September/October 2014 Topic

SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Topic: “On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.”

DEFINITIONS

● “sport” is defined as “a contest or game in which people do certain

physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other”"Sport."Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 09 July 2014. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sports>.

● “sport” is defined as “a physical activity (such as hunting, fishing, running, swimming, etc.) that is done for enjoyment”"Sport." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 09 July 2014. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sports>.

“SPORT”

Topicality

What is a sport? Is debate a sport? How can you strategically define the term “sport” to include or exclude certain activities? When is it strategic to have a broad or narrow definition?

What does it mean to benefit?

What qualifies as interscholastic? Are intramural sports interscholastic? No, they’re not.

Topicality (cont’d)What is the significance of “the United States” in the topic? What is unique to sports in the U.S. and the way they are played in schools?

What is the significance of the terms “on balance”?

What kinds of students are we talking about in the topic? Does this include all students in a school in which interscholastic sports are offered, even those who don’t participate in those sports? Or is it just talking about those students who participate in interscholastic sports?

Common Pro Arguments

Health: smoking

Smoking: Female athletes who participated on one or two school or community sports teams were significantly less likely to smoke regularly than female non-athletes. Girls on three or more teams were even less likely to smoke regularly (Melnick et al., 2001).

Health: breast cancer

Breast Cancer Risk: Based on the findings from 23 studies examining the effect of moderate and vigorous physical activity during adolescence on cancer risk, those who had the highest physical activity during adolescence and young adulthood were 20% less likely to get breast cancer later in life (Lagerros et al., 2004).

Health: osteoporosis

Osteoporosis: A study following pre-pubertal 10-year-old girls for 20 months found that an exercise program (engaged in three times a week for 12 minutes per session) led to an increase in bone mass. This result was not found for the girls who did not participate in the exercise program (MacKelvie et al., 2001; MacKelvie et al., 2002; MacKelvie et al., 2003; MacKelvie et al., 2004).

Health: illicit drug use

● Two nationwide studies found that female school or community athletes were significantly less likely to use marijuana, cocaine, opiates, tranquilizers, prescription drugs, or “club drugs” like ecstasy or GHB (Ford, 2008; Miller et al, 2000; Pate et al, 2000; Yusko et al., 2008).

● Ewing (1998) and Page (1998) show that athletic participation may help protect girls against illicit drug use…Drug abstinence may be a rational decision for girls who wish to maximize their athletic performance and avoid jeopardizing their eligibility to play.

Health: sexual risk

-”Female athletes were less likely to have unprotected sex, sex with multiple partners, or sex under the influence of alcohol/drugs (Lehman & Koerner, 2004; Miller et al., 2002).”-”Female high school and college athletes are significantly less likely to get pregnant than their nonathlete peers (Dodge & Jaccard, 2002; Kokotailo et al.,).”-Impact: “About one in three sexually active adolescents and young adults is infected with an STD by age 24.”

Health: depression

Depression: Moderate levels of exercise and/or sports activity helped protect girls and women against depression (McKercher et al., 2009; Sanders et al., 2000).

Heath: suicide

Suicide: Female high school/college athletes were less likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide (Brown & Blanton, 2002; Brown et al., 2007; Sabo et al, 2005; Taliaferro et al., 2008a.).

“Girls who consider sport an important part of a healthy life, and as a useful coping behavior during times of distress, are less likely to be suicidal (Tomori & Zalar, 2000).”

Health: cardiovascular disease (CVD)

Physical activity throughout the lifespan helps reduce a woman’s risk for CVD (Crimmins et al., 2008). A physically active lifestyle during youth and early adulthood can help prevent the emergence of chronic disease later in life by establishing behavior patterns that continue into adulthood and keep the individual in better physical shape. Physical activity...has been shown to reduce overweight, hypertension, cholesterol, and control diabetes (Kokkinos & Moutsatsos, 2004; Albright & Thompson, 2006; Sarrafzadegan et al., 2008; Dalleck et al., 2009).

Increased academic performance

Educational Gains: According to Troutman and Dufur (2007), females who participated in high school sports were more likely to complete college than those who did not participate in sports.

Leadership

Social benefits + cooperation

~Understanding causation~

● A lot of con speakers will stand up and say “the pro evidence proves CORRELATION not CAUSATION; good/motivated students join sports, but it’s not the case that sports CAUSES students to be good/motivated”.

● So be sure your evidence is strong and DOES prove causation!

Opening quote example

“There are certain things you cannot learn in class, certain character traits that cannot be developed and certain bonds that cannot be made. It is on the sports field where I learnt to persevere and endeavor [and] where I learnt strength of character trumps brute strength...” Because I agree with high school hockey and football player Tami Fashina, I propose….Talimore Fashina, November 18, 2013, The Value of Involvement in School Sport, http://seanhamptoncole.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/students-to-teachers-part-3-the-value-of-involvement-in-school-sport-by-tamilore-fashina/

Common Con Arguments

Con Arg: Too Expensive

Costs. These programs are too expensive. Interscholastic sports cost schools a lot of money in uniforms, coach salaries, transportation and equipment.

Larry Strauss, 2011, veteran high school English teacher, basketball coach, novelist, No High School Sports Lockout, please, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-strauss/no-high-school-sports-lockout-please_b_832477.html? Huffington Post, March 7, 2011

“With state revenues thinned by our prolonged recession and with education funding slashed accordingly, high school sports are a logical target for the budgetary scalpel. In tough economic times can we really afford to maintain interscholastic teams at the expense of textbooks, class size, and other essential academic concerns?”

Con Arg: Undermines Education

The school boards value sports so much that it causes them to focus on sports more than on education.

Bonnie Strinkler Zinc, letter to the editor, Penn Live, http://www.pennlive.com/letters/index.ssf/2012/01/we_cant_continue_to_value_spor.html January 25, 2012, We Can’t Continue to value sports over education

“Studies repeatedly reveal that education in the U.S. fares poorly when compared with Asia or Europe. The reasons could be many, but perhaps one reason can be found in the actions of the West Shore School Board recently. When attempting to balance the budget, the board considered combining the sports of Red Land and Cedar Cliff, the district's two high schools, but a huge uproar came from parents, students and booster clubs. In response, the board discarded that idea and developed another. Its decision was to eliminate middle school foreign languages and Latin and lay off half the librarians in the district. Apparently, the one sure way to wake up the public is to threaten sports, but to threaten academics precipitates less of an outcry. Our students will continue to be unable to compete in this shrinking world as long as we value sport over education. Our major universities are judged on the success or failure of the football and basketball teams. It is time we start to show our children that learning is of greater value than success on any team. I am a proud graduate of Cedar Cliff, a school formerly known for its academic excellence. Now it seems that sending one of our boys to a major university to play ball is the way they want to be known.” 

Con Arg: Less Wealthy Schools Harmed

Poor schools don’t receive the same benefits that wealthy schools do, which disproportionately benefits the wealthy. This creates further inequality amongst economic classes.

http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/index.asp

“Examining individual high school students, sports participation is seen more frequently among those with a privileged background: white students with married, wealthy, educated parents are more likely to play sports. This finding points to an overlooked fact—while Title IX benefited girls by increasing the opportunity to play sports, these benefits were disproportionately reaped by those at the top of the income distribution.”

Con Arg: Lack of Intellectualism

A focus on athletic competitiveness undermines educational competitiveness.

• Dana Goldstein, August 9, 2013, Why the World is Smarter than Us,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/09/why-the-world-is-smarter-than-us.html#

“Why does the U.S. lag behind our peers when it comes to educating our students? Dana Goldstein on a new book that looks at school systems across the globe to come away with a startling conclusion: they value the intellect more than we do. For all our national hand-wringing about standardized testing and teacher tenure, many of us immersed in the American education debate can’t escape the nagging suspicion that something else—something cultural, something nearly intangible—is holding back our school system. In 1962, historian Richard Hofstadter famously dubbed it “anti-intellectualism in American life.” “A host of educational problems has arisen from indifference,” he wrote, “underpaid teachers, overcrowded classrooms, double-schedule schools, broken-down school buildings, inadequate facilities and a number of other failings that come from something else—the cult of athleticism, marching bands, high-school drum majorettes, ethnic ghetto schools, de-intellectualized curricula, the failure to educate in serious subjects, the neglect of academically gifted children.” It would be comforting to think that since Hofstadter’s time a string of national reform initiatives—A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core—has addressed these issues. And though there has been some progress on the margins, journalist Amanda Ripley is here with a riveting new book, The Smartest Kids in the World, to show us exactly why, compared with many of their peers in Europe and Asia, American students are still performing below the mark. According to the OECD, 20 countries have higher high school graduation rates than the United States. Among developed nations, our children rank 17th in reading and 31st in math. Even Poland, with high child poverty rates similar to our own, boasts stronger student achievement and faster system-wide improvement. An entire education reform industry has been built off anxiety about numbers like these. And an entire body of literature exists calling these international rankings into question; for example, arguing that the OECD’s tests over-samplethe United States’ poorest, least academically proficient students. Ripley steers mostly clear of this stale debate and instead tells the stories of three American teenagers who opt to spend a year studying abroad in Finland, South Korea, and Poland, three countries that do well in the OECD rankings. There the American kids encounter high schools that are deeply, even shockingly, enamored of intellectualism.”

Con Arg: InjuriesParticipation in sports causes injury. Interscholastic football is particularly likely to cause injury. Additionally, wrestling often supports unhealthy eating habits that hurt students that are still physically developing. In general, students are at an age at which they are particularly vulnerable to injury, and a sense of competition might encourage students to push themselves to injury.

Daily Gazette (Sterling, Illinois), August 24, 2012m, EDITORIAL: Be aware, be proactive on concussions, http://www.challenge.saukvalley.com/2012/08/23/be-aware-be-proactive-on-concussions/adhy2kr/?list-comments=1“Aug. 24--Sauk

“Valley Media's sports concussion series wrapped up earlier this month. As the 2012-13 high school sports season begins, we urge greater awareness of these serious brain injuries and a new proactive approach toward dealing with them. High school football season kicks off this evening. Along with the blocking, tackling and touchdowns will come inevitable injuries. Most injuries are readily visible, such as bruises, scrapes and swollen joints.An injury that is not readily visible was the subject of a Sauk Valley Media Sports Department special report over the summer. The project's title was "The Hidden Injury: A Series on Sports Concussions.” By reading interviews with coaches, trainers, doctors, players and parents, people learned that concussions are a traumatic brain injury -- actually the most common type -- and are caused by a forceful blow to the head or body; they often result in unconsciousness. Sporting activities cause about 300,000 concussions a year in the U.S. Symptoms can include headache, blurred vision, dizziness and nausea, difficulty focusing, sleepiness, sensitivity to light and noise, and uncharacteristic emotions or mood swings. Readers also learned about second-impact syndrome, a very serious medical condition that occurs when the brain is reinjured before having fully healed from the first concussion. The series stressed that concussions are not just a football injury. Cheerleaders suffer concussions. So do basketball players and participants in other sports.”

Con Arg: Club Sports Instead

Schools could offer intramural programs instead of competitive, interscholastic programs. This would allow students to gain the health benefits of sports without some of the drawbacks.

http://lhsaa.org/uploads/documents/Club_Sports_vs._High_School_Athletics.pdf

“Some parents feel that club sports provide an increased focus on specialization in sport at a young age, and that this specialization paves the way for their child to receive a college scholarship. In actuality, a very small percentage of students earn athletic scholarships, and the overwhelming majority will spend more money for club sports than they wish to count—sometimes equaling the cost of college expenses. A proper education enhanced by participating in high school athletics offers the ideal preparation for a collegiate athletic career.”

Con Arg: Too Competitive

Sports encourage students to taunt each other and insult opposing teams in cruel ways.

• http://www.nfhs.org/CoachingTodayContent.aspx?id=7023

“We are also seeing a great many kids drop out of sports by the time they enter high school. Actually, that trend has now moved to before middle school. The reasons are usually about not having any fun and the sport taking too much time. Those two reasons can be traced directly to how much pressure the athletes and coaches feel. The officials are leaving due to abusive crowd behavior. We have lost all perspective about what is important for children, and we are teaching some really negative things about playing sports.”

Con Arg: Parental Pressure

Parents put too much pressure on their kids to succeed in sports, causing those kids’ to be psychologically damaged at a crucial time in their lives.

“Parents who live through their child’s accomplishments can fall into that dark pit and put excessive stress on the child to continue to perform without allowing any room for second place. Young athletes have young psychological makeup, so they cannot be treated like adult athletes. This is a point that cannot be emphasized enough. (Insert bells, whistles, and fireworks here.) Youth should not be placed in a significant or intense win-loss situation until they are confident that their worth is not based on the outcome of the athletic activity.”

A2 Specific Neg Args

A2 Teams too costly

Turn: health benefits control the link to economic benefits.“Obesity-Related Diseases: An increase in physical activity among children and adults would substantially reduce the $90 billion in U.S. health care expenditures spent treating obesity-related diseases (Li-Kelsey et al., 2009).”

A2 Performance enhancing drugs

Though steroids are often associated with organized sports, research suggests that many women may be motivated to use steroids in order to look fit and attractive. A physically active lifestyle, which accomplishes the same purpose, may actually serve as a protective mechanism against the use of steroids.

A2 Drug abuse is common

Drug abuse is incredibly uncommon among high school athletes: “In 2007, 0.4% of high school senior girls and 1.6% of senior boys reported having used steroids without a doctor’s prescription in the past month (Johnston et al., 2008).”

A2 Specific Aff Args

A2 Sports improves body image

Girls who participate in sports or athletic activities traditionally considered “feminine” or aesthetic, such as cheerleading, dance, or gymnastics, are more likely to report being ashamed of their bodies, feeling overweight, and actively trying to lose weight than girls who don’t participate in sports (Crissey & Honea, 2006; Parsons & Betz, 2001).