Page 18 - 2017 IHSAA Annual Report
P. 18
2016–17: The Year in Review
Education-Based Athletics:
Looking Beyond the Scoreboard
It’s impossible to measure the value of high
school athletic programs in Indiana by
counting the number of wins and losses.
Instead, we look beyond the scoreboard to
measure what education-based athletics
are all about.
High schools in Indiana have dozens of
success stories about student-athletes who
have gone on to distinguish themselves at
the collegiate or professional level. But these
same high schools have hundreds of thou-
sands of stories about student-athletes who
have recorded higher grade point averages,
better attendance records and fewer disci-
plinary problems because they played a
high school sport.
About 95% of all high school student-athletes
never play a collegiate sport. But virtually
all of them have learned valuable life lessons
as a result of being a high school athlete,
lessons that have helped them mature into
responsible young adults who have more
empathy and integrity, better leadership
and time management skills, and a
stronger work ethic.
Education-based high school sports are
best described as an extension of the high
school classroom, a hands-on laboratory
where everybody is a winner—the school,
our community, and the student-athletes
themselves—regardless of what the score-
board says.
High school sports teach teenagers and
entire communities important life lessons.
Among them are how to win with grace
and lose with dignity.
18 INDIANA HIGH S CHOOL A THLE TIC ASS OCIA TION Annual Report 2017
