High school sports are being taken way too seriously and the disrespect that has resulted, especially recently, is unfathomable.
Parents and coaches of high school athletes tend to take the sports to another level, leading to disrespectful comments towards players and coaches, and even physical fights. Lawrence High is not immune to this behavior.
Earlier this year at a boys soccer game, two parents from the opposing school got into a physical fight over high school soccer… raising the question: Why are adults fighting over high school sports?
There is a line between a joking, playful student banter, and verbally harassing someone.
The administration’s close monitoring of students is exacerbating the problem. Since students see the administration watching, they often push the limit to see what they can get away with.
This results in students yelling vulgar words and slurs at players and the admin gets upset by the yelling. Administration needs to be able to trust students, but that means that students need to stop being so immature and realize that tantalizing players isn’t what is important. If students want to shout chants at players, insulting their appearance is not the way to go. While it may seem like lighthearted rivalry, yelling slurs at someone is doing more damage.
During the third quarter of a home football opener against Shawnee Mission South, a player on the opposing team was seriously injured. When the LHS football team saw that his injury was going to take longer than a minute to fix, they immediately stood up from kneeling. While the ambulance was on the field, players were tossing around a football, showing no respect for the injury that had just occurred. An ambulance came onto the field and a student in the LHS student section yelled “Run him over.” Even in a joking context, this type of comment is unacceptable. A player being so injured that an ambulance had to be called is no time for joking, let alone joking about further injuring or even killing the player. High school football is truly not that serious.
It gets to a point when it’s beyond respect and just about human decency, regardless of whether you know the person or not. There was no way of knowing how injured the player was, and tossing a football around a little too close to the accident is not okay.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), participation in high school sports has led to an increase in poor sportsmanship, over-questioning of calls, and even violent attacks. The intensity of high school sports has become too much, causing harm to players and officials.
Competition is healthy but can become dangerous. There should be nothing as significant as a human life on the line when playing a game in high school. Athletes are playing for fun and getting overly upset takes away from their enjoyment.
No sport should be put above someone’s safety, integrity or respect. Being upset when a bad call is made or losing is understandable, but part of being an athlete or sports supporter is being able to appropriately regulate your emotions.
There is no other place in the world where it would be acceptable to treat human lives like it’s a game, high school sports should not be the exception.
