ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240030
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANNY OSBORNE
I AM sure the editors of The Roanoke Times are not ``sports haters.'' Sports haters are people who, for whatever reason, deride or discount athletic activity at all levels. They love to put down all ``jocks'' as being dumb or ignorant people.
Colleges' admissions offices know the value of varsity athletics as a predictor of future success. It's a shame that many of our local elected officials do not. It's a sad but true fact that today the only firm discipline many children receive is from their athletic coaches.
At the dawn of creation, some children ran, danced and jumped in the sunlight and some sat in the back of the dwelling and criticized the active ones. The active ones became the future leaders; the critical ones remained in the rear.
Your Sept. 10 editorial (``Sack the plea to add football'') opposes middle-school football for Roanoke city . In this day and age of two-parent income, you purpose that hundreds of male adolescent children are better off wandering Roanoke's streets with their latch keys yarned around their necks than they are belonging to a middle-school football team.
Recreational sports do not replace school sports! They are basically elitist while school sports tend to be inclusive. Those children whose parents support them participate in recreational sports, but those children who do not receive such support have only the opportunity of school sports.
In the face of enormous evidence that a student's self-esteem depends upon his or her acceptance by their peer group, your staff prefers recreational sports to school sports while fully knowing that a child's socioeconomic level mainly determines his or her participation in sports at that level.
Millions of children have grown up wishing they could participate in the activities your newspaper proposes to keep available only to certain fortunate children. It's those children who do not have parental support that I most worry about. When the community rejects clean and well-supervised physical activity for pre-teen and early teen males, then I really begin to worry about that entire community.
I will see that my children receive all the athletic and academic opportunities that I can afford. I live in Pulaski County where we have middle-school sports and the Southwest Virginia Governor's School. Pulaski County children go on to both Ivy League schools and to Division I athletic programs. We are fortunate to live in a county that recognizes the diverse needs of its citizens.
Roanoke, Botetourt and Franklin counties, and Christiansburg, Blacksburg and Pulaski have middle-school football. It's sad that Jeff Artis (Sept. 12 commentary, ``Kids need team sports'') is a voice in the darkness as he asks that his community provide for its children the same things that are already available for those children who live in the communities surrounding Roanoke.
Is it possible that his proposal is rejected because of his politics? Didn't your newspaper support midnight basketball? Don't you realize that Artis' proposal isn't only cheaper than midnight basketball (school coaches work for less than minimum wage) but also is aimed at children who are much more impressionable than the older teen-agers who already walk the streets at midnight?
Danny Osborne of Hiwassee is wrestling coach at Pulaski County High School.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB