Football In High Schools

I remember Ms. Webb, my history teacher in high school would always say, “youth is wasted on the young”. Back then I didn’t think much of anything when she uttered those words. As the years steady pass I seem to relate more to Ms. Webb’s perceptive saying.

In high school I played football. Football was held above everything in my school as well as the little town that it was in. I remember skipping school many times only to show up at 3:45 for football practice. This was okay with coaches, teachers, and faculty staff as long as the players were on the practice field. Evidently this is a widespread trend among high schools in the United States. After reading the chapter “Back to Basics,” by Diane Ravitch (2012) I couldn’t help but form a
connection to her; when, she said, “We will continue to lose ground and squander our educational resources until teenagers and their parents come to recognize achievement requirements the same motivation and active involvement as achievement in sports and music” (p 227). If I could go back to when I was “wasting my youth” I surely would have focused on my academics studies a lot more.