Source:Sports Done Right Handbook

Sports Done Right

April, 2005

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Sports Done Wrong

The University of Maine initiative, funded by a Congressional allocation secured through the office of Senator Susan M. Collins, was launched Oct. 30, 2003 under the co-direction of J. Duke Albanese, policy advisor for the Great Maine Schools Project at the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute and former Maine education commissioner, and Robert A. Cobb, dean of the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development.

Core principles identified in Sports Done Right cover the areas of: Philosophy, Values and Sportsmanship, Sports and Learning, Parents and Community, Quality of Coaching, Opportunity to Play, Health and Fitness, and Leadership, Policy and Organization. In addtion, observsations about the Middle School sports experience are presented.

Introduction

Clips from the Introduction, click here for the full text.

As our public schools respond to calls for improvement and greater accountability for student achievement, it is timely for all of us to examine sports in the school setting. Whether referred to as extracurricular or co-curricular, thousands and thousands of Maine middle school and high school students are participating in sports: competing in our gymnasiums, in our arenas and on our athletic fields. There is tremendous support for school sports programs and an abiding desire by educators and citizens to make involvement in sports a truly enjoyable, developmentally sound experience for our student-athletes.

Having acknowledged the prominence of sports in our nation and our state, we need to acknowledge a concern with how we conduct school sports. Can we serve our student-athletes better? Is there a way to describe healthy school sports? Is there an urgency to make some corrections?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding YES!

Our interscholastic sports programs do need careful examination. Like the call for a higher academic literacy for all of our students, there is a clear need to make a series of mid-course corrections in our efforts to offer student-athletes healthy learning experiences through sports.

Core Principles and Core Practices describe healthy sports programs and point out ways to retain what is good while resisting troubling trends. The product of the best thinking of a Select Panel of knowledgeable, committed citizens, these recommendations have been shaped after hearing first-hand from hundreds of student-athletes, educators, parents, school board members, officials, coaches and the public. Examination of the literature and research into best practices has guided this work as well.

Core Principles

For each Core Principle, there are Core Practices and Out of Bounds recommendations. Click here for the full text of these recommendations.

Clips from Middle Level Sports section, click here for the full text.

The question of what constitutes the best educational environment to meet the complex and changing growth and development needs of young adolescents continues to generate conversations and debates, guidelines and policy at the local, state and national levels. Perspectives regarding sports programs, espoused philosophies and day-to-day practice also vary. Just as the structures and practices that define schooling at the middle level are different from those used at other levels, appropriate sports programs for middle school students should differ from the programs for high school students.

Some advocate for "little high schools" where programs focus on the "feeder system" dimension, championships and serious competitions. Others argue for a focus on skill development and enjoyment, nurturing the notion of the whole child.

During these critical years, young adolescents are experiencing one of life’s greatest periods of physical, emotional, social and intellectual growth. An important challenge and role for middle schools is to help students incorporate these dramatic changes into the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to succeed in high school and later in life.

A major hallmark of middle schools is their focus on being developmentally responsive: they recognize and incorporate the unique characteristics of young adolescents into curriculum, instruction and co-curricular activities. Middle school students need an educational environment—including sports— that emphasizes:

• exploration rather than specialization
• strengthening of fundamental skills in a variety of activities
• teamwork and sportsmanship
• meaningful relationships
• health and safety
• resiliency, responsibility and accountability
• continuing opportunities to play

Transition is also an important component of Middle level athletics.

This webpage are highlights from the Sports Done Right Handbook, click here for the full text.

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Last modified: , 2005

Disclaimer: This website is the sole responsibility of Mike McMahon. It does not represent any official opinions, statement of facts or positions of the Alameda Unified School District. Its sole purpose is to disseminate information to interested individuals in the Alameda community.