From Deseret News archives:
High school sports cater to the elite
If that weren't enough, the state Legislature, in a moment of lapsed judgment, recently considered bills that would allow students to play at any high school they desired (fortunately, the plan got routed like the Detroit Lions).
Somebody call timeout. Can we go to a commercial break? We're headed the wrong direction here.
High school sports doesn't need to become more skewed toward the elite athlete — if anything, it needs to do a wind sprint in the other direction. It needs a sports academy and play-where-you want rules like it needs another stage parent.
High school sports isn't about developing a program for elite athletes and teams. Does anyone even remember the real and original goal of high school sports? Dave Wilkey, who will become director of the UHSAA this summer, once polled about 100 high school athletes, asking them why they played prep sports.
"I thought they would say they wanted athletic scholarships or to win a state title, things like that," Wilkey says. Ninety percent of the athletes said their purpose was to have fun.
"And when it's not fun, they don't want to do it anymore," Wilkey says.
Beyond that, the purpose of high school sports is to provide a rallying point for high schools and their communities. It's an opportunity for people to cheer for local players, and along the way they (kids and parents) learn discipline, team play, sportsmanship, work ethic, commitment, fair play, etc. Bringing in kids from another part of town and tilting the competitive balance are antithetical to that purpose. That's why kids are banned from transferring to a school purely for athletic reasons. The rules are designed to benefit many, not a few.
There are those who argue that an aspiring athlete should be treated no differently than the art or theater student who wants to go to the best school for his area of interest and is allowed to do so by law.
Wilkey's response: "That decision does not affect hundreds of other English students. The difference is we're trying to keep a competitive balance in sports. In English, they are not competing in the same sense. It creates imbalances in athletics if athletes can play where they want. We're trying to keep a level playing field. We are trying to create the best balance for the most athletes we can. We're not creating elitism."
