The Columbian article headlining the sports section, “Return of athletics may help students get grades up” (The Columbian, Jan. 31), is highly disturbing, and certainly insulting to many student athletes.
Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s minimum academic requirements for sports eligibility are ridiculous. Four or five D’s and an F? How poor is the normal academic performance of student-athletes believed to be that they need extra motivation to climb up to four or five D’s and an F? Any athletes not meeting WIAA’s pathetic minimum should not devote any time to sports, they should double down on studying.
Teaching functional/career, social, citizenship, and other skills should be the schools’ primary job. Sports should be secondary. Only a minuscule fraction of high-school athletes will ever turn sports into a career, and even that would only cover a part of their working lives.
American high school students’ academic performance is currently well below many other developed (and some not so developed) countries’ achievement levels. We should generally be raising standards, not depressing them. Higher standards for sports eligibility will be of much greater service to the athletes, producing more successful, well-rounded citizens. Is a C average outrageously demanding for sports eligibility?
