[jrumbut]

I've come to see obesity and our production of elite athletes as two sides of the same coin.

When I was in high school my baseball and football practices were 2-3 hours long and I would be exhausted and wheezing by the end of them. I have a knee injury from freshman year that still bothers me 20 years later. That's an insane time and energy commitment, I see why a lot of kids end up doing nothing.

I'd like to see more options that are lower intensity, don't require a commitment, and meet kids where they're at fitness level-wise.

[freetime2]

I agree that the emphasis should be more on increasing participation rather than producing elite athletes - at least in public schools. I went out for football my freshman year and the practices were just way too intense/violent for me, and I eventually ended up getting injured and quitting. That experience pretty much turned me off from school sports for good.

If my school offered boys' badminton or volleyball (there were girls' teams but not boys), I could totally see myself as enjoying those sports.

[jrumbut]

Football and baseball are tricky cases because it takes a lot to get 11 players to work in anything like unison and if someone like the left offensive tackle (for a right-handed quarterback) forgets their job or is incompetent it's quite dangerous.

In baseball, the very basic skill of hitting is just hard to accomplish. It takes a lot of practice hours to get the bare minimum of competency.

But I think these are two very important cultural games and I would be sad if they weren't played in public schools, it would be a real loss.

So once again we face a problem and I really don't know what the solution is.