What Price to Build False Dreams

What Price to Build False Dreams



Norman W Wilson, PhD



Not quite like the Romans of old, but we still build are coliseums as great monuments for the entertainment of the masses. And not quite like the gladiators who went into the arena, we still have young men and women placed before the yelling throngs. And at what price to the taxpayer and to the player? Dallas, Texas build a $120 million dollar high school stadium. The University of Phoenix at Glendale spent $335.3 million on its stadium. The New Yankee Stadium? Over one billion dollars.



We begin building the false dream of fame and glory upon the playing field with Little League and Pop Warner, carry it on through junior and senior high school. And at what price? We build large stadiums, baseball fields, basketball courts for an elitist few. We install locker rooms, dugouts, press boxes, concessionaire booths, pay high salaries to coaches. And all for the minority.



There are roughly 28,000 high schools in the United States. The National High School Center reports that the number of high school students for the years 2000-2004 (the years the information is available) was over 14,000,000. That's most likely more today.



A football team has eleven players and a second string; baseball nine players and a second string. That certainly creates the false dream of 'I'm something wonderful' when only one in 17 of all high school students will ever play football, for example, at a NCAA member institution. And from these only 1 in 50 NCAA players will get drafted by a NFL team. With only thirty-two teams in the National Foot ball League as few as 8 in 10,000 high school seniors are ever drafted by an NFL team.



Is the cost to the taxpayer and to the self-esteem of a few chosen young men and women worth the millions of dollars it costs? Is creating this false dream of glory on the playing field the kind of values we want to instill in our young people-values to carry them through their lives? Hopefully, it is not! Sadly, it appears to be so!