Dreams Flow Across the Heartland
In 2015, the NFL celebrated Super Bowl 50 by presenting a commemorative Wilson Golden Football to a number of high schools across the nation. The commemorative Wilson Golden Football was presented to select high schools by every player or head coach who graduated from their school and was on an active Super Bowl roster.
I was happy to take part in the 2015 Super Bowl High School Honor Roll at Deerfield High School and walk the field as principal in accepting the commemorative gifts along with Head Football Coach Steve Winiecki. The commemorative Wilson Golden Footballs were presented to DHS on Tuesday, October 23, 2015 by Emery and Leslee Moorhead and 1988 DHS graduate and Super Bowl championship player, Lindsey Knapp. Lindsey played on the Green Bay Packers 1996 Super Bowl team for the Packers’ Super Bowl XXXI victory against the New England Patriots.
Feeding on the Fires
High school athletics play an important role for students, as well as for parents, families, and community. In my experience as an instructional leader, students involved in athletics, as well as those engaged in extracurricular activities, regularly comprise the highest academically achieving and performing students at school.
Athletics connects students to one another and the school and district community. Most importantly, athletics connects each student to herself or himself, thus facilitating and cultivating self-esteem and empathy for others. Beyond the typical attributes of athletics contributing to team-building skills, personal training, conditioning, health and wellness, and mental focus, athletics provides what I have referenced “a hook” for students to connect to the school.
Drive You When You’re Down
Oftentimes, athletics, and extracurricular opportunities in general, are the motivational links that influence a student’s desire to connect to school. While many schools tie athletics and extracurricular participation to student behavior (and suspend participation as the result of behavioral infractions), invalidating participation is a practice I have never supported and hope all instructional leaders reconsider. If a child’s primary, or perhaps only, connection to school is a non-academic “privilege” and participation is denied, the principal reasons athletics and academics are offered, to facilitate and cultivate self-esteem and empathy for others, are taken away.
Over the course of my career, I have never reviewed any compelling, peer-reviewed studies, data, or evidence indicating eliminating student access to athletic or extracurricular programs possesses merit, intrinsically improves behavior, or benefits the social, emotional needs of learners. However, this is a standard practice and component of nearly every high school’s student code of conduct. It can therefore be argued that a lack of evidential data indicates a lack of reasoning for supporting such retributional, punitive practices. While schools, districts, and communities commit to providing resources to support athletics and extracurricular programs, instructional leaders must serve as shepherds for ensuring continued access for all learners.
Drumroll Please!
Although the NFL’s High School Honor Role was focused on recognizing every player or head coach who graduated from their school and was on an active Super Bowl roster, let us not overlook the contributions of Marching Band to high school athletics programs! Although Marching Band was not a component of the Super Bowl 50, the contributions of Marching Band cannot be overstated. The amount of time band students and their teachers dedicate to practicing performance numbers, participating in dress rehearsals, and being everly present at countless athletics events has never ceased to amaze me. Equally so, the connections and social, emotional learning that athletics, and extracurriculars, provides and affords all students amaze us all as a community!
Chris
Referenced links and documents:
Impacting Student Motivation: Reasons for Not Eliminating Extracurricular Activities, Michael L. Shaffer. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 2019. 90:7, 8-14
Keeping Instruments Out of the Attic: The Concert Band Experiences of the Non-Music Major, Dan Isbell and Ann Marie Stanley. Music Education Research International, Volume 5, 2011
Middletown Dreams by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart
Shaman’s Tree by Chris Dignam
Structured Extracurricular Activities Among Adolescents: Findings and Implications for School Psychologists, Joel Meyers. Academia. Psychology in the Schools Vol. 41(1), 2004
The Case for High School Activities, National Federation of State High School Associations. September, 2020
The Role of Peer Relationships in Student Academic and Extracurricular Engagement, Jaana Juvonen et al., Handbook of Research on Student Engagement
