, etc.? As ridiculous as Bob's comments are (from the perspective of football/athletics) he touches on part of the issue...POWER. In the youth sports model, the coaches have POWER. When athletics are an extension of the school (extra curricular) the parents (via whining and complaining to spineless admin) have the power. Also hemlock, as you sound the trumpet proclaiming all the great aspects of the club system, do some research into AAU basketball....... I would argue one of the biggest "plusses" you are witnessing is simply one of class/education. The educational level/class level/success level of select youth soccer is going to be higher than the random make up a HS team. I would say if you compared what you are seeing to a solid well off private school that has a strong culture in athletics you would see similar traits.
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Post by hemlock on Sept 6, 2017 8:41:17 GMT -6
To Coach Arnold and Coach5085
I appreciate your thoughtful remarks. Just to make one thing clear: I'm not trumpeting the youth model. The youth model disturbs me deeply...I too coached high school ball in three states. Personally, I find club sports to be deeply problematic. That said, what I was trying to get at was that there are aspects of the model that work.
Also, I'm very familiar with AAU, having battled with it over many summers. AAU, especially the basketball incarnation, I do not compare with most local club soccer organizations. AAU is really a SCAM and it preys on the most vulnerable of our society. Youth soccer is also predatory, but most of the people participating in it are people who have the means to pay for it...
I think both of your points are spot on. I'm just trying to think of ways to improve our game. I think the current HS model in its present form leaves a lot of coaching talent on the side lines. At the end of the day, this does not hurt the coaches as much, but the players.
What do both of you think can be done in HS sports to balance things out?
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 10:29:46 GMT -6
Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it. But a school is NOT a business. Bunch of people getting paid to provide a service for a bunch of people. How is that not a business?
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 10:37:39 GMT -6
Simple: abolish tax support of schools. School is a biz like any other. A biz should be funded by its customers according to what its customers want to buy from it. Let's not go down that rabbit hole. School is not a business, parents and kids are not "customers," and the kids who tend to drag down test scores and make "bad schools" bad, for whatever reason, will still need to be taught somewhere. There is a reason that no other industrialized country on earth treats its schools like this. The farther we go in that direction, as we've drifted for the past 20-25 years, the more issues that arise. There was a time when we didn't have compulsory or "free" public education in this country. We also had sky high illiteracy rates and a mostly unskilled workforce in an agrarian economy. "We" (i.e. humanity generally) had all the literacy humanity required at the time. When paper was so expensive that few could afford it, and there weren't many records to be kept, who needed literacy? It's not as if one day people woke up & said, "Hey, we have all these people who can't read what they need to read to be skilled in the non-agrarian economy we seem to have suddenly woken up into, what do we do now?" Education comes along like every other technology does, to satisfy the needs of the time. To serve its function, it never needed to be compulsory in either attendance or funding.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 10:44:10 GMT -6
hemlock , personally, I don't know that we want to get too far into the club sports model. The advent of travel teams is killing youth football and it's also turning other traditional egalitarian sports like baseball and basketball into the purview of the rich and upper middle class, who are the only ones who can afford the fees, travel, and sheer time commitment it takes to compete there now. What's your evidence for that? Seems to me those who want to play any kind of sport have just as much opp'ty to do so as they always did. We've had fully professional football, baseball, etc. for a long time, and it doesn't seem to have cut down on the number of people playing. Youth travel teams seem to be only a small fraction of participants that I can tell, so how could they be having the effect you state?
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 10:57:16 GMT -6
Just to make one thing clear: I'm not trumpeting the youth model. The youth model disturbs me deeply...I too coached high school ball in three states. Personally, I find club sports to be deeply problematic. Nearly all school sports began as club sports. Educators did not make them up. Children were playing them -- in a few cases imitating adults who were playing them as club sports. All schools did was say that as long as the kids were playing these games anyway, we'll try to see to it that they don't get hurt, mess up someone's flower bed, break windows, or tie up traffic. Colleges grudgingly accepted that students were going to play football one way or another.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 11:00:39 GMT -6
Let's not go down that rabbit hole. School is not a business, parents and kids are not "customers," and the kids who tend to drag down test scores and make "bad schools" bad, for whatever reason, will still need to be taught somewhere. There is a reason that no other industrialized country on earth treats its schools like this. The farther we go in that direction, as we've drifted for the past 20-25 years, the more issues that arise. There was a time when we didn't have compulsory or "free" public education in this country. We also had sky high illiteracy rates and a mostly unskilled workforce in an agrarian economy. "We" (i.e. humanity generally) had all the literacy humanity required at the time. When paper was so expensive that few could afford it, and there weren't many records to be kept, who needed literacy? It's not as if one day people woke up & said, "Hey, we have all these people who can't read what they need to read to be skilled in the non-agrarian economy we seem to have suddenly woken up into, what do we do now?" Education comes along like every other technology does, to satisfy the needs of the time. To serve its function, it never needed to be compulsory in either attendance or funding. In the context of the past, you are correct. However, if you're saying that we don't need a basic education, including literacy, to function in the modern world, I'm sorry, but that is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Historically, compulsory and "free" public education went hand in hand with industrialization and modern standards of living and democracy. You literally cannot have a modern, industrialized economy and society without your population being able to read, write, reason, do math, and know basic facts about the world. Think about every single country on earth you might ever want to live in. They all have some form of required public education. Every. Single. One. Now, if you look at the countries without compulsory or readily available access to education, I guarantee they are also places you would never think about settling down in for the long term. This is off topic, though. We can continue this discussion via pm if you like.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 11:08:44 GMT -6
"We" (i.e. humanity generally) had all the literacy humanity required at the time. When paper was so expensive that few could afford it, and there weren't many records to be kept, who needed literacy? It's not as if one day people woke up & said, "Hey, we have all these people who can't read what they need to read to be skilled in the non-agrarian economy we seem to have suddenly woken up into, what do we do now?" Education comes along like every other technology does, to satisfy the needs of the time. To serve its function, it never needed to be compulsory in either attendance or funding. In the context of the past, you are correct. However, if you're saying that we don't need a basic education, including literacy, to function in the modern world, I'm sorry, but that is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Historically, compulsory and "free" public education went hand in hand with industrialization and modern standards of living and democracy. You literally cannot have a modern, industrialized economy and society without your population being able to read, write, reason, do math, and know basic facts about the world. Think about every single country on earth you might ever want to live in. They all have some form of required public education. Every. Single. One. Now, if you look at the countries without compulsory or readily available access to education, I guarantee they are also places you would never think about settling down in for the long term. This is off topic, though. We can continue this discussion via pm if you like. Because people need something, you have to force them to buy & use it? The other countries have socialized medicine too; could it be that they're all wrong? Even if you have compulsorily funded & attended schools, there's no more reason that has to include sports than that it has to include religion. There's no more reason for people who don't like sports to have to fund them than for people who don't like religion to do so.
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Post by gccwolverine on Sept 6, 2017 11:43:33 GMT -6
Let's not go down that rabbit hole. School is not a business, parents and kids are not "customers," and the kids who tend to drag down test scores and make "bad schools" bad, for whatever reason, will still need to be taught somewhere. There is a reason that no other industrialized country on earth treats its schools like this. The farther we go in that direction, as we've drifted for the past 20-25 years, the more issues that arise. There was a time when we didn't have compulsory or "free" public education in this country. We also had sky high illiteracy rates and a mostly unskilled workforce in an agrarian economy. "We" (i.e. humanity generally) had all the literacy humanity required at the time. When paper was so expensive that few could afford it, and there weren't many records to be kept, who needed literacy? It's not as if one day people woke up & said, "Hey, we have all these people who can't read what they need to read to be skilled in the non-agrarian economy we seem to have suddenly woken up into, what do we do now?" Education comes along like every other technology does, to satisfy the needs of the time. To serve its function, it never needed to be compulsory in either attendance or funding. Yep..... still nucking futs..... You know where education isn't compulsory? Somalia..... Seems to work out just fine for them so much so we should give it a try. nucking futs!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 12:47:53 GMT -6
In the context of the past, you are correct. However, if you're saying that we don't need a basic education, including literacy, to function in the modern world, I'm sorry, but that is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Historically, compulsory and "free" public education went hand in hand with industrialization and modern standards of living and democracy. You literally cannot have a modern, industrialized economy and society without your population being able to read, write, reason, do math, and know basic facts about the world. Think about every single country on earth you might ever want to live in. They all have some form of required public education. Every. Single. One. Now, if you look at the countries without compulsory or readily available access to education, I guarantee they are also places you would never think about settling down in for the long term. This is off topic, though. We can continue this discussion via pm if you like. Because people need something, you have to force them to buy & use it? The other countries have socialized medicine too; could it be that they're all wrong? Even if you have compulsorily funded & attended schools, there's no more reason that has to include sports than that it has to include religion. There's no more reason for people who don't like sports to have to fund them than for people who don't like religion to do so. You're right on the second part. There is little intrinsic reason why schools absolutely need to field sports teams, which is why I said this is off topic. I think it's a good thing that they do, as would most coaches on here, and we have our reasons, but that's a totally different argument. The first point, though... "becuase people need something, you have to force them to buy and use it?" That is buggo. I may not want to fund the police, fire department, the military, paved roads, utilities, etc. That doesn't mean that we, as a modern society, don't need those things because we all benefit from them as a social group. Therefore, we use taxes to pay for them and require that people have them. Education is the same thing. You know who benefits from public education? Every single person who lives in our society or deals with us, including you, even if you don't have kids in the system. This idea that people can have a functional modern society where everyone just pays for stuff they want and doesn't share any social responsibility or obligations is ridiculous. Unless your idea of a utopia is the Mad Max films, there's no way to think of this as anything but crazy. That's my last comment here. This is off topic to the original post, which raised some good points. Let's focus on football here.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 12:58:25 GMT -6
To Coach Arnold and Coach5085 I appreciate your thoughtful remarks. Just to make one thing clear: I'm not trumpeting the youth model. The youth model disturbs me deeply...I too coached high school ball in three states. Personally, I find club sports to be deeply problematic. That said, what I was trying to get at was that there are aspects of the model that work. Also, I'm very familiar with AAU, having battled with it over many summers. AAU, especially the basketball incarnation, I do not compare with most local club soccer organizations. AAU is really a SCAM and it preys on the most vulnerable of our society. Youth soccer is also predatory, but most of the people participating in it are people who have the means to pay for it... I think both of your points are spot on. I'm just trying to think of ways to improve our game. I think the current HS model in its present form leaves a lot of coaching talent on the side lines. At the end of the day, this does not hurt the coaches as much, but the players. What do both of you think can be done in HS sports to balance things out? I don't know if there is anything. HS sports, as an institution, are what they are. They have specific economics and few communities can afford to or are willing to pay extra to hire a staff of full-time professional football coaches--in most places, it's pushing it just to get a HC in the building who only has weightlifting classes. Most of this simply comes back to economics. The only ways I see to bring some of the things you say are: A.) For coaches to make their living from private coaching and coaching-related services independent of schools, coaching an actual team as a side pursuit/marketing tool. Plenty of coaches already do this. B.) For schools to consolidate their football teams in order to cut down on the number of coaches required and therefore pay them higher wages for their work. They could also stagger the seasons so that HS plays in the fall, MS plays in the summer and the same staff takes them over, then maybe the same guys also coach Youth in the spring, etc. I don't think that would be good for the game at all because it would dramatically lower participation at the HS and MS levels, but it would be a way to raise the few remaining coaches' pay and lead to higher quality for the fewer kids who would play. C.) To incentivize gates and marketing so that the coaching staff gets a cut of the money there to spend on stipends. This puts more of an onus on the coaches to raise funds and market the team as being more about entertainment than anything else. In a roundabout way, this is basically what colleges already do. I actually don't think this is a bad idea, but a lot of schools count on their football money to fund other things and are loathe to give up any more of it back to the program than absolutely necessary. D.) To make it pay-to-play, which has unfortunately become a reality in some places. Also, good to see you back on the board, hemlock . I hope things are going well for you out in Norman. Your presence has been missed.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 13:04:56 GMT -6
"We" (i.e. humanity generally) had all the literacy humanity required at the time. When paper was so expensive that few could afford it, and there weren't many records to be kept, who needed literacy? It's not as if one day people woke up & said, "Hey, we have all these people who can't read what they need to read to be skilled in the non-agrarian economy we seem to have suddenly woken up into, what do we do now?" Education comes along like every other technology does, to satisfy the needs of the time. To serve its function, it never needed to be compulsory in either attendance or funding. Yep..... still nucking futs..... You know where education isn't compulsory? Somalia..... Seems to work out just fine for them so much so we should give it a try. nucking futs! Oh, sure, all Somalia would have to do is make school compulsory, and then they'd be fine, right? Actually all the strife in Somalia is around Mogadishu, where it all revolves around which gang gets to make whatever compulsory. In the northern part of the country, historically nothing was compulsory, so they all got along. There are (at least) 2 models by which to get things done. Say feeding people for example. You could make everybody go to the restaurant, pay a bill having no relationship to what food they wanted, and you get whatever they decide to serve you by some group decision. In the other, you choose and get what you pay for. I don't see why you think the 1st model's better. Club sports is the 2nd model. You want to play, you join & pay dues; you don't want to play, you butt out.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 6, 2017 13:14:06 GMT -6
Because people need something, you have to force them to buy & use it? The other countries have socialized medicine too; could it be that they're all wrong? Even if you have compulsorily funded & attended schools, there's no more reason that has to include sports than that it has to include religion. There's no more reason for people who don't like sports to have to fund them than for people who don't like religion to do so. You're right on the second part. There is little intrinsic reason why schools absolutely need to field sports teams, which is why I said this is off topic. I think it's a good thing that they do, as would most coaches on here, and we have our reasons, but that's a totally different argument. The first point, though... "becuase people need something, you have to force them to buy and use it?" That is buggo. I may not want to fund the police, fire department, the military, paved roads, utilities, etc. That doesn't mean that we, as a modern society, don't need those things because we all benefit from them as a social group. Therefore, we use taxes to pay for them and require that people have them. Education is the same thing. You know who benefits from public education? Every single person who lives in our society or deals with us, including you, even if you don't have kids in the system. This idea that people can have a functional modern society where everyone just pays for stuff they want and doesn't share any social responsibility or obligations is ridiculous. Unless your idea of a utopia is the Mad Max films, there's no way to think of this as anything but crazy. That's my last comment here. This is off topic to the original post, which raised some good points. Let's focus on football here. Sure, people benefit from each other's learning. But they also benefit from practically every other investment they make in anything else, too. Somebody invests in retail stores, everybody who shops benefits. You want to make everybody invest in retailing? Like there wouldn't be retail stores if people weren't forced to invest in them? Everybody benefits from communication cable; you want to make everybody invest in that too? But I'm surprised you're making this argument in a thread about sports. You want to argue that sports are so necessary that everybody should have to invest in them? Because of all the things you could say are a benefit to those who aren't involved, sports has got to be one of the hardest cases to make! I have plenty of friends who can't stand sports, or who have no interest in particular ones; how's football making their lives better?
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Post by RuningOutOfOptions on Sept 6, 2017 13:18:42 GMT -6
You're right on the second part. There is little intrinsic reason why schools absolutely need to field sports teams, which is why I said this is off topic. I think it's a good thing that they do, as would most coaches on here, and we have our reasons, but that's a totally different argument. The first point, though... "becuase people need something, you have to force them to buy and use it?" That is buggo. I may not want to fund the police, fire department, the military, paved roads, utilities, etc. That doesn't mean that we, as a modern society, don't need those things because we all benefit from them as a social group. Therefore, we use taxes to pay for them and require that people have them. Education is the same thing. You know who benefits from public education? Every single person who lives in our society or deals with us, including you, even if you don't have kids in the system. This idea that people can have a functional modern society where everyone just pays for stuff they want and doesn't share any social responsibility or obligations is ridiculous. Unless your idea of a utopia is the Mad Max films, there's no way to think of this as anything but crazy. That's my last comment here. This is off topic to the original post, which raised some good points. Let's focus on football here. Sure, people benefit from each other's learning. But they also benefit from practically every other investment they make in anything else, too. Somebody invests in retail stores, everybody who shops benefits. You want to make everybody invest in retailing? Like there wouldn't be retail stores if people weren't forced to invest in them? Everybody benefits from communication cable; you want to make everybody invest in that too? But I'm surprised you're making this argument in a thread about sports. You want to argue that sports are so necessary that everybody should have to invest in them? Because of all the things you could say are a benefit to those who aren't involved, sports has got to be one of the hardest cases to make! I have plenty of friends who can't stand sports, or who have no interest in particular ones; how's football making their lives better? To answer your last question: The same we benefit from art, music and other extra curricular activities, we keep our kids busy. Coming from a small village, boredom leads to you finding trouble. If I grew up somewhere where I could be active with football during my teenage years, I would have made a lot fewer dumba$h decisions and maybe would've stayed out of trouble.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 13:20:05 GMT -6
bobgoodman , what part of my first paragraph in that last post do you not understand? I was saying that there is a valid case to be made for not having school sports, though I disagree with it. I do not think there is much of a sound argument for doing away with public education entirely. You've been conflating issues throughout this thread and derailing the discussion in the process. Very little of what you and I have debated in this thread is relevant to the OP's topic at all. Let's focus on football, as that's what the OP was posting about. OK, for real this time, I'm done talking. Seriously.
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Post by brophy on Sept 7, 2017 6:42:36 GMT -6
regarding bobgoodman and coacharnold in this discussion, isn't this where we are (in America), already?
In 2017, I don't know there is a real value in a public school education. Sure its compulsory, it keeps the kids in line for the most part and allows their parents to contribute to the work force, but if we're talking a valuable EDUCATION, the kind that public school used to provide, you have to get your kids in a public/charter school....i.e. PAY FOR IT.
Public school education, if we're honest, has devolved to the lowest common denominator of society. What Hemlock is referring to/suggesting, when you get down to it, has been brought full circle by coachd5085 - private schools are the ultimate model. You have a premium student base, can provide "scholarships" to in-need families (read who happen to have the fastest kid in the city), and can benefit from running a "for-profit" enterprise with a tax-free shelter.
Take it a step further than private schools and you have the IMG Academy. How is that working out?
We can all take a look at how the European model of training Olympic athletes has gone. There certainly is a long enough track record. The challenge is football is a large-scale sport. If you're going to do it right, let's be honest, you're 2-platooning, you've got depth, you play large stadiums, you have field equipment and you travel well. You could skimp on any one of those, but you wouldn't have the ideal "club ball" environment designed to breed/foster solid athletes.
So what are we ultimately after with this discussion?
* Is it a systemic way of ensuring kids get top-notch sport instruction? If so, this would likely drive someone to pursue 'club ball' because we know there is zero accountability for competency within a school district, let alone the entire nation.
* Is it a way to divorce the labor/body-needy pipeline of school enrollment from a football program? Because of the above bureaucracy it might lead one down this path, but you can't have the social equality aspect of get a wide range of backgrounds on your team (haves & have-nots). The have-nots, by in large, are not only economically challenged, but are seriously behaviorally / mentally challenged. So while you could sponsor a kid who can't pay, that kid probably also has a lot of core issues that make him incompatible with productive society as a whole. These are the "needs football more than football needs him" type of kids
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Post by dubber on Sept 7, 2017 7:41:32 GMT -6
One thing to keep in mind:
What is the goal?
If the goal is to create take the best athletes and put them on one team in order to attain athletic success, then IMG is the model to which all should aspire.
Then, it becomes about who has and is willing to spend the most money. If I have enough money, I could actually put IMG to shame. This is what Power 5 college football has become.....give us 3 years and we'll get you to the league.
IF you are like me, however, you see high school athletics as a means to a greater end.
It is a conduit by which high school kids can learn accountability, become self confident, and learn true perseverance.
The private schools get this done too, but as others have mentioned, if you ain't rich and you ain't fast, you ain't playing.
So while travels/privates have better facilities, coaching, hell everything, it is impractical to assume we can move more to that model than we already have. (Read : $$$$)
And it is unethical to say "the hell with" everybody else.
I work on a public school football staff at a small school where we have 7 dedicated and talented football coaches, and I know that is rare.
BUT, even on those staffs where 1-2 guys are doing all the "football", you often find guys who are in it for the kids, and that is football's benefit.
A benefit we would sorely miss if we decide the top is all that matters.
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Post by fantom on Sept 7, 2017 7:49:02 GMT -6
regarding bobgoodman and coacharnold in this discussion, isn't this where we are (in America), already? Public school education, if we're honest, has devolved to the lowest common denominator of society. What exactly does that mean?
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Post by 53 on Sept 7, 2017 8:01:49 GMT -6
regarding bobgoodman and coacharnold in this discussion, isn't this where we are (in America), already? Public school education, if we're honest, has devolved to the lowest common denominator of society. What exactly does that mean? I can't speak for him. It means to me, that we've taken personal accountability out of it for the most part. We just push kids though the system for the most part. I think our educational system is broken, and too centralized at getting kids to college. If you don't fit that mode, you're in for a tough road and won't get much from it. The huge skills gap in jobs that are trade base shows this in the market. We have a ton of jobs that can't be filled because we're not reaching that set of students for the workforce. We need more variety and paths that better represents the population and market, instead of basically one cookie cutter way of doing it.
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Post by fantom on Sept 7, 2017 8:12:56 GMT -6
What exactly does that mean? I can't speak for him. It means to me, that we've taken personal accountability out of it for the most part. We just push kids though the system for the most part. I think our educational system is broken, and too centralized at getting kids to college. If you don't fit that mode, you're in for a tough road and won't get much from it. The huge skills gap in jobs that are trade base shows this in the market. We have a ton of jobs that can't be filled because we're not reaching that set of students for the workforce. We need more variety and paths that better represents the population and market, instead of basically one cookie cutter way of doing it. How would you change that?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 8:19:34 GMT -6
What exactly does that mean? I can't speak for him. It means to me, that we've taken personal accountability out of it for the most part. We just push kids though the system for the most part. I think our educational system is broken, and too centralized at getting kids to college. If you don't fit that mode, you're in for a tough road and won't get much from it. The huge skills gap in jobs that are trade base shows this in the market. We have a ton of jobs that can't be filled because we're not reaching that set of students for the workforce. We need more variety and paths that better represents the population and market, instead of basically one cookie cutter way of doing it. We used to have more of those things before lawmakers started forcing high stakes testing on teachers and schools in the name of "accountability," largely as a scheme to undermine public schools so charters and privates could get that public school money into their bank accounts. Then they slice and dice the data in so many ways the it's impossible for any school to ever be truly successful by their metrics. That's what really caused the cookie-cutter, college-or-nothing system we have now. If we had any sense, we'd take another long look at tracking, invest heavily into CTE/vocational education in HS, and make the last 2 years of public school a choice between an apprentice-and-certificaiton or a college prep program, which is what most other industrialized countries do, but that brings up a lot of ugly civil rights, handicapped rights, and discrimination issues for us that conflict with other parts of our laws. It would make all the sense in the world to do this and save huge amounts of money, but we're hamstrung by politics and history. Charters and privates get it better. They can pick and choose their kids, kicking anyone to the curb who causes discipline problems or just doesn't test well, and get to operate on a wholly different set of rule than public schools do. That doesn't make them "better" than public schools--there are plenty of lousy private school teachers--though it creates a better environment for the kids with the means to attend them. The bottom line is that "good schools" are usually the product of "good kids" (read: above median income, non-SPED, non-abused, and mostly white/Asian). All the other "undesirable" kids still need to be educated somewhere, because they will one day be expected to work and contribute to society, so whatever schools serve them will always be classified as "bad schools" on the basis of BS test scores and problems that are beyond the schools' control. I guess some people in this thread think we don't need to educate that 50+% of the population at all or that, as "consumers," those kids (including that abused 6 year old with ADHD and dyslexia with the pilled mom who doesn't get to eat unless it's in the school cafeteria) and parents will miraculously straighten up and figure out the value of an education for themselves and find a way to pay for it if it's not provided via public education. Personal responsibility and all that...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 8:31:35 GMT -6
Sure, people benefit from each other's learning. But they also benefit from practically every other investment they make in anything else, too. Somebody invests in retail stores, everybody who shops benefits. You want to make everybody invest in retailing? Like there wouldn't be retail stores if people weren't forced to invest in them? Everybody benefits from communication cable; you want to make everybody invest in that too? But I'm surprised you're making this argument in a thread about sports. You want to argue that sports are so necessary that everybody should have to invest in them? Because of all the things you could say are a benefit to those who aren't involved, sports has got to be one of the hardest cases to make! I have plenty of friends who can't stand sports, or who have no interest in particular ones; how's football making their lives better? To answer your last question: The same we benefit from art, music and other extra curricular activities, we keep our kids busy. Coming from a small village, boredom leads to you finding trouble. If I grew up somewhere where I could be active with football during my teenage years, I would have made a lot fewer dumba$h decisions and maybe would've stayed out of trouble. It's not just about keeping them busy, though. For a lot of kids this is the only chance they'll ever have to be exposed to those things, which, if you think about it, are the things that make life actually enjoyable to live. For some of them, these things (art, music, sports, school activities) offer a refuge from some truly awful things going on outside of school and these kids would be lost without that. It also gives them a chance to learn leadership, learn how to be part of a team, allows kids who would be isolated to develop normal social skills, learn how to work for something they want, learn how to overcome setbacks, etc.
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Post by brophy on Sept 7, 2017 8:44:31 GMT -6
I can't speak for him. It means to me, that we've taken personal accountability out of it for the most part. We just push kids though the system for the most part. We need more variety and paths that better represents the population and market, instead of basically one cookie cutter way of doing it. How would you change that? ultimately what the issue is, you can't save everyone. Some kids aren't meant for cannot overcome their family/upbringing/embraced way of life. Forcing them into a square hole doesn't benefit them and their toxic presence and attitude burdens what remains of your public school classroom that could've had a chance at a decent education. There isn't an easy fix, but if we'd be willing to accept the fact that not every kid can be saved. Not everyone is meant to survive in this world. Maybe we'd come to the grips with the REALITY of life that you either do something, for yourself, to get out of the mess you're in to IMPROVE yourself and others...or you will remain in the dead end you're in. That is where most families in America are. They realize that sending their kids to public school isn't helping them. If they had the $20k per year to put their kids into schools, they most certainly would. That is why private/charters are taking off. Not because they are necessarily doing anything different or their teachers are worlds better than their public counterparts. It is because those private administrations have some authority/accountability that is above local government bureaucracy and, probably most importantly, it keeps the toxic kids and their families away from students trying to learn. Now, where does that leave us with football, though? How could club ball offer a more viable product than public high school? eh, I bet you could make an argument What about from private high school? I think you would have a difficult time arguing against private school football programs Club ball logistics (particularly past middle school level) are something I just don't know how you could manage. The infrastructure to run a solid 15-18 year old club team, let alone a league (?)....I'm not sure I understand where the investment would come from. Then you're also talking about practices that are cutting into time these kids are at school (whereas, if the football is with the school, you cut down on a good hour or two).... What is the point of doing all this (for a parent)? Am I really thinking my son is destined for the NFL? If not, then what difference does it ultimately make if Coach Joe Slappy is teaching him scoop blocks versus Howard Mudd? So we have the IMG Academy (who haven't fared so well against private school competitor teams)... and next year we have the PAC Football League that is intended to be the alternative to NCAA athletes. If that becomes viable, then you would at least have more leverage in justifying varsity-level club ball Of course, I'm thinking 'big city', but I'm sure a working model of this has already been in practice by 8-man teams (not associated with one team) and rural township collectives that field teams
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