"We have to ask ourselves: What is the cost of the program and who is benefiting? How many people are benefiting? Is the benefit worth the cost?" asked the college's perspicacious President Beverly Tatum. Exactly. Schools have limited resources and have to make tough, cost-benefit-based decisions about how to use them.
It's no surprise, however, that the school's basketball coach isn't happy about the change:
"It teaches you a level of sacrifice that is so hard to explain," she said. "Unless you are an athlete or a former athlete, you don't understand what tools and gifts and things that you learn that carry you throughout your entire life."
But as I've argued before, all the lessons learned in sports -- like teamwork, commitment, determination, competitiveness, etc. -- can be learned in an academic or work-study setting, where they better conform to the mission and context of an educational institution.
Now, if we could only do the same at the high school level, and get rid of school-sponsored sports and get all our high schoolers moving, every day!....
By Kathy Lohr
December 6, 2012 | NPR
URL: http://n.pr/THqEM7
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