Changing Sports Requirements

Are We Committed to Physical Health and Team Experiences ?

Independent schools have had a long tradition of focusing on the mind, body and spirit. Yet, over the years, many institutions  have moved away not only from elements of spirituality but more recently from physical health. Institutions and athletic departments have changed their older requirement of having students play three sports to accommodate a greater variety of student interests and to ensure that their institution remains competitive in the admissions process. 

New afternoon offerings in music, art, robotics, etc. have expanded the afternoon offerings of many independent schools. Many of our institutions also allow elite athletes to have a season or two off to focus specifically on their sport. The definition of “elite” has also gotten increasingly slippery. These programmatic and requirement changes have impacts, some of which are arguably positive and negative.

Two of the primary goals for athletics had been to ensure that all students got some physical exercise and that they had a team experience in which to learn how to work, win and lose with others. Much of this can still be done in non-sport offerings, but it is often difficult to do provide for both physical health and team experience without sports. For example: 

Yoga is great for health, but often an individual journey rather than a team approach.

Robotics is great for team building and working towards a common goal but often not a place where a lot of exercise happens.

Athletes exempt from a season can specialize in their sport and exercise in a way that best suits them. Yet, this can often not create a team atmosphere (as everyone is doing their own thing) or can restrict an athlete’s exposure to the broader community early in the school year to only others in their established sport.

This is not to say that required sports are necessarily all positive as individuals can certainly have a negative experience on a team. Yet schools have made these changes understandably to cater to what current students want and schools have recognized that some changes to the athletic canon are merited. Yet, this has meant that we have sacrificed some in the areas of physical health and team experience.

 Interestingly, at the same time we are changing the requirements for having to engage in physical exercise, most schools have also put significant resources into mental health support for students. This is certainly merited. Yet, knowing that  links exist between physical and mental well being should give schools pause as they reflect on their changing requirements.

Many schools have recognized that these sport requirement changes have unintended consequences and are now adding back physical education classes for those not playing a sport, some schools are adding exercise requirements to non-active activities, some are ensuring that individual focused activities have group/team building exercises, etc. Other schools are changing policies and some continue to remain unchanged. It will be interesting to hear what schools are doing to adapt to this changing landscape and how we can best ensure our students remain physically and mentally healthy and gain experience in working alongside each other.