High School Sports

High School Sports

In high school many kids often choose not to participate in extra curricular activities saying that there pointless or that only a certain type of person would do something like play football, or join the chess club. While this type of thinking may get some people through school and through life, can it really be looked at as being a healthy lifestyle? Today sports have proven to be a healthy outlet for students, in dealing with stress in the classroom at home and among their peers.

The “dumb jock” stereotype we’ve all heard it used before and for some of us have even been called it. However in recent surveys across the United States has found that student-athletes grades are generally higher than non-athletes but often times at the head of their class. One example of this is Laconia High School in Maine, at Laconia, the top-ranked students in the Class of 2003 both play more than one sport. Aaron Stewart, a three-sport standout, is currently ranked No. 1 in the senior class with a 4.43 grade point average. AJ Pattison, an All-State soccer selection and member of the Sachem baseball team, is right behind Stewart with a 4.38 GPA (http://www.fosters.com/2002/news/dec02/dec22_02/sports/sp1222a.asp) Graduation for athletes is also higher than it is for non-athletes are also higher having a 99.5% success rate to 94.5% for regular students.

Off the field student athletes have also proven to be great leaders in their respective communities, often times helping out in the neighborhoods with community service. Athletes also seem to have an easier time raising money because people in communities find it easier to donate money or volunteer there time to a local high school sports program. I...

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...morable part about that highlight film was the song that was being played in the background, Phil Collins In the Air Tonight. Now this isn’t typically your everyday get excited song but for some reason this song gave me goose bumps every time I heard it. To this day every time I hear this song those memories come flooding back to me along with the goose bumps.

Overall sports will always allow players to experience something that not everyone chooses to experience and that is competition. But above all sports does several things that not many activities do and that is build self confidence, create a strong work ethic, teach sportsmanship, it helps maintain student athlete grades, and overall healthy activity. It also does a great job of keeping gets in urban cities that may not have all the options as kids in other areas to stay off the street and out of trouble.