Scholastic sports focus of initiative

Victory is sweet, of course. But when it comes to scholastic sports, what goes into producing youthful winners too often leaves a sour taste that can defeat the whole purpose of healthy competition.

Which is why Maine educators have launched a unique two-year program that attempts to establish statewide guidelines to ensure that school sports is enriching and rewarding for Maine kids of every grade and ability level.

“Coaching Maine Youth to Success,” an initiative funded with a $397,400 grant by the U.S. Department of Education, will seek to improve the sports experience as a way to raise the aspirations and academic performance of student athletes and encourage more kids to know the lifelong benefits of sports.

“We hope to create a template of sorts that we can measure ourselves against, to make sure that what we’re doing in our sports programs is in the best interest of the kids,” said Robert Cobb, dean of the University of Maine’s College of Education and Human Development. “We’re all looking so carefully at Maine school reform right now, and creating a blueprint so we can improve every aspect of our schools. And yet that effort is silent on interscholastic sports. If we’re not looking at sports, as important as they are in the culture of our schools and communities, we’re definitely missing a very big piece of the overall picture.”

Cobb, who will direct the program with J. Duke Albanese, the former Maine education commissioner, said the first step is to form a diverse panel of Maine residents who will identify the principles and practices that best define an effective and satisfying school sports program and those that undermine it.

“We’ll be looking at some of the less-than-desirable practices that some coaches engage in, for example, as well as the unrealistic expectations of many parents that can be counterproductive to their children,” Cobb said.

The win-at-all-cost approach of some coaches will be a priority in the panel’s discussions, he said, as will be the unnecessarily exclusive nature of sports programs in middle schools, where the dreaded cut-list can turn kids off to athletics long before they even have had a chance to grow into their awkward new bodies.

The panel will also consider standards for proper fan behavior as well as investigate the trend toward one-sport specialization that cheats many children of the opportunity to explore a variety of athletic disciplines.

“It often happens with the encouragement of coaches and parents, too, starting in middle school and extending through high school,” Cobb said. “But it’s not necessarily good for a child to play only one sport. Many kids on school teams also compete in the same sport outside school, which means they can be playing as many 60 or 80 games in a season. That’s not a sound and balanced direction for young athletes.”

Cobb and Albanese, who used to coach football at Skowhegan High School, understand that their more-inclusive, winning-isn’t-everything approach to school athletics may be a tough sell in places where the number of state championships is a measure of community pride.

“Yes, it does go up against a big tradition in Maine and elsewhere,” Cobb said. “We’re certainly not saying teams shouldn’t strive for success. But when a community wants only winning teams at any cost, most of the kids will never have the chance to experience the joy of participating, and the growth of character and confidence that comes with it. And isn’t that what sports is supposed to be about?”