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Is football the only sport that matters at your school?


theguyinstripes

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Is it just me or are the other sports getting pushed to the back burner at a lot of schools? The school where I attended and my kids will attend make all athletes lift weights 4 days a week during their athletic period. No basketball, baseball, or track training is done purely weights. Any pratice involving a sport other than football is done only after school.

 

May want to try New Mexico, possibly Kentucky.

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In open enrollment district such as Texarkana ISD, football may have the biggest gate but some of the "minor" sports attrack students from surrounding districts . Tennis and swim have programs beginning in the middle school, which bring in additional revenue into the district. They historically have a group support system within the school district.

 

Not all kids are cut out for football and the other sports are equally important to the development of leaders in our society.

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It is important to support all sports!

 

 

Football is probably the most attended because of not only the football team, but the band, majorettes, dance team, and cheerleaders, you also have many more participants than in any other sports. But in Jefferson they all have a following and are recognized when they excel. We have been to state in golf the last 3 years, in track the last 4 years, winning both at Regions and District, our basketball team has been to the regional tournament the last two years, baseball has been to playoffs and close in softball and volleyball.....all of our athletes are pushed to play as many sports as they wish....some baseball and basketball players play football to keep in shape.

To a true football fan, maybe it is the only one that counts, but if you have a well rounded program, it is not the only one that matters.

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The Yuga Train rolls in all sports boys and girls.Volleyball, baseball, softball, tennis and BASKETBALL. GO YUGA TRAIN. Our AD and coaches embrace it all and coach their hearts out.

 

Good Luck with that Train Next Year!!!

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I think it is determined by the coaches.

 

At our 3A school there are many students that only play baseball - so there is a baseball class.

Last year with "Coach A" the baseball class did only weights and training until UIL date allowed after school practices.

This year with "Coach B" the baseball class has worked on the field, in the batting cages, in the weight room, in the bleachers, on the track, etc. . . . There is no limit to the work the baseball players are doing. The players are much better prepared now than mid season last year. Play ball. . . . . . . .

 

Football is "king" in Texas, however, there are those who are faithful followers or their school no matter the sport or activity. While we've not had success on the football gridiron, SH has had tremendous success in the district the past few years and had great success girls basketball,boys/girls golf, boys and girls track, softball, and baseball and are expected to challenge again this year.. While football is the bigtime sport at all schools, more and more schools can hang their hat on certains sports and their fan base continues to grow. I think it's different and every school

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I know that Carthage lets their kids practice their individual sports all year round. When I go to Coach Scott Surratts chalk talk on Monday's I always catch a little bit of our baseball workout on the way into the fieldhouse.

 

Maybe this is why they are so good at all their sports.

 

Scott was a good baseball player in High School and his dad was a hard core little league baseball coach.

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Football is "king" in Texas, however, there are those who are faithful followers or their school no matter the sport or activity. While we've not had success on the football gridiron, SH has had tremendous success in the district the past few years and had great success girls basketball,boys/girls golf, boys and girls track, softball, and baseball and are expected to challenge again this year.. While football is the bigtime sport at all schools, more and more schools can hang their hat on certains sports and their fan base continues to grow. I think it's different and every school

 

Hopefully we can get the football rolling. New coach, good kids and some parental support should help us out a lot.

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well i would hope not,we went 0-10 this year....there not a bad team but we had a very hard schedule,we should do better next year....but we are very good in basketball and baseball in looking pretty promising:) and our JV won district so the future looks good

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traditionally at carthage, it's football and baseball, and everything else is a stepchild. reynolds said he would never allow soccer as long as he was a.d. i hear carthage will have soccer soon. surratt has made some good decisions. basketball was the only thing for girls for years. it was a strong program but has gone in the trash can in the last six or seven years thanks to a hiring by an administration that is no longer there. the parents got volleyball for girls.

from my perspective, surratt has been the best thing for carthage athletics in at least the last 30 years. i don't know if he can address the girls basketball issue but he has been the best thing for carthage since supt. marvin crawford.

the school needed a b-12 shot and he provided it.

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Is it just me or are the other sports getting pushed to the back burner at a lot of schools? The school where I attended and my kids will attend make all athletes lift weights 4 days a week during their athletic period. No basketball, baseball, or track training is done purely weights. Any pratice involving a sport other than football is done only after school.

 

Carthage is equally as good in baseball as they are in football, and have more tradition in baseball by a long shot. Let's hope we keep winning in baseball, but are a perennial power in football too. I know we're on a 27 game win steak in football, but I mean win state this year and win it next year or come darn close again. Then continue that success for many many years to come.

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When we were in school when our sport that we participated in was being played thats what we practiced in our athletics period. When we were in our off season is when we did all the weight lifting and working out. For instance if all you did was basketball thats what you did during that seaon the rest of the year you were in off season working out 5 days a week.

 

 

 

 

So does your basketball team practice basketball during the athletic period?

Our school is small enough that our basketball team "is" our football and track teams as well.So we don't have a basketball year round program.However there are not enough chains and padlocks on earth to keep these kids here from playin b-ball whenever football and track are not in season! :bounce:

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It is amazing to me that so much emphasis is put on sports in high school to begin with. If you go to every sporting event from football to track and take all the kids you see that entire school year from every team both boys and girls, and line them up. You may find one or two, if any that will play a professional sport. Move on to college, and the percentage goes higher. However, most of those kids won't even play a college sport.

 

We have a tendency in our society to put a lot of emphasis on insignificant distractions, and skirt around what is important. The one sport that offers lowest chance of being a professional career is given the most attention in Texas, and that is football.

 

Take it from a guy who everyone thought was sure to play in the NFL, but never made it: There are times when I wish other things had been made a priority by the adults around me rather than Football. I wish I had listened to the band instructor and stayed in band even if I had to march in my pads. I wish I had gone to a science camp or band camp instead of the football camps I went to every summer. Instead, I built my hopes on a dream that never came true and it took me almost 10 years to get past it. Please, don't do that to your kids, students, and athletes.

 

When you get down to the truth. Sports is one of the most insignificant activities we have in our lives. There is no real longevity, and when a guy in his 40's playing professional football is an anomaly rather than the norm, what does that tell ya?

 

My own son came to me and said he did not want to play football next year in 9'th grade. He is 13 years old, 6' tall, and 178 lbs. He is also one of he faster kids on his team. I talked to the coaches from the high school to see if they could sit down and talk with him about it. They want him to play, and I want him to have the experience of playing at a different level. So I told him to play at least one more season, so he could see the vast difference between middle school football and football at a higher level.

 

After next year, I will not encourage him to continue playing football if he doesn't want to. It will be a shame, because he looks to be more talented than I was. What I'm not going to do is force him to play a sport he no longer has an interest in just so I can live vicariously through his success. He will play because he wants to.

 

There is a reason why I say this. When I watched Tatum's final game against Center this season, I picked up on something. I have asked some of the boys to see if I was right, and I was. The Tatum fans put so much emphasis on winning, that they allowed themselves to be let down by the players, and the coaches. When in fact, it was the fans who let the team down by not cheering for them no matter what. Fans who can't stand to lose a football game lost sight of the very reason they were there. I don't like seeing my team lose any more than the next guy, but I'm not going to be bitter and hateful toward the coaches and players over losing a football game, but that is what I saw a lot of.

 

When so much emphasis is put on one sport and then fans expect a team to win at that sport during every game, in every season, year after year, they take one of the fundamentals of that sport away from the kids. That is actually enjoying the games. It is hard to have fun, when people put so much emphasis on winning that they clam up and won't cheer to encourage those boys on the field when they are losing. Yet those very same fans won't even cheer if they win. The only time they cheer is if their team is blowing out the opponent.

 

Yeah, I'd say too much emphasis has been put on football when that is the case, and from what I have seen and read, it isn't just happening in Tatum.

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Football is the main sport I'm sure in all schools. I love football, but I feel like many of the other sports get overlooked. For example, in Kirbyville, our Tennis team has won District (both boys and girls, singles, and doubles) EVERY YEAR since 1991. They have gone on to compete in the Regional Tournament and won and on to state for several years. But they DO NOT GET THE RECOGNITION from our school district. How is that. They are the most winningest team in all of 2A and 3A (in our region). But if it were like that for our Football team, they would be having parades, send offs...etc. My husband and I have this conversation often and his response is this..."How much money does the Tennis Team bring in and How much money does the Football team bring in? and he's right. Our Tennis Team brings in zero money..lol Its like paying to go watch a chess match or something. I get it, I just feel bad for the kids. Oh and btw..I was on the 91 and 92 tennis squad so I know how it feels to get overlooked first hand!!!

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I think it's different from school to school. I know with 13-4A....it's REALLY obvious.

 

Example....

 

Few schools in Texas, much less 13-4A have the draw that Lobo football does. Yet their crowds for softball and baseball are dismal compared to other schools in 13-4A.

 

Pine Tree's attendance for football is pitiful.....but basketball, baseball, and soccer are amazingly well attended.

 

Marshall football, softball, and baseball are all well attended....... gym is a ghost town for basketball unless they are winning (then it can rock and roll in there) and soccer you can almost hear the crickets.

 

Each school has their niche. But sadly....yes, football is the big draw for most schools. If not....we would have much bigger gyms than we do. How many HS gyms in the state hold 8000 plus compared to HS stadiums?

 

How football being top draw hurts basketball somehow is a mystery to me. And why is that such a "sad" thing? It makes you sad that more people go to football games than basketball?

 

As far as your comparing the size of gyms to the size of football stadiums and using that to measure the importance of the sport is not valid. I am pretty sure that at Duke, North Carolina, Indiana, etc... where basketball is no doubt king their football stadium is four or five times bigger than the basketball arena.

 

and regarding the original question, I am equally unsure how lifting hurts anyone or other sports? As if somehow getting stronger only benefits the football program.

 

The 1950's have come and gone. The silly notion that somehow lifting hurts your shot in basketball or your pitching arm in baseball are as extinct as the dodo bird. Lifting benefits EVERYONE!!!!

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What are the drawbacks of lifting and running to any sport? The top athletes in all sports lift and run. Tiger woods. The Williams sisters. Big Poppy. Here locally, 1st round draft pick Slade Heathcott was a weightlifting fool, I see state champion tennis player Grant Adams at Minton's Sportsplex at 6 am almost everyday working out with his dad. Athletic period is one hr (more like 40 min) each day. This is just my opinion and will prolly make some people mad, but the kids who do not want to lift and run and then go practice are either lazy and don't really want to work at being the best they can, or athletics just isn't that important to them. You will get out of it what you put into it. Educate yourself on all the facets of weigh training before passing judgement on a program.

 

 

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The football money arument is bogus since high school sports are payed through tax dallars.

 

Football is king and it well should be because the entire school gets involved in the sport ie: band, cheerleaders, drill team......... Since so many students are involved it often becomes a source of town pride. Nothing can bring a school or town together like football can.

 

What makes Carthage so unique is I know Coach Scott Surratt lets all his head coaches handle their own off season. The results have been:

 

2008 State Football Championship - 2009 State Semi Finalist and possibly another State Title

2009 State Baseball Championship

2009 Girls Volleyball Regional Semi Finals

2009 Girls Golf Team advances to State- All girls returning this year

2009 Girls Basketball Area Champions

2009 Girls track team advances to regionals

Excellent girls softball program & boys basketball should be much improved this year

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