In 9th grade, I tried out for varsity field hockey. Although it was the first time in my life that I had participated in try-outs, I was already aware that it was very intimidating process, as I had an older sister on the team.
On the first day, we were told there would be "cuts." After the try-outs, I was selected for the junior varsity team. My friend, Hillary, who was a talented athlete, was not so lucky. Suffering from heat exhaustion, [1] she performed poorly. On the second day of the three-day tryout she got sick to her stomach. I remember going with her to the locker room. She was hurt, humiliated and embarrassed by the tryout process. Sadly, Hillary didn't come back for third day of tryouts and was cut, forever out of the loop, never to return to a team to try out again.
Since that day I have always been against cuts.
The cruelest cut of all
The practice of cutting athletes from middle or high school teams, while it has existed for at least fifty years, is arguably the most controversial practice in youth sports. While the arguments proponents advance in favor of cutting are well-known, the practice is outmoded and needs to be re-examined in light of twenty-first century realities.
Damaging a child's self-esteem
Proponents of cutting often argue that cutting is necessary to prepare children for an adult world where there are winners and losers. The belief is that children are better off for having been cut because getting cut "toughens them up" and exposes them to the disappointments all of us experience in adulthood. They also argue, with some justification, that, since parents should be teaching their children not to base their sense of self on their identity as an athlete, a child with a healthy self-image will not unduly suffer from being cut, and will simply find another sport or extracurricular activity in which they might excel.
While it is true that it is important for kids to learn the value of overcoming obstacles with hard work, the fact is, however, that being cut from a middle school or high school sports team is often one of the most upsetting and traumatic events in a teenager's life. One high school sophomore described it like being punched in the stomach. For many, being cut represents a direct assault on their self-esteem. They feel the pain and embarrassment of being rejected, excluded from an activity in which they wanted to participate, and denied the important social connection sports allows athletes to make with their peers.
Nearly nine out of ten mothers surveyed in the recent Motherhood Study and many child psychologists agree that the goal in childhood is to prepare children for adulthood by giving them a chance to develop coping skills, and the self-confidence needed to succeed in the adult world, in a safe and nurturing environment. Cutting children from athletic programs fosters an environment which hurts, rather than fosters, self-esteem.
The case against cutting
Here are some reasons against cutting below high school varsity:
1. Cutting hurts the children who need sports the most
In a cruel irony, the children who are cut, as the least skilled and the ones with the least self-confidence, are the very children who would benefit most from continued participation in an activity where they can learn such skills as a good work ethic and cooperation with a group of peers towards a common goal. Failure does not build self-esteem.
2. Cutting is exclusionary and promotes elitism
It is especially important for teenagers to know that they belong; that they fit in. No wonder freshman handbooks of most high schools advise incoming students to participate in sports. Of the one hundred tips handbooks give freshmen; joining a sports team is always in the top five.
Cutting tells teenagers that they don't fit in, that they don't belong. This is the wrong message to send during adolescence, a time when teenagers are confused about their bodies and want the approval of their peers.
As the most prominent of all high school extracurricular activities, athletics continues to confer on its participants the highest levels of status and prestige in our teenage culture. The feelings by athletes that they are special tends to lead to disharmony, the creation of cliques, and to reinforcing the "jock culture," not to promoting feelings of community, full inclusion and cooperative learning that schools work so hard to promote.
It is particularly ironic that, unlike most private schools, which are by definition exclusive when it comes to admissions but generally extremely inclusive when it comes to sports (to the point of giving everyone who comes out for a team a roster spot and requiring participation in sports), public schools, which are by definition inclusive when it comes to academics, are exclusive when it comes to sports. They do not guarantee each child a place in the sports program who wants to participate and don't require participation in sports, much less provide alternatives to team sports such as intramurals, dance, yoga, etc.
3. Cutting puts kids at risk of anti-social behavior
The creation of separate classes of athletic "haves" and "have nots" not only promotes elitism, but, argues Katherine Newman in her 2004 book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, the jock culture it spawns "is responsible for a great deal of the damage done to the boys who cannot compete." A no-cut policy provides boys an outlet through sports for their aggression and need to connect socially with other boys.
A 2001 report to the Surgeon General found that teenagers "who have weak social ties, that is, who are not involved in conventional social activities and are unpopular at school, are at high risk of becoming violent, as are adolescents with antisocial, delinquent peers. These two types of peer relationships often go together, since adolescents who are rejected by or unpopular with conventional peers may find acceptance only in antisocial or delinquent peer groups."
Another recent study found a positive association between playing interscholastic sports and an increase in the number of an athlete's friends who are academically oriented. The study also found that participation in sports "significantly increased social ties between students and parents, students and the school, parents and the school, and parents and parents. ..."
The same study found that intramural athletes do not reap the same benefits from participation as do interscholastic athletes. Again, the flipside is that cutting a teenager from an interscholastic sports program not only denies her the chance to participate, it is likely to adversely effect her connection with her parents, school and peers and her academic performance.
4. Cutting creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Cutting starts a downward spiral that can make further participation in the sport remote.
Those who say that, with hard work and effort, a child who is cut from a middle or high school team has just as much of a chance as anyone else to make future teams are ignoring reality. Kids cut as freshmen almost never try out again.
Those who cite Michael Jordan as an example of someone who was cut only to come back stronger forget that he was never cut. In fact, he tried out for varsity, did not make that team, but remained on the JV squad. The next year, still in the program, he moved up to varsity.
In fact, the Michael Jordan example proves my point. One wonders, had he been cut completely from the program, whether he would have made the effort to make the team the following year and the world would have never seen the extraordinary magic he displayed on the basketball court.
5. Cutting sends a mixed message about the value of athletic participation
The current youth sports system promotes participation - at least at the earlier ages - then, by cutting children at the middle and high school levels, limits their participation. It thus plants a seed in a young athlete's mind that, as much as she may love playing a sport, as she gets older, participation takes more and more of a back seat to winning.
5. Cutting turns kids off to exercise
Those children who are cut from sports teams are not going to be exercising as frequently as they would if they were playing sports; they are much more likely to spend their afternoons watching television, or worse. The old saw "a healthy body, healthy mind" is apt. Our youth are not nearly as physically fit as they should be. According to a February 2006 Gallup Youth Study, one in five teens is now overweight with only 21% of teens claiming to participate in sports or recreation 5 to 6 days a week and only 19% of our teens participating in vigorous sports or physical activity 5-6 days a week. It simply makes no sense whatsoever from a public health standpoint to continue a policy that only contributes to an overall decline in physical fitness among adolescents and young adults.
6. Cutting reduces the talent pool
As the mother of fraternal triplets, I know that children, even those born a minute apart, mature at differing rates.
The New England sea-side town where I grew up wins titles in boy's and girl's soccer year after year. A large part of the town's success is derived from the fact it has a no-cut policy. Some of its best players were not "stars" when they were eleven or twelve. Because they were not discouraged from continuing to play by being cut, they were still playing soccer when they reached high school, where they blossomed into varsity players. Thus, cutting kids from sports teams is like cutting a bud off a tree just because it hasn't bloomed as early as the rest (hence the phrase "late bloomer").
This is especially true given the limited opportunity of coaches or whoever is doing the cutting to truly evaluate the potential of every athlete during tryouts. Coaches and other adults cannot predict with any degree of certainty after evaluating kids during one, two, three or even five-days of tryouts that a particular child will or will not succeed at any sport they are motivated to play.
A teacher wouldn't give up on a child who is getting poor grades and say she was only going to spend her time teaching the ones she thought had the potential to go on to college. Childhood is time to give all children a chance to grow and develop, not a time to stunt their athletic growth prematurely.
7. Cutting isn't necessary to ensure strong athletic programs
The goals of school-based athletics are educational: to teach the athletes skills they can use as adults. The goal is not - or at least should not - to provide the community entertainment like college or professional sports. Compromising the educational value of interscholastic athletics in order to emphasize winning is indefensible, especially at the middle school level.
Implementing a no-cut policy is likely to increase the chances that school teams will enjoy success. Keeping late bloomers in the program long enough for them to actually bloom enlarges the talent pool, so ultimately it helps high schools field the best possible varsity teams, sometimes championship teams. I've always been amazed how many kids who end up being the tallest kids in their high school graduating class don't play high school basketball because they were cut from the middle school or high school freshman team and stop playing basketball before they attained their full height.
8. A no-cut policy is especially appropriate for middle schools
The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) recommends a no-cut policy at the middle school level as "consistent with the their overall philosophy" and because "middle school interscholastic programs should not attempt to emulate the highly structured interscholastic sports competition offered by high school. NASPE also recommends that intramural programs continued to be offered. A 1992 study shows that, between the two, participation rates of 90% can be achieved.
9. A no-cut policy does not guarantee equal playing time
A rule against cutting should not be confused with an equal playing time rule.
For instance, at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School, the middle school's no cut policy "refers to the opportunity to join a team." It merely guarantees all players who adhere to the coaches' training guidelines a chance to participate in competitions. Whether they become successful is up to them and how hard they are willing to work, and, of course, ultimately, to whether they have athletic ability and the necessary motivation to succeed.
The current high school model which began in 1938- one first-year team, one varsity, one sub-varsity - is simply outdated. It might have made sense when the number of roster spots was roughly equal to the number of those who wanted to play, but makes no sense when the number of those who want to continue playing sports in middle/high school far exceeds the finite number of spots available. Whenever there is excess demand, schools should add additional teams to accommodate that need, even if it means adding two or three additional teams. Some schools have successfully updated their programs to offer a place for all athletes sub varsity, sometimes with as many as three JV teams.
The most skilled players are still likely to get the bulk of the playing time on middle and high school varsities, thus ensuring that schools will still be able to field the most competitive teams. High school football provides a classic example: most programs don't have cuts; as a result, many players see little if any game time, yet the atmosphere is positive.
In addition, teenagers have a pretty good idea of their own ability, or lack of ability. Those who are lesser skilled will usually recognize their lack of ability, sooner or later, and either self-cut or work extra hard to try to compensate for a lack of natural ability. Since one of the main purposes of education is to teach children to be self-reliant and develop good decision-making skills, it should be up to the athletes themselves to decide if it makes sense to continue participating in a sport in which they come to realize they don't have enough ability or dedication to working harder to get playing time. Why make that decision for them?
10. Cutting cannot be justified by budgetary constraints
After a tough hurricane season during the fall of 2005, school administrators from the Charlotte County, Florida middle schools cancelled intra school sports. They feared that fuel for the team busses would be scarce and expensive. Athletic directors decided to include all children who wanted to play in a new intramural program. After running the numbers it was announced that it costs the district the same amount of money to run either program. At Port Charlotte Middle School, 90 girls were now able to participate in after school volleyball instead of the 12 who traditionally make the cut.
Financial constraints do not justify cuts at the middle and high school levels either. Limited resources don't justify an inherently unfair practice at odds with the educational purposes of interscholastic athletics. In any event, budget savings from cutting are usually insignificant. Whether a school continues to cut or eliminates the practice is usually just a matter of how it sets its priorities. In most instances, no request for extra funds to avoid cutting has ever been made, so no one knows whether the funds are available or not. If the community is sufficiently motivated to eliminate the practice of cutting, the high school athletic booster club or an ad hoc group of parents may be able to raise the extra funds needed (as I did for my son's middle school football program)
In fact, some schools are realizing that it makes more sense to earmark scarce financial resources for an inclusive intramural program than for an exclusive competitive program. As one athletic director said, "If you want more bang for your buck, more kids out of trouble after school, intramural is the way to go."
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