Friday Night Lights Byh.g Bissinger

Sports have always been a hot topic in the academic world. They are seen as a great extracurricular activity that creates a sense of community between players. On the other hand, sports are viewed as a distraction from school. Everyone can agree that sports have become the focal point at many schools leading teachers to feel academics have become secondary. The seemingly endless debate is addressed by Dr. Mark Edmundson in an article of his that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Lastly, athletic sports takes away from other extracurricular activities. In What in the Name of High School Football? Hank Hill writes, Yet only a few weeks ago, 16 MVRHS vocalists and instrumentalists auditioned for the competitive All Cape & Islands music festival. And the judges selected a remarkable 16 of 16. Unheard of success. And yet not a mention in the local papers. Not a word on the radio. Not a sentence in the principal’s address. Not a squeak on the morning announcements. Not a face on the Wall. The gift of music came wrapped in silence.” Athletic sports get so much attention that

Amanda Ripley, in an article for The Atlantic, “The Case Against High-School Sports” (2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group), claims that high-school athletics are encroaching upon students’ education, questions the effect that the sports have on academic progress in the United States, and “wonder[s] about the trade-offs we make.” Ripley supports her thesis with multiple points of argument, including international academic ranking statistics that reveal the United States’ inadequacies, relevant stories and history illustrating athletics’ effect on students, and a paragraph in which she implores the reader to “[i]magine, for a moment, if Americans transferred our obsessive intensity about high-school sports...to high school academics.” The author’s

The argument of sports in our high schools will not go away, as kids go to high school and experience the American obsession with high school sports. High schools are supposed to be a place of learning, so we must ask ourselves what are they really? As posed by Ripley, “If sports were not central to the mission of American high schools, then what would be?” (1). I feel that the focus of our high schools should be academics, not how good you are at a sport, because we come to high school for learning and

Friday night, under the fluorescent lights glistening off the white shinning helmets with a large black letter P on both sides. The smell of popcorn and hotdogs fill the air. The screams of twenty thousand fans echo throughout the arena. That 's more than the number of fans at some NBA games. Football is more than a game to the people of this town. It 's a way of life, it 's serves as a way out for many in the town, and it helps forget the horrible economic struggles the town faces. Football for this town created a false atmosphere, and became an addiction to this town. Football becoming an addiction has positives and many negatives. "Friday Night Lights," by H. G. Bissinger, tells the story of the small town of Odessa, Texas, and how football has become an addiction and taken over the lives of everyone in the town.

Friday Night Lights is a book that explains how a high school football team is close to making it

Amanda Ripley, in her article “The Case Against High School Sports,” describes how she believes high school sports is a detriment to the education of America’s children. Ripley compares American academic performance to that of other countries, and explains how American schools place focus on athletics that other countries’ schools do not. Ripley’s argument against high school sports has many inconsistencies, but produces a valid argument in spite of that. Because sports are a priority in the U.S. and not so much in other countries, Ripley implies sports are the reason why other countries have a higher score on a test regarding critical thinking in math. Ripley acknowledges the benefits of sports very briefly.

Are schools the right place for sports? This is a question that educators and experts everywhere are asking themselves, as more and more schools are faced with budget cuts and low academic scores. No one is debating the health benefits of exercise one receives from sports, but does the exercise benefit outweigh the expense, risk, and impact on academic grades? Amanda Ripley, the author of The Smartest Kids in the World, thinks club organizations, not schools, should provide sports programming (“Should schools eliminate sports” 1). Earl Smith, author of “Race, Sport and the American Dream,” along with Ripley believes sports are given priority in some schools, drawing attention away from education (“Should schools eliminate sports” 1). During an interview with the New York Times, Smith stated “high schools should not have competitive sports teams. And especially not in the under-resourced intercity high schools where academic programs are often sacrificed to finance sports teams” (“Making Sports an After-School Activity” 1). He went on to say “even the student bodies in many high schools have developed cultures that glorify sports at the expense of the scholar.”

In America, sport is not only a physical activity, which is used for competition or games but it is also one of the main missions in schools in the US. However, there is a post named "The Case Against High-School Sports" written by Amanda Ripley, which are on a website named The Atlantic. In this post, the main idea of the author is that sports are taking too many times and money in schools and that makes some negative impacts on students, schools, and society. In this post, she claims that she can see the benefits of high-school sports and these sports are becoming likely more important than other academics in schools. However, she has wondered about a trend that participating high-school sports too much could lead to some problems. Although

According to Ripley’s article she mentions that students in football season are very committed to the sport and drift away from their education (10). In her article she also claims that “Players spend long hours practicing” which distracts them for the amount of rest they should have each night after practice (Ripley 10). Therefore school sports should be removed because they interrupt the students from their learning and to rest each night after practice. This is very important because after all school athletics were suspended many students had time to focus on their

Bowen and Greene discuss a variety of causes for and against sports and academics. One point they mention is the schools budget and where the finical resources are better needed. It also brings in statistics of studies and findings of other articles such as winning percentages and academic attainment, and sports participation and academic achievement. Both help my opinion on why students need should have good grades in order to play sports.

Which is more important, sports or education? In America, sports seem to be the winner. Athletes get paid about 53 million dollars a year, compared to the 58,170 dollars teachers get paid. Another way sports wins is that sports are now a huge part of school, but should they? Schools shouldn’t be in school because academic impact, financial impact, and family impact.

My point about the national obsessions with sports backs up the belief held by many parents and teachers that athletics divert student-athletes from having a proper focus on education because of their their high dedication to playing the sport and intense

Why should high school not put less emphasis on sports? In high school, from my experience, there are many students who want to involve with sport, yet not all of them will accept to the team. Student who attends in sports; however, will have to stay after school, do more work than those who not play sports. In addition, students who play sports will receive many awards from school achievement. According to the article, “The Case against High Schools Sports,” Amanda Ripley seems to suggest that American high schools spend too much time and money on high school sports. However, in the article, “Psychological and Social Benefits of Playing True Sport,” USADA claim that high school sports improved academic achievement, higher self-esteem, fewer behavioral problems, and better psychosocial. Therefore, high school should not put less emphasis on

An issue with sports being as big as they are is that they make the students involved lose focus. Who wants to go do their math homework, or write an essay when we could be at the first home football game against the rival school. We spend so much time worrying about sports that we lose focus on our education. It's ironic, we have so many student working so hard for athletic scholarships to get a better education, but in doing so we start missing our schoolwork and our grades suffer.