Sports in Massillon and beyond

Even the unobservant traveler will notice that Massillon has an affinity for football, in fact football legend Paul Brown was born here. Football is inescapable as one walks around town. There is a mural on the side of a building along Lincoln Way that treats football as akin to Greek mythology; its greats as gods. At the bottom of the mural is a poem:

Mural on Lincoln Way, Massillon, OH

“In the Beginning when the great creator was drawing plans for this world of ours, he decided there should be something for everyone. He gave us mountains that reach to the sky, deep blue seas, green forests, dry deserts, gorgeous flowers, and gigantic trees. Then he decided there should be football, and he gave us Massillon. He created only one Massillon, he knew that would be enough.”

Virtually every business in town has a sign in the window exhorting the local high school football team to do well. The woman working the breakfast this morning in my hotel wore a t-shirt that read: “One team, one town, one goal.” While at first glance this source of civic pride is admirable. Yet I find some of the aspects of this as troubling. High school football players adorn the flags along the main street of town (Lincoln Way) posed in their uniforms, like football players outside a NFL stadium. Pictures of the town’s cheerleaders are found in the windows of many businesses in Massillon, exhorting the team to greatest. The implicit message is: “This is as good as it gets.” High school is the apex of one’s life and our heroes are the 15-18 year olds who represent our town each weekend.

My trip to Massillon coincided with a number of articles and book releases that caught my eye. The emphasis on sports, particularly football is the subject of Amanda Ripley’s article in The Atlantic. The author examines the amount of money that is spent on high school athletics in the United States, much of it hidden and compares it with the money spent on scholastic programs. Rarely do people calculate coaches’ salaries, bus rides, and equipment refurbishment. There are stunning figures to make high school sports happen and it is not recouped through ticket sales. It probably goes without saying that the most expensive sport is football; however, in the Pacific Northwest one school was spending $328 per student for math instruction while at the same time spending $1348 per cheerleader. While most arguments that favor sports in high school point to keeping marginal students in school, this segment of the student population is small. Yet the emphasis on sports keeps resources from making classes interesting and innovative with fully qualified teachers.

It is difficult to think about America, or its popular culture, without its emphasis on sports. No doubt I am one who enjoys the history and lore of sports. One of my favorite films of the 1980s is Hoosiers, a semi-fictional story based upon the real team of Milan, which won the 1954 Indiana High School Basketball Championship. The swelling music and compelling visuals celebrate a romantic notion of small-town America. The love of high school sports is woven into the fabric of America. My high school, duPont Manual was one of the principals for the legendary Male-Manual rivalry, touted as the nation’s oldest high school rivalry and I know plenty of people who either attend or intend to attend the game each year. I even co-authored a history of the rivalry for my high school newspaper.

In the closing sequence of Hoosiers, a photograph of the winning team adorns the wall of the high school gymnasium. As Ripley points out, in 1961 sociologist James Coleman wrote that where one interested a high school you are confronted with trophy cases that celebrate athletic, not scholastic, achievements. Nowhere in Massillon are there pictures of students who so well in things other than football and cheerleading. Nevertheless, education is supposed to be a school’s raison d’etre.

We little realize how much high school sports dictate high school academics. I have long known that a later starting time could greatly improve students’ lives and learning. In fact, research demonstrates that a later starting time results in improved student performance; however, most schools have early morning starts to facilitate afternoon daylight sports practices.

Two other articles in The Atlantic tangentially deal with similar themes. One piece by Karl Taro Greenfeld smartly and amusingly examines how much homework students do each night. Greenfeld spent a week doing the same homework assignments as his daughter and found that the assignments tended to be unrealistic and inane. Read in context with Ripley’s piece, one comes to the conclusion that the problems of American education are not simply about one issue. Another article in the same issue examines the amount of money taxpayers give to one of the richest and most profitable organizations in the United States – the NFL. Yet another indication of the power and importance of sports in the United States.