Sports are actually good overall, but the overly strong focus and wasted money spent on them is absolutely ridiculous.

Personal story: Ages ago I was in marching band in TX, so we had to visit multiple other schools to play against them.

Some of those stadiums, even 20ish years ago, were ridiculous. So much money that could have gone to much better programs, or even a publicly available stadium that aren't locked to a specific school district. I left band before graduating.

no school sports - this is the most radical take I've ever seen on lemmy.

and i like it. I and I like sports. FWIW the town my brother in has no school sports... the sports are run by an independent volunteer org. Nobody gets paid. but i'm not sure it's a good 'model' because their sports program is mediocre and their teams are average at best.

he's actually trying to move his family to another town with better sports because he expects his kids to go to college on sports scholarship like him and his wife both did. and there is no way that will happen if his kids are bad sports teams.

Trans athletes in student sports - now I believe there should be no student sports.

I LOLOLED

Its funny how people come to radically different conclusions on one topic:

Conservatives: Omg gEnDeRs! What would we do if a boy and a girl touched, jaysus would rain hellfire on us

LGBT+ Allies: Trans Women are Women

Egalitarians: Gender shouldnt matter

This guy: ABOLISH SPORTS

But still lowkey an interesting take +1

i do think sports have educational value, teaching teamwork and discipline and health. i learned more from cross country and marching band versus everything else combined. but i definitely agree about the ridiculous funding disparity, though, no extracurricular should be getting more funding than core classes

my hot take is that sports and bathrooms shouldn't be gendered. i understand the "seperate but equal" clause doesn't include gender, but it should, given the better funding and accomodation boys sports get over all but the best girls teams. siloing off genders has catastrophic cultural consequences- "locker room talk" shouldn't and wouldn't exist otherwise, plus the whole trans rights thing that shouldn't and wouldn't be an issue

That’s like saying the arts are a waste, it’s a “I don’t like it or see the benefit so it shouldn’t exist” scenario

I think that’s an American-centric view. It’s uniquely American to build a stadium for high school sports.