After High School Sports Essay

High Schools should influence students to participate in sports because they can help students' futures, prepare them for life after high school, and help pupils to stay healthy and out of risky behavior. Youth partaking in organized school sports first dates back to New York City in 1903 (Cox). It began with 300 players and quickly spread around the U.S. and to the rest of the world. Previously, in around the 1700s, children would get together and play games and “sports” just among themselves, but the New York City's Public School Athletic League for Boys was the first time these games became organized by adults. In the 1910s-30s, the first main sport advertised to children was basketball. Participation was initially strictly limited

Children in sports are “15% more likely to attend college” (“Benefits of Sports”). Part of this derives from college admissions' inherent leniency with high school athletes. “A study in the early 2000s found that athletes recruited to Ivy League universities tended to have significantly lower SAT scores than their nonathlete classmates” (Eckstein). In some students’ cases, they might be able to learn the material taught to them but struggle more on tests due to test anxiety. If they are encouraged to continue in sports and happen to become anxious when taking a large test such as the SAT, they can still have a chance to get into their dream school and indulge in a career suited for them. The same applies to students who have learning disabilities or disorders such as ADHD or ADD and struggle in school. Mistakes in high school shouldn’t completely derail an individual's future, and sports can help to prevent that. Even further, “In her 2021 book, ‘Special Admission,’ Kristen Hextrum, an education professor at the University of Oklahoma, found that recruited athletes were largely chaperoned through the admission process by athletic staff” (Eckstein). Hextrum, a reputable source as an actual professor, goes as far as claiming that student-athletes are not only given leniency but are also ushered and given “preferential treatment” (Eckstein). Being involved can help open more opportunities, even if learning and test-taking are difficult for