The Athletics-Academics Connection

A colleague from the LS spoke to me a week or so ago about a recent ESA Basketball game—it was Lower School Night at the game. Many of our youngest students and the LS faculty were there. She saw one of our players get called for a technical foul for reacting badly to a call. The player went to the bench and when he came back into the game, the first thing he did was go over to the ref who called the foul, accepted responsibility and apologized. She told me that it was very impressive—her own kids had been involved in club sports and that kind of character was rarely seen in the club sport world. It’s a really nice story, but I missed an opportunity to say, “Of course—that’s what it’s all about; that’s the kind of lesson that happens in every sport at ESA.”

Athletics is one of the most important activities for any student and over 80% of our students participate in at least one sport. Most of our athletes play more than one sport, a trend that was recently brought to national attention by a graph that made its way around the Twitterverse. There has been a trend in recent years in high school athletics of increased specialization—“my child will only play (fill in the blank) because he/she is going to be a Division 1 athlete in college and that’s what colleges are looking for.” As it turns out, that’s not necessarily what colleges are looking for. But even more important is that our goal is not to funnel athletes to Division 1 programs. It does happen, and a good number of our graduates have played in college and a few professionally. However, the reason that we place such an emphasis on athletics in a school whose mission is about scholarship and honor, is that competition, struggle, hard work, dedication, responsibility, grit, leadership and a hundred other important character qualities are developed more directly in athletics than perhaps any other activity. And believe it or not, I see it over and over that when a student is in season his/her grades often improve. It’s a paradox, but not the only one. ESA’s athletic program is participatory. If a student wants to be on a team and is willing to put in the effort, he/she can be on the team. We believe that students learn more by being part of a team than by sitting in the stands. The paradox comes in the form that this small school in Cade that is focused on academic performance holds more State Championships than any school in Louisiana (72). And it holds the national record for the most consecutive volleyball State Championships (16). When kids are put into a culture of achievement, the most natural thing for them to do is achieve. This applies to academics, arts, athletics, you name it. Go Falcons! Areté!