School, Grades and Youth Football & Sports
I was reading over Twitter this morning and came across a Tweet by Coach Dave Cisar “Football may be the best-taught subject in American high schools because it may be the only subject that we haven’t tried to make easy,” at http://twitter.com/#!/davecisar. I like Coach Cisar and his Winning Youth Football program, probably because we both believe in Single Wing formations and good practice organization. Perfect practice will lead to a successful game.
Coach Cisar’s quote about football as the best taught High School subject reminded me of a story in Hall of Fame football Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s autobiography, Bear, about what Hall of Fame Kentucky Basketball Coach Adolf Rupp told a Kentucky faculty group investigating his basketball program.
“By gad come on in here! I’ve been waiting for you bastards! I wanta know what the hell happened to my basketball player over there in your English class. By Gad you expect me to take these pine knots and make All Americans out of them and I send you a B student and he’s making a goddam D!” Adolf Rupp Hall of Fame Kentucky Basketball Coach.
How is it that we can take athletes and make them into champions and our education system will take the same athlete and wash them out? I think Coach Cisar’s quote has some merit. Coaches know that if they don’t win then they are out. They are graded each week. I am not so sure our teachers are graded each week in a public forum. Maybe if they were graded publicly our education system would improve. Don’t get me wrong I love teachers and in another life I will probably teach like I wanted before my parents talked me into my current profession, Business – Finance and Marketing. Coach Rupp’s quote really got me to think about many of the athletes I went to school with in High School and College.
I am not sure our education system and industry has made becoming a All-American in Science, Engineering, English as glamorous as becoming a professional athlete in the NFL, MBL, and NBA. But what if we did figure this out, where would we be in 20 years. Maybe we could solve our foreign oil dependency, reduce our national budget deficit or cure cancer. Now there’s a championship team I would like to coach!
Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!
Spot on, Coach.
I couldn’t agree more with your logic there are very few positions that are scrutinized like that of a head coach, at any level.
A few reason where the difference between teachers and coaches lie.
As a coach you build a connection with players and your team, especially in the case of football. You spend so much time with the team; conditioning, weightlifting, and practices and as a team you face so much adversity throughout a season you have no choice but to bond together.
That element is missing in aspects like teaching. But I cant blame the teachers, how many students come into a classroom anxious to learn a schools required subject? Compare that to those kids on that field who grow up watching their idols in the NFL. There is a lack of connection with students and teacher that there is with a coach and his players. That is why should be used as a motivator for kids in school. And that is exactly the purpose of the “student-athlete” idea, now whether the effectiveness of that idea is being enforced, not to even mention working, is a whole other discussion in itself.