Are high school sports a luxury?
Posted at 11:48 AM on March 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (14 Comments) Filed under: Schools On NBC’s critically acclaimed — and little watched — series “Friday Night Lights,” a high school principal, who happens to be married to the football-crazed Texas town’s football coach, fights a losing battle between athletics and academics. There’s plenty of money and support for a new Jumbotron scoreboard for the football stadium in the down-and-out town. But not much for academics. In Woodbury, the football field at the new high school, which opens next year, awaits the action. An enclosed press box and lights are part of the amenities. It sits in the shadow of spiffy — and expensive — new baseball diamonds, right next to more than a dozen baseball fields and soccer fields at the city’s Bielenberg sports complex. In today’s economy, are these luxuries? Is there still a worthwhile purpose for high school sports? Woodbury has not one, but two youth athletic leagues which run in-house and travelin
