While many of us were watching the Penn State Nittany Lions earn their first victory of the season against Syracuse on Saturday, an interesting local story was playing out on the high school gridiron fields.
Perennial State powerhouse State College Area High School traveled to Bethlehem and lost against Liberty on Saturday evening.
On a new field in Boalsburg that was designed and completed by parents and volunteers and was made ready for play just hours before kick-off, St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy won its very ever first football game against Mercyhurst Prep.
Rumor has it that this year’s State High team has 38 seniors and almost as many juniors suiting up to play football. Add in the sophomores and freshmen, and the Little Lions have likely rostered almost 100 kids. St. Joe’s, a parochial school that pulls from all of the Centre County districts and from Huntingdon and Mifflin County, reportedly has just 18 players on its team.
Big school. Little school. Athletes wearing the colors of one uniform keeping their fingers crossed that their coach will send them into a game sometime before their senior year. Other athletes, across town and wearing different school colors, are tired and sweaty at the end of the game because they played and undoubtedly saw time on both offense and defense.
I’m guessing that the experience, the playing time and the esprit de corps on the SJCA Wolves team is just a little different than it is for the SCAHS Little Lions. Everything from the number of adults required to supervise and coach the programs to the costs of uniforms and transportation to get the athletes to their competition is very much different in a smaller school.
Discussion about cost doesn’t even begin to speak of the anonymity and missed opportunity on a team that has 100 kids.
What are the goals of secondary school extracurricular activities and how are those goals compromised when we put thousands of kids in one school?
I watched it play out on Facebook last month. My SCASD friends and neighbors posted about the start of preseason for their kids in a variety of sports. Soccer. Football. Field Hockey. Track.
Young men and women dragging themselves out of bed in the last days of summer to try out for a team. Two-a-day practices coming after summer camps, off-season training schedules and sometimes, personal coaches.
Sleepless nights worrying about whether they will get cut. Anxiety related to self-doubt, questions about their skills and uncertainty about their value on the team. Names not included when the roster is posted on the team website. Coaches calling young girls and boys to say “Keep up the good work and come back and try again next year.” Disappointment and embarrassment.
(I was proud to see my former student Karin Johnson, former PSU Field hockey player and current SCAHS field hockey head coach posting for the second year in a row that she was not going to cut a single girl. She gets it.)
Across town and across the county, the picture is a little different. Athletes of all abilities are being welcomed and, in fact, encouraged to play the very same sports that cut kids at State High. It’s not just sports. It’s also theatre, music, clubs and organizations.
“Making it” means identification and a positive sense about the school and a feeling of inclusion. Smaller schools need everybody. The structure at smaller schools is actually designed for kids to not only learn in a more intimate setting but to actually play – perhaps more than one sport or participate in more than one activity – and to be a part of the school community.
Wouldn’t it be great if the kids in State College could get the small experience that our rural neighbors and parochial schools are offering their students?
My son started in the first class the year that St. Joes opened its doors but has since transferred back to State High. He played two sports in the same season that year, was on the Mock Trial team and got recruited for a small part in the play his freshman year because they needed boys.
He also missed his friends from middle school. We made a decision, knowing both the incredible opportunities and understanding the size limitations at State High, that public school was a better fit for him. For us and other families like us, the ideal situation would be a smaller public high school where our children can progress with their friends from elementary and their side-of-town middle school and still benefit from the small school opportunities when they hit high school.
Smaller classroom size is the obvious added bonus.
Discussions about costs and location, duplication of services and “splitting our community” are hard to take seriously when we look at how well we are already doing it at Park Forest and Mt. Nittany Middle Schools.
The arguments that “we won’t have state championship level competition” likely hold little weight to the kids who don’t get to participate or who get cut. Similarly, the argument that “all kids need to learn about competition to make it in the real world” is a tough enough lesson to learn as an adult, and is perhaps unnecessary as a lesson for our pre-teen years.
I am so sad that our community and the parents of current pre-school and elementary aged kids didn’t step forward to insist that we seriously consider a two high school proposal in this latest State College Area High School renovation process.
I am sad not for my child who will be long gone before a new school or renovation opens but for all of the little ones who will fade into the background.
Parents of current Centre Soccer players and Centre Lacrosse players, Bull Dogs and State College Lions as well as all the other youth music, theatre and other programs in State College should understand what they will be facing in the renewed “stay on Westerly Parkway in one really big school” design at State High.
If your kid doesn’t burn out by the time he or she gets to high school and or middle school because he or she has had to focus on one sport and do all that travel team nonsense for any hope of making the high school team, the sport or activity that she loves or where he excels may end up being just a fond memory after he or she is cut from the team (or never gets to play).
Even if they set up the small “learning” communities to address curriculum and size in the classroom, there will still only be one play, one musical, and perhaps only a few who will make either make the athletic teams or get to play.
Unless, of course, you parents of younger students get together and demand some innovative and creative ideas on how to expand extracurricular activities.
The final scores of last Saturday’s local high school games don’t really matter in this debate. There are other numbers that are much more important. 18 players wearing their school colors. A varsity, junior varsity and 9th grade roster that totals almost 100 kids. How many other kids cut or who never play?
In extracurricular activities, size does matter.
