Comment by skeeter2020
2 days ago
You can't even make a high school team anymore unless you start playing club & private at a very young age. Lots of primary public schools (K-6/7) which is where I learned sports and got good at a few, often don't have sports teams anymore, or if they do it's a few passionate people with limited coaching and sports skills who just want to provide any opportunity.
The natural solution would be to increase the number of teams to also accommodate people who are interested but don’t want to or are unable to dedicate their life to sports. But if schools need to cut costs, it’s tough to do.
It’s a common trend in many domains: universities, housing, jobs. An underabundance of resources means people need to gear up to fight over the things that still exist.
> natural solution would be to increase the number of teams
Reminds me of my dad (b. 1945) talking about his HS sports experience in the early ‘60s at a large (~3500) Southern California public school. Not only were there varsity, JV and frosh teams, in high-interest sports like football and basketball there were multiple teams for every grade. Competition was still high if you wanted to play at the highest level, but if you wanted to play, there was probably an option for you.
Public schools are simply not funded the same way today
Per pupil spending adjusted for inflation is up significantly since 1960s.
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Or, given the real-world constraints schools are usually up against, pick the worst participants instead of the best. Those who are skilled in a given sport are almost certainly engaged in the sport outside of school, and thus are taking away from those who are much more likely looking to learn about a sport they otherwise don't have access to.
Interesting/amusing thought. How do you propose to determine the worst athletes?
Maybe another approach would be to use a lottery among applicants.
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