Character building - I think not. (Should Sport be Compulsory?)

Member Name: mikeb

Product:	Should Sport be Compulsory?
Date:	10/02/01 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good players are well praised.

Disadvantages: Does no good to force sport on people.

When I saw this category I thought I’d go and see what was actually meant by this question, were Dooyoo asking this because of concern about young peoples fitness? It turns out the blurb at the top asks whether sport is a good character building process as opposed to any physical considerations.

I can only approach this subject from my experience of compulsory sport and this was a few years ago, whilst at school. As I was very interested in all things sporting, I looked forward to the regular sports lessons, so much so that I actually elected to take it as one of my option subjects, forgoing an academic one as a result. What sticks in my memory from the compulsory lessons during my pre-option years however is that for every person who enjoyed sport and wanted to take part, there seemed to be nearly as many pupils who either didn’t particularly want to, or actually hated it.

Unless these pupils could either persuade their parents to write a letter excusing them from sport or they could produce a Doctors certificate, they were forced to take part, sometimes very much against their will. I can still remember the pupils, who were not the fittest, having to wait to be picked out of a line up to be on a football team and the embarassment this often caused them. As if this wasn’t enough, they were then expected to compete against other pupils who were alot fitter, resulting in the obvious name calling etc when they let their own side down. If this is what is meant by “character building” then I feel that the fact that this was compulsory usually had a very negative effect on their character.

If there had been a wide range of sports that would have suited people of all shapes, sizes and physical fitness I might have been inclined to agree that there was a case for a regular compulsory session of sport but, due to budget and staffing constraints, it was normally a case of either football, rugby or running, hardly a w
ide selection. Perhaps little Johnny, who was very small for his age, would have been an ideal candidate for gymnastics or big Dave a potential shot-putt champion but how would we ever know? As I said at the start, this is my personal knowledge of school sports in the 1970’s, if it has changed please let me know.

Since this time there have also been several other sports that have come to prominance, mainly due to television coverage. Snooker, tennis, golf even darts are now big money earners for the top players and I would certainly have appreciated the chance to have tried some or all of these at school. I’m sure some of the top competitors in these sports would not have been the best footballers or rugby players when younger and were probably just the types to be ridiculed for their contributions to these sports.

So my conclusion to this question is really yes, in an ideal world there should be an opportunity for youngsters to take part in sport regularly, and no, until the facilities are there to enable pupils to try a selection of sports to see what suits their fitness and talents this should not be compulsory. I simply do not believe that forcing people to take part in something that may not be suitable for them against their will is character forming.

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