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RisaPlata
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I'm always amazed at the wide range of opportunities people had available. My school had no pool, no "rink." We thought we were the shit because our gym did not double as an auditorium or cafeteria, like some of the others in our district. And we had a small football field (the real football field was at the middle school, which also had a track) and tennis courts. Sometimes they would put up badminton nets. The only requirement for a passing grade in PE was to change your clothes. We didn't get uniforms- they just wanted us in shorts or sweats and sneakers. Then we could sit around and gossip all class.

The big problem I had was before high school, when they would arrange the team sports for us. But no one ever explained the rules to me. They assumed I knew because my father would watch all the games on Sunday and explain it to me, but my father never watched sports and didn't know any of these games any better than I did. So I would do something I wasn't supposed to do, like pick up a ball between plays or something, and they would yell at me and call me stupid but never ever explain what I did or what I was supposed to be doing. THAT'S when I gave up on all sports, ever.

Now I do yoga once a week, and I can guarantee you that my whole life would have been very different if this had ever been an option to me in high school.
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morninggloria
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
Oh, there are plenty of things to do at urban schools, like join a gang or protest against gangs.
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CherriSpryte
03/22/09

@morninggloria: There's the ever-popular anti-gang gang.
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ImproperDancing
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I think all schools need a good sports program for both boys and girls. If we're going to fight the obesity epidemic, getting kids active is one fantastic way to start!
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Schm
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
"They haven't learned the fundamentals of how to balance, jump, run, how to be a team member, how to suck it up and play through being tired. They feel foolish," said Sabo ... "When was the last time you tried something you weren't good at and stayed with it for a year?"

This is me. This is also why I tend to only stick to solitary exercise which doesn't require much grace, like spinning and weights.
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NewsBunny
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
This is going to be a controversial statement, but I'll make it any way.

In an era when schools can't afford BOOKS, why should sports be a priority at schools? Shouldn't book-learnin' be a school's focus?

It drives me nuts when I see all the money poured into college sports, as well. I couldn't afford a degree, but there's money to piss away on a GAME? Am I nuts here?
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Kivrin
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: College sports is big business. It's sad but true. :(
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CollegeBookworm
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: As I see it, schools have a responsibility towards the whole kid, not just the academic side. That's why schools provide free meals to kids who can't afford it, why we teach sex ed in school, why things like citizenship and how to treat your fellow human being are worked into lessons. It's why we have all those extracurricular options for kids, and elective classes. Teaching kids how to stay healthy is another side of that. I don't necessarily think that team sports are the only way to do this, but teaching kids basic fitness skills are part of teaching the whole child.
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neurotickitten
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: I totally agree, as I said in another comment. I just don't understand why schools do that. You're a school: academics first, extracurriculars second. My high school had so many useless teams, that money could have gone to something useful. The same with my university, there aren't anymore full-time French teachers, but we constantly spend money on renting ridiculous crap for festivals.
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CollegeBookworm
03/22/09

@CollegeBookworm:I want an edit button!

I don't necessarily think that team sports are the only way to do this, but teachings kids basic fitness skills is part of teaching the whole child.
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elitza owns the last Enzo shirt
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: BF and I debate this alllllllll the time.

College athletes don't get educated at DivI schools. If they subsequently don't get into professional sports, or have a career-ending injury (which many of them do!), they have.... nothing. A piece of paper that means literally nothing more than a high school equivalency. The era of the true scholar-athlete is over and that's very, very sad to me.
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baraqiel
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: Yeah, I know how you feel. But you have to consider that for a lot of kids, the only thing keeping them going to school in the first place is the sports. Different schools serve different populations, and for some, the most important life lessons they're going to learn are on the field. By contrast, my college doesn't fund our athletic department at all -- it has its own endowment -- and it forced them to get rid of the football team 6 or 7 years ago because they were spending too much money and time on it.
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CloudsInMyCoffee
03/22/09

@elitza is the liver: WHOAAAA! College athletes definitely get educated at Division I schools! Like at Duke, Carolina, Villanova and my alma mater Davidson. I know that the Davidson student-athletes would take major offense to that.
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Ailanthus-altissima
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: On the college level, the amount of money brought in through donations to a school with an active and fairly good team can be quite substantial.

On a high school level, there is some evidence that students who play sports are more likely to stay in school. It is a huge incentive to some people to have that team - they're willing to slog through classes in order to participate.

Also, I think there are many "intelligences." Schools should nurture all of them, including sports.
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hej hej
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: I'm a high school teacher, and in my district all sports are completely self-funding. Kids pay a "participation fee" that covers coaches' salaries, uniforms, refs' fees, tournaments, etc. The kids fundraise to provide scholarships for those who can't afford the fee. My district doesn't provide buses either--they pay about $100/per person for transportation.

Also, playing sports provides an academic incentive for many of my students. I had a special needs student struggling extremely hard in my class that busted his ass to get a passing grade in order to play football. If he wasn't required to maintain a minimum G.P.A. in order to play sports, I don't know that he would have worked as hard as he did.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
03/22/09

@elitza is the liver: To be fair, that's more like college athletes in what are known as revenue sports. Football and basketball players especially are the ones who go through a hand-holding degree mill. Some soccer players do that too. However, most of the sports like field hockey, gymnastics, swimming, diving, track and field, and wrestling get some help but nothing like a football player. They are guided to take certain classes, but I knew some ladies on the gymnastics team, and they worked their asses off in school and for meets. They hardly ever hung out with anyone but their teammates and made special arrangements and plead with professors when there was an academic conflict. I went to a Division I school by the way.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
03/22/09

@Alys Brangwin is a Tar Heel bred: Oh yes, and most of the athletes are not on scholarship. The big bucks go to basketball, football, soccer, and the occasional big star for a baseball team, exceptional track and field runner, or an excellent golfer.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
03/22/09

@hej hej: My mom's best friend is hoping that her woefully unmotivated son will make the football team this fall just so he will take an interest in school.
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veronykah
03/22/09

@elitza is the liver: I work at USC and was wondering about that. They are always touting their academics but from how much the BBall players play and travel during their season, HOW on earth could they be in class?

I went to an accredited college and if you missed more than I think 3 classes in a semester you FAILED automatically.

Is it all just for show that these athletes "learn" at school?
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: Because schools are just supposed to educate ONE type of child, but ALL of them.

Academics is paramount. But sports provide enrichment. So do things like art, computers, libraries, drama, and whatever else kids can get interested in.
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Shelwood
03/22/09

@veronykah: When I was in college long ago, the players I knew had to make arrangements with their professors at the beginning of each semester regarding the dates they'd miss and how they'd get the notes or make up classes. I imagine it's easier now with the internet and distance learning options.
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CherriSpryte
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: College sports aside, the elementary and secondary schools that can't afford books need sports just as much, if not moreso, than more affluent schools. In impoverished areas, schools tend to be responsible for more - school feeding programs, after care, etc. So anything that's going to reinforce teamwork, encourage kids to work with people they don't necessarily like, let students feel a sense of accomplishment, even just having them to focus on one thing for the hour or two of practice - these are all essential to development. The physical benefits are important as well, clearly.

If parents are working multiple jobs or aren't around for whatever reasons, schools need to step in and make up the gaps sometimes. Sports is one of the ways of doing this. Also, the more time kids are playing sports, the less time they're left to their own devices. Which in middle school/high school, is oftentimes of a good thing.
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Sister Toldja
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I was never good at double dutch (or anything physical before 2007, really), the other girls always said I was "double handed" when I turned and I can't jump. If they had taught it in school, I would have been very happy. In high school, we had to SQUARE DANCE. This was in a predominately Black high school in Chicago. WTF.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
03/22/09

@Sister Toldja: Yea...be "double-handed" will get you ostracized for sure.
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EKane
03/22/09

@Sister Toldja: having a double handed turner is no good... I cain't jump to click CLACK click CLACK! :)
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boxspelunker
03/22/09

@Sister Toldja: We also did square dancing, but we were almost all white kids. This was in like... 5th grade and I was paired with my neighbor who hated me (I hated him too - he was my best friend's twin brother). Other kids brought gloves so they wouldn't have to touch the kids they didn't like. We just decided we'd pretend to touch each other and we worked out quite well :D
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Bgirl_Hamster
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
They haven't learned the fundamentals of how to ... be a team member, how to suck it up and play through being tired."

Unfortunately, most of the girls on my suburbia sports teams didn't learn this either. I think it's universal.
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CollegeBookworm
03/22/09

@Bgirl_Hamster: You know when I learned it? When I found a sport I actually loved. I don't see the point in sprinting down the field for soccer. It doesn't matter enough. Ultimate? I've played on a co-ed team that had trouble getting enough women to show up, and only two women showed up for our end of season tournament. You have to have two women on the field at all times. We played every point, and we ran for every point, and it was worth the sore and aching muscles.
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Kenyakarma
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
This reminds me a bit of the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom.

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Plum-Pie
03/22/09

@SweetSerengeti: Love that film!
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morninggloria
03/22/09

@SweetSerengeti: One of my favorite movies of all time.
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shorty63136
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I can concur with the "starting later in life" aspect of this. I was a total fine arts kid in high school (marching band - which kind of is a sport in my mind, theatre, set design) and felt like I didn't have an athletic bone in my body. Now, at 25, I've picked up rugby. I totally feel like a dumbass out there like I'm running around in circles and just hitting things. But I'm getting good exercise and one day it will click.
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NewsBunny
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
The only sport I ever played in school was figure skating. I was never fabulous at it, but I loved it, and did it ten hours a week.

And we had to fight for every dime. It was ridiculous.
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Kivrin
03/22/09

@NewsBunny: Consider yourself lucky that you even had the opportunity to fight for every dime -- my God, I would've been so happy to have skating as an option! That's so awesome.
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CollegeBookworm
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I wish, looking back, that my high school had had a team sport that I was interested in back then. I wasn't good enough though. In college I started playing a team sport for the first time in my life, and it is SO good for me. Ultimate frisbee!!

Also, Ultimate is a great option for girls if they have the field space. I find that Ultimate is especially good because of the self-officiating nature of the sport. What other sport relies on the sportsmanlike behavior of its players to regulate play on the field, with no outside referee? It is simply assumed that we will all play by the rules, play fairly, and treat the other team with respect. It's a great thing on the field, and I find that it extends off the field with most Ultimate players.

Also, even co-ed Ultimate is good at incorporating girls. I've never played in a co-ed game where the guys didn't 'let' the girls play.
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tscheese
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I would have enjoyed physical education more if it had focused on more solitary pursuits, like aerobics and strength--things where you compete against yourself to get better at what you do.

Most of my high school PE seemed to involve standing around and being bored in team sports, where the athletic boys basically just took over the ball for the whole period. I was very physically active in high school, but only on my own time - going for walks, doing step aerobics when it was too cold to ride bikes, etc. I'm not fast or coordinated, never have been, and there was really no way for me to get involved in team sports. PE was a boring, stinky hour of yawning and occasional humiliation.

To this day I don't have much interest in team sports - participating, watching, anything. PE just made it seem kind of thuggish and repetitive. If there are more opportunities for students to get active and enjoy exercise, I'm all for it.
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Jello Mix
03/22/09

@tscheese: I'm the same way. The only team sport I like to play is hockey. I'd much rather go for a run alone than play kickball or volleyball for an hour.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
03/22/09

@tscheese: I loved my dance classes after school, and I hated watching the guys play basketball for an hour. What was the@battleaxonista: That is very depressing. It's a "game" until boys get involved. Then it's a "sport" worthy of attention.
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CollegeBookworm
03/22/09

@tscheese: High school PE sucked. Luckily I only had to do it for two years, but it still sucked. It only served to confirm that I 'wasn't athletic' and such. I don't know why I was so sure I wasn't athletic- I had been a decent softball player in elementary/middle school, I danced my entire life, and when floor hockey came around in PE every year I was running my heart out and slapping around the boys. I'm not all that good at more sports, but I'm not nonathletic. I think that being a nerd, I thought I wasn't allowed to like sports, or something ridiculous like that.

Nowadays I play Ultimate, as I said below. I won't call myself un-athletic anymore. I might not be the strongest player on any given team, but I get a few decent handblocks in at every tournament, and I can catch most discs that come at me. I've played every point of a tournament in DC summer heat, and ran the whole time. I'm not nonathletic at all.
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Kivrin
03/22/09

@tscheese: Word. I might have actually liked tennis, if I'd ever had a chance to learn the basic skills in P.E. (I realize tennis courts aren't always easy to come by, but they could've taught us the basic skills!) Instead it was soccer, basketball, volleyball, and running laps. Blah.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
03/22/09

@Alys Brangwin is a Tar Heel bred: D'oh! There should be an edit button. What was the point of those team sports anyway? We all knew who was athletic and strong, and I wasn't one of them.

I will add that at my high school we could choose between regular P.E. which was usually sex-segregated, or we could take weightlifting, or dance. I took weightlifting because the dance teacher hated people who had previous dance experience, and for one semester I was the only girl in weightlifting. It was a great time because I was allowed to do the lifting MWF and on Tues and Thurs when the guys were playing basketball, I was allowed to sit on the bench and do my Algebra II homework. The second semester three other more athletic girls joined and I was no longer allowed to do what I wanted, but was expected to stand around and watch the guys. I appealed to my teacher who told me he didn't mind if I sat on the bench as long as I walked border of the gym once.

Middle school PE was the nightmare where all the guys took the soccer ball and turned the game into football, or they never passed the basketball. No one stopped them either because "boys will be boys."
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baraqiel
03/22/09

@tscheese: This is why my high school had boys' and girls' phys ed classes. The guys got to show off, to each other, how well they could run around the school and play indoor field hockey. The girls got to sit around and gossip since there were perpetually two or three heavily pregnant members of the class who couldn't be made to do vigorous exercise.
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battleaxonista...is a humorless bitch
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
In my hometown, once people got competitive about double dutch they started chucking the girls to bring in male breakdancers, bboys, etc. I see that trend remains the same the higher up in competition one goes.
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haguenite
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
God, mandatory gym. That sucked. The only good grade I ever got for that was when we had to juggle for a grade. I was a good juggler, but I failed miserably at jumping over shit.

In our last year we could actually pick some cool stuff, like self-defense, capoeira, salsa and rock climbing. I understand that that would probably be too expensive to introduce for all grades, but still, it was fun.
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Kivrin
03/22/09

@haguenite: In high school we did a 3-week roller-skating session in P.E. It was the only time in my life that I was ever the star pupil in a Phys Ed class. I must say, it was truly gratifying to see all these sports studs busting their asses on the skating rink.
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elitza owns the last Enzo shirt
03/22/09

@haguenite: Holy shit! I'd have taken capoeira in a hot second.

I love martial arts, and think I'd probably be fairly good at them if I ever got around to it. Capoeira is just so freaking beautiful.
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baraqiel
03/22/09

@haguenite: Wowww that sounds sadistic. I can imagine your gym teacher sitting back in his/her chair and going, "Now juggle! Juggle, you little monkeys!"
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haguenite
03/22/09

@Kivrin: Oh, I had that during the dance cycle we did. All the boys who got to step 12,000 during the Shuttle Run test (okay, perhaps more like 16, which is still 10 steps more than I ever got to) were suddenly fumbling and failing miserably.

@baraqiel: I think they make you take a psych evaluation before you can become a gym teacher and if they can't tick the 'sadist' box you can't become one.
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baraqiel
03/22/09

@haguenite: Oh, for sure. When I was taking a tour of my high school during freshman orientation, we walked past a couple of the gym teachers and one hissed to the other, "fresh fish" (from Shawshank Redemption). It was terrifying.
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Kivrin
03/22/09

@haguenite: OMG, shuttle run. I had almost managed to wipe that from my mind. Gah!
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Bgirl_Hamster
03/22/09

@haguenite: I still remember one gym teacher who actually graded us on our skills instead of effort during the volleyball unit. The rest of the nerds and I were terrified at the prospect of our cumulative GPA's plummeting because we couldn't do an overhand serve.

But reading the rest of the comments, it sounds as though this gym teacher wasn't such a rogue after all!
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
03/22/09

In reply to City Schools Need More Sports Opportunities For Girls
I loooooove double-dutching. I would like to thank Keke and her weird cousin LaSandra for teaching me how in the third grade.
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HeinzDoofenshmirtz
03/22/09

@Ulookinatmyjunk: Diary of a Mad Black Blogger: I tried last spring but I still don't know how to jump into it though :(
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
03/22/09

@nutellagirl (nigeriangirl): Listen to the ropes (wait for the breaks between the clicks), look for the opening and just throw yourself in. You'll probably get popped in the face a few times, but you'll get the hang of it soon enough. I learned the rudiments of double-dutching at school. However, I really learned to double-dutch when I was staying in Oakland, CA with my Nana for a month. The kids in the neighborhood were really broke and only had telephone and extension cords as jump ropes. So, I had a loooooot of incentive to not get hit with the ropes...because that shit buuuuuurned. I had welts all over my cheeks and calves.
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andonthatnote, JOC
03/22/09

@Ulookinatmyjunk: Diary of a Mad Black Blogger: I never learned to jump but I was an awesome turner.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
03/22/09

@andonthatnote: A good turner is better than a good jumper any day.
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Chamalla,barren crone
03/22/09

@andonthatnote: Me too. I can fall down walking from point a to point b, with no obvious obstacles. Throw in a couple of ropes moving in opposite directions and it's hogtied Chamalla in about 30 seconds.

I can turn like a champ, though. It serves me well during recess duty.
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