Is Athletics The Real Religion Of Rural Communities?

Interest and participation in sports is on the rise. This emerging sports mentality is beginning to affect the way we live and do things. This is especially true in rural communities where the fewness of numbers brings athletics in direct competition with family and community activities.

I have heard rural ministers refer to the sports consciousness as the real religion of rural communities.

Positive contributions. Sports brings the need for community celebration and personal validation together in a powerful way. Taking pleasure together in public gives a sense of community to lives otherwise becoming increasingly isolated and fragmented. Sports provide a boost toward the feeling of, "We count. We are special."

A winning team lifts the burden of inferiority and brings back pride. "We are as good or better than anybody else. We can compete."

Winning means something. It validates worth and meaning. How is this for a rule of thumb? The lower the self-esteem of a community, the more unruly and uncivil the parents and other adults will be at high school games.

The games fill a glaring need of rural communities, the need for "something to do." Sources of public leisure and entertainment are minimal. The games are a place to go.

Besides filling community needs for drama, entertainment and meaning, sports participation has become a child's ticket to popularity and self-esteem. Team sports can build character. The influence of coaches can be great. Teamwork is learned. Discipline and sacrifice are developed. Youth grow in self-esteem. When it works, it is beautiful.

Sports can be a lifeline for youths from troubled or single parent families. The relationships with coaches mean a lot. Sports fill a void. Young people learn they can compete despite differences in economic backgrounds.

A Native American young man from Rapid City, South Dakota accomplished a 3.79 grade-point average in High School while being a three sport star athlete. He then attended Dartmouth College on a scholarship.

When he was in the eight grade, he tried drugs and alcohol for an eight month period. He attributed his turnaround to people who cared about him and to sports. "Having sports helped pull me away from using."

Parents take vicarious pleasure in the performance of their sons and daughters. The rest of the community joins in recognizing, appreciating, and adulating the talents of local teen sports heroes. There is lots of reinforcement for participation in sports.

The downside of sports. Despite the positive contributions of sports, there is an emerging picture of a downside to athletics that is taking a toll on families and communities.

• Parents are being run ragged trying to keep up with their children's athletics. There are innumerable practices, games and trips. The commuting for farm families is time-consuming and expensive. Farm kids feel terrible if they can't compete. If they do, the farm has to take a back seat.

Parents want to support their kids, want them to succeed, want them to be popular and end up sacrificing a major portion of time to that cause. If they are active, community-minded people, the rest of their nights are taken up with their own commitments.

Family time disappears. Leisure time is gone. Saturdays are used up. Sundays are encroached upon. Off season practice and camps are encouraged for the "serious" athlete. The decision not to be involved takes a child away from the center of action for belonging and recognition. The sacrifice of family time seems worth it.

• It's not just youth sports that encroaches on family time. Socialization for adults in rural communities centers more and more around sports participation, especially softball. Not to participate is not to be involved with friends. To join the team means an excessive round of practices, games and tournaments. Increasingly, husbands, wives and children are each going their own separate directions.
• Many parents feel the pressure to introduce their children to athletics during their elementary school age years. This is true now for girls as well as boys. They also wonder about how the introduction of competitiveness, performance anxiety and emphasis on winning at such early ages affects their child. This push to develop children early (the "hurried child" syndrome) likewise is a source of concern for social scientists.

If not handled right, "winning" and "losing" become more important than the game. Mistakes in public performances hurt. Soccer goalies are crushed to tears when they allow a winning goal. Baseball is a game that highlights failure and mistakes as much as success. Trying to learn a game of complex individual skills is hard on the egos of preteens.

What do you think? Does the tail wag the dog? Is sports the real religion of rural communities? Or do you think that it is the saving grace for rural youth and adults to add sparkle and interest to community and family life?