High School Athletes & School Prestige vs. Academic and Moral Standards

Prestige vs. Academic Standards!

For those who have never lived the life of a true high school athlete, you may be oblivious to the scandals, lies, and abuse of power and trusts going on in every school today. The moral clash of school prestige versus academic and moral standards hasn’t been a controversy that has hid in the woods. It has been happening for years, but is just hitting mainstream news recently. The news today is fluttering with problems with high school coaches and athletic programs. Whether on the field cheating, recruiting and bribing, or changing the academic standards made for ALL high school students participating in athletics; high school coaches and athletic programs are setting horrible standards for students. This abuse of power has led to the transfer of students to find a more even playing field.

Coaches are the modern day high school bully, and the athletic programs are the playground for your bullies. Making it worse, is the barrier of protection that is held by their ‘system.’ A system in which freedom of speech is reported as slander and flipped and turned on the student. Students or parents who speak out against, or judge the character of athletic coaches or principles, are forced to stay quiet and take the abuse. These students and parents are forced to allow the hired coaches to do whatever they want to them without repercussions. If they do speak up, they receive negative reinforcement and then consequently, are removed from the team or banned from other activities or games. Now what do you all think of that abuse of power?

A winner in extremes!

Sure everyone loves winning, but should coaches be aloud to go to such extremes to win? With winning can come bigger paychecks and better coaching jobs. You hear stories of high school coaches breaking rules all the time, from having grades changed or fixed, to recruiting players from other high schools. A lot of today’s coaches are using high school athletes and the powers they are instilled with, to take the next step in their chosen ‘career’ path. They use the athletes as a ‘stepping stone’ for their own will. There are things that go on every day in a student-athletes life that most will never see.

One of the most invisible problems in today’s athletic programs, is the recruiting of athletes from other schools for athletics. If you don’t believe that this is happening in our own back yard, take Brandon High School for example. It is a local Tampa wrestling team that has one of the most prestigious sports programs in the nation, and is now under investigation by the Florida High School Athletic Association. Brandon High School is being incriminated after recruiting two wrestlers; going as far as setting up an athlete to stay with another athletes’ family to be in his school zone. The nation’s longest winning streak was under pressure due to the coaches action that defines character. Sadly, not all of these incidents are caught or proven like this one. I myself, have been offered a place at my coach’s house when my parents wanted to move to Texas. I also know that my football coach was housing another athlete at one point.

The actions that are made by coaches define character, character that can rub off on the student-athletes. High School athletics are just an extension of the classroom; where valuable lessons should be taught about loyalty, teamwork, honesty, and sportsmanship. These limits are being pushed to a ridiculously high level, and many schools are losing the right to play in the playoffs for a set period of time. This punishes all athletes for the bad choices made by a single coach. Again, right in our own back yard, St. Petersburg Catholic High School’s football program was fined $13,000 and suspended from postseason playoffs until 2010 by the Florida High School Athletic Association. St. Petersburg Catholic High was found guilty of three accounts of recruiting and four accounts of illegally held off-season practice. In the previous season, St. Petersburg Catholic High was 8-4, and were expected to contend for a state title the following year. Out of the past nine seasons, SPC had made the playoffs eight times. SPC’s leading rusher the previous season, said that the lost was “heartbreaking” and “unlike some of the other players I’m not going to transfer.”

Recruiting

Recruiting is a major issue that is morally wrong and may be taking away from fair playing athletes time on the field or court. But it is not the only issue that is fluttering today’s news. Amid headlines of alleged cheating in auto racing(NASCAR), continuing controversies over steroid use in major league and Olympic sports, and ugly brawls among basketball players comes a darker vision of sports nationwide at all levels. Another problem presented is the bribing of players to play at a high level. Nationally, Baltimore Ravens’ linebacker, Terrell Suggs, is under investigation for putting a “bounty” on the head of an opponent; which could end in hefty fines and possible game suspensions. Sticking local again, former Lakeland star running back and current Florida Gator, Chris Rainey, was suspended from the state championship for accepting bribes. The Florida High School Athletic Association(FHSAA) conducted two investigations that found Chris Rainey guilty of accepting bribes of food, clothing, and money. Rainey said in a story on the radio, "When I walk around, people are buying me food and giving me money. I'm like, damn, I'm glad I'm Chris Rainey. It's real nice to be me.'' Going on to say that when he walked into a store the owner gave him a bag full of football and basketball jerseys and jewelry. This is not the only case, yet this is the case that hit hardest on headline news one week before number one ranked Lakeland Dreadnots were heading into the 5A State Championship. This also put Lakeland’s whole season on the line from these acquisitions. This is huge and goes on all over! Personally I have had an assistant coach offer money for touchdowns and turnovers in little leagues, showing that this is an issue presented at all athletic levels.

Biggerexia - Roid Nation

To level the playing fields of all sports, it would only be fair that no one use performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids. The nation’s top high school football recruiter, Tom Lemming, says that he estimates that 15-20 percent of high school football players are using performance enhancing drugs to “bulk up” and take their game to the next level. He goes on the say that he believes that about half of the pro football players use steroids, while the National Football League looks the other direction. Lemming claims that a lot of the use is “underground.” Studies show that only one percent of college football athletes use illegal performance enhancing drugs; showing the problem started from the top (major league sports) all the way down to the bottom (high school sports). This is one statistical fact that is misleading because the studies are on two percent of all athletes with one percent testing positive(1000 total athletes means that only 20 are tested!). The use of these drugs open athletes to addiction, and doctors have even coined a disorder for the addiction to these performance enhancers, “Biggerexia.”

My A = Their F

I’m sure that all of you have heard from your parents, “Back when I went to school an ‘A’ was 94 and there was no exception.” but today an ’F’ and a fast forty time gives coaches the right to change there academic standards for athletes. When a coach finds a player to be ineligible to play the game, that’s not the time to request a grade change to make him or her eligible. It is nothing new to hear of a grade change to help a player’s eligibility. Continuing this clash of morals between academic standards set to all students and the school prestige of athletics. In one case, at Edison High School, a teacher said he gave a football player a failing grade last spring that later was changed to an "A" without his knowledge. Roosevelt High School has also fixed a student's grade to keep him eligible for at least three games last October and November. The district has requested for three forfeitures for the games on the weeks of the grade changes, declaring Madison High School the 2007 district champs. At the college level, an Auburn signee had 7 grade changes so he could sign to Auburn, which puts his college eligibility in jeopardy. An LSU professor, Caroline Owen, sued LSU in 2004; claiming that she was pressured by the football team to change the grades of student athletes to keep them eligible for football. It was reported that she made more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!

In Conclusion...

All together, today’s young athletes are subject to pressures and morally wrong behaviors at a overwhelming level. Coaches put enough pressure on young athletes to perform at a level at which surpasses there natural born abilities. The athletes feel the only way to perform at the coaches expectations, is to use performance enhancing drugs. Also, while protected by a ‘system’ created by the coaches and school officials to cover up cheating and abuse of power, they get away with recruiting, bribing, mistreating, and changing academic standards for their athletes. Athletics are changing and pushing the levels of moral standards for the young Americans all over America. These character shaping traits will follow our young athletes throughout their lives and not much is being done to raise the level of academic prestige and TRUE athletic prestige.

Work cited

ROY , FUOCO. "Star Running Back At Lakeland High Is Under Investigation." the ledger. : Wednesday, December 6, 2006 . The Ledger. <http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/20061206/BREAKING/612060413/1008/SPORTS01>.

"Top high school scout Tom Lemming says 15-20% of high school football players juice up." Steroid Nation. Steroid Nation. 26 Oct 2008 <http://grg51.typepad.com/steroid_nation/2007/10/top-high-school.html>.

Andy , Boogaard . "Edison Teacher disputes athlete's grade." Fresno Bee. 10 November 2007 . Fresno Bee. <http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/hs/football/story/920579.htmlz>.

"Auburn signee has seven grade changes." Auburn signee has seven grade changes. 6 June 2007. USA Today. <http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/sec/2007-06-06-auburn-recruit-grades_N.htm>.

Kevin, Donahue. "LSU settles with second teacher over football grades." LSU settles with second teacher over football grades. September 29, 2005. Fanblogs. <http://www.fanblogs.com/lsu/005801.php>.

PRETTY INTERESTING TOPIC. YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMAR WERE FINE, I LIKE HOW YOU RELATED YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES TO YOUR ESSAY TO SUPPORT YOUR CLAIM.  THE ONLY COMPLAINT I HAVE IS YOU COULD HAVE MENTIONED SOLUTIONS OR BETTER WAYS TO MONITOR THIS TO PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING TO ADD LENGTH TO YOUR ESSAY.  I HAVE A FRIEND WHO PLAYED HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL IN ARKANSAS AND THE STUDENT ATHLETES HAD THE OPTION (IF THEY GOT IN TROUBLE) OF BEING SUSPENDED AND NOT PLAYING IN THE FOOTBALL GAME THAT WEEK OR NOT BEING SUSPENDED AND PLAYING AS LONG AS THEY AGREED TO BE SPANKED IN THE ASS WITH A PADDLE.  THE STUDENTS THAT WERE NOT ATHLETES DIDN'T HAVE THIS OPTION THEY  WERE JUST SUSPENDED. OVERALL GOOD ESSAY, IT WAS VERY INTERESTING. 

SCOTT 24/25