Sports as a form of civic leadership education

There is a commonly widely held view that sports and athletic events are little more than social entertainment.  Whenever I hear such arguments, I see the famous class divide between jocks and the wiz-kid, between those who champion the body and those who champion the mind. At one level, one hears the voices of resentment and envy for those who see athletes get such money and then see how poorly we score in other academic endeavors compared to other countries.  They argue that if those resources were diverted to the sciences, math, etc., America would indeed ascend.  There is enough evidence of how much the US spends. One only needs to look at OECD reports from 2012, which show that “the United States spent $11,700 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary/secondary education, which was 31 percent higher than the OECD average of $9,000.” These figures have not declined over the years. Yet the cry persists in many quarters–why is so much public education money aimed at sports?  You hear them complain, “Sports isn’t about education but about entertainment.  We should not waste money on entertainment, but rather we should be directing it towards the real issues of education, things that our children will need to prepare for the future.” But is this perspective regarding sports actually correct?  Perhaps sports and sports education are a very important aspect of practical civic education, and the American and the Anglo-American world’s overall emphasis on the role of sports in education is what gives Anglo-Americans stronger civic societies than those who don’t.

Yes, education should prepare our children to be successful in the future.  Yet, if these voices got their way, American children would be hindered and handicapped in ways these voices don’t realize because they so despise sports they fail to see the central role they play in society.  They see that such programs are not found in Asian societies, which seem to have greater success in creating very studious math students than in the US. But sports is more than a game, especially to those playing on the field; it is about teaching spatial reasoning and how to work collectively yet doing different jobs and how all of these things, although separate when they cooperate, can win together. Also, they learn how to fail and not let failure define them. Hence, we see where there are strong traditions of team sports in schools, we can be assured that the needed skills of learning how to build and form social capital are being learned and built–through firsthand experience.

America inherited its sporting culture from our British colonial past and the public school culture of the 18th and 19th centuries.  This tradition of school athletics is why there is a strong civic society and social capital in the Anglo-American societies compared to those of Continental Europe.  Most Continental European societies only offer sporting education beyond basic gymnastics for those attending Athletic training schools to be professional athletes.  These students go to special schools and are usually separated from other students.

During my two decades living and teaching in post-communist Central Europe, I noticed students here lacked the ability to work and cooperate that I, as a student, was surrounded by every day. I noticed that unless the University officially organizes things, students have little gumption to start a group or an association. While such things occur, it is less often than one would experience in the United States. These students generally lack the kind of ties and bonds to their schools that students would have in America.   Yes, they might have a strong attachment to their class or group of fellow students within their class, but not to the school itself.  Alumni networks are wholly absent here. But so, too, are sporting teams. We can say other variables are at play–but we ought not dismiss this.

Plato’s Republic teaches us that education of the young is not only about the mind; it needs also to be about the body as well.  Modern society tends to dismiss much of Plato’s advice on education, asserting that such advice was needed for the world of Greek warring cities, not for large commercial nation-states.  Commerce, not war, is what will employ our citizens.  But here again, this misses the point.  Sport education is not just about the building of the body of the students, it teaches them how to live and work within a society of people who are not your kin and family.  It helps them to learn how to form bonds with them and work together with them for a common interest.  It teaches them teamwork and how to work together. Thus, it offers a social force to help balance the power of individualism in the American setting.

Again when one looks as the effect of sports engagement on youth while at school, the data makes a strong case that shows such engagement in sports by youth leads to more civic engagement.  Mark Lopez and Kimberlee Moore, for the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), University of Maryland, published in 2006 a Fact Sheet (https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED495209) that shows the connection between youth involvement in sports and greater civic engagement.  The summary of their report says:

One reason to offer sports in school is to teach youth the values, skills, and habits that will make them more active, engaged, and responsible citizens. Past evidence on the civic effects of sports is mixed but points to some potential positive civic effects. This evidence comes from recent data from the 2002 National Youth Survey of Civic Engagement to identify some important positive relationships. Generally, the researchers found that on some dimensions of civic engagement, such as voting, volunteering, and news attentiveness, youth who are involved in sports report higher average levels of civic engagement than their counterparts who do not participate in sports. Researchers found that young people aged 18 to 25 who were involved in sports during high school were more likely than non-sports participants to have volunteered in the community (32 percent vs. 21 percent); registered to vote (58 percent vs. 40 percent); voted (44 percent vs. 33 percent in 2000); and followed the news closely (41 percent vs. 26 percent). Results suggest but do not prove that sports have positive civic effects on people.

Echoing Lopez and Moore, Ian E. Ritz, in a 2006 report on “Playing for an Active Community: Sports Participation and Civic Engagement,” found that participation in youth sports indeed leads to civic engagement later in life. Ritz finds that “there still is an indirect positive correlation between team sports participation and volunteering as a young adult.  [The data] indicates that sports participation as an adolescent significantly accounts for sports participation as a young adult, which in turn influences volunteering.”  One must remember what Tocqueville said in Democracy in America about the role of American volunteering to form associations, which is the basis upon which American civic society rests.

Besides teaching the youth to cooperate, student athletics also gives them a place where future leaders are forged. It is clearly on the playing field one sees the difference between a leader and a boss, as leadership is not only present at the level of the coach but also on the field. Such school sports team leaders usually are chosen among the players (by the players). The process teaches leadership lessons—what can and doesn’t work that they never could learn in the classroom. Thus, student athletics provides lessons about leadership and teamwork and, in doing so, builds habits they will need when they enter society. When one looks at who is active and engaged in society after graduation, we see those who were engaged in student life, especially in student athletics, tend to step up and take the lead in life–be it in business, society, or politics.

Thus, other social associations also arise from the team-building that occurs because of athletics.  Yes, some activities directly correspond with the various sporting activities, such as Cheerleading, Band, and the various forms of student organizations to deal with events surrounding the execution of these sporting events. Yet, in this social interaction and forming environment, associations arise outside of those directed to sports as well. It is the learning ground that Americans learn about civil society, and how it works firsthand.  They learn how to form new associations with their peers.  Even limited compulsory team sports in Physical Education time at school give children important lessons in practical areas of teamwork and occasions to develop leadership skills as well that many of them will benefit from possessing in their future as Adults.

The critics of sports in public education fail to appreciate the opportunities for youth to learn skills they will need to survive as free and independent adults in a democratic society.  They learn not only how to win but also how to fail and not be destroyed by it.  Thus, they come to learn that life is not a “zero-sum” game and that by cooperating with others, they can learn to achieve victory in ways that the mere individual could not.

By working together in teams, young people learn the value of technical reasoning and the importance of building prudence and character.  For all the criticism of student athletics, there are abuses. Some have placed winning and money in positions of primary importance. We must remember the benefits it provides to those playing and those who observe the activities.

Echoing what Robert Putnam pointed out in his 2005 book Bowling Alone about the connection between the decline of people forming bowling groups and other such groups and the decline of social capital, the 2014 study by the Sports Industry Association points to a “significant decline in the number of children participating in sports across the United States” (https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/08/10/In-Depth/Lead.aspx). The cuts to sports programs in American urban cities are one of the factors causing what is viewed as a general social decline. Yet, urban areas alone are not seeing this decline in participation by the young. If the trend of declining participation in youth sports continues, it presents Americans with an ominous warning about a further decline in American civic culture.

Given how poorly our American education system deals with Civics education, I would argue any attempt to reduce or cut spending for one of the few things that gives real-life civics lessons to American students is to imperil the future of our society.  Such a move will condemn future generations of Americans to the curses of radical individualism and social isolation while limiting the tools needed to overcome the forces driving us in that direction. We did not address the implications of this problem for public health and well-being issues.  So, instead of opposing funding for sports education, there should be a greater investment, both public and private, to provide opportunities for engagement in organized team sports.