ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 30, 1996 TAG: 9609300100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
ROANOKE'S MIDDLE SCHOOLS do not have football teams, and try to put participation before competition. Some parents and students are finding fault with the policy.
In the bright autumn sun, Laura Shipman watched her sons, Adam and Drew, play their first soccer game last week. She cheered as they ran up and down the field.
Adam is a seventh-grader and Drew is a sixth-grader at Addison Middle School, which was playing a game with Madison Middle School at the River's Edge Sports Complex in Roanoke.
The boys love sports: They have played baseball and football in recreation leagues.
Adam wanted to run track at Addison last year, but the school didn't have a coach or a team. He was disappointed.
"I think they need to push sports more in schools," his mother said. "It keeps the children off the street and gives them something to do. It gives them goals."
Shipman wishes Addison had a football team like middle schools in many surrounding counties. She said her boys would play football for the school if it had a team.
Roanoke's middle schools do not have football teams because school officials have concerns about sixth-and seventh-graders being injured in the sport. They also say football equipment would be expensive and youngsters who want to play football can do it in sandlot leagues.
James Foutz attended the Addison soccer game to cheer his daughter, Brooke, a seventh-grader on the school's coed team. It was Brooke's first game, too.
Foutz shouted encouragement to Brooke and the Addison players, admonishing them to run to the ball and kick it. When they made a good move, he shouted approval.
"Sports are great for kids," he said. "It makes them feel like they are a part of the school and a team," Foutz said. "It's a good release for them when they're not in class."
Brooke has played volleyball on a church team, but this is the first school team she has been on in any sport.
"I really enjoy it. It's fun," she said.
Her father thinks Addison should have a football team in addition to the soccer, girl's softball, basketball, volleyball, baseball, tennis and other sports that are offered. "It would teach them the fundamentals of football and they would be better prepared to play when they got to high school," he said.
Madison defeated Addison in the soccer match, winning by several goals. But no one talked much about the score when the game was over because the city's philosophy for middle school athletics is to place more emphasis on participating than winning.
"Our kids are just learning, while Madison has many players who have played in recreation leagues," one mother said.
Addison coach Brad Walker focused on the positive when he talked with his players after the game.
"We got better throughout the game," he told them. "[Madison] didn't score in the last quarter."
Each school has several girls on the soccer teams, as do the city's other middle schools. All players on the teams get to play, in keeping with the city's philosophy of emphasizing participation over competition.
Middle school athletics have become an issue in Roanoke recently because Jeff Artis is heading a petition drive to persuade the School Board to implement what he describes as a "full-scale" sports program that is more competitive and includes football.
Artis, a substitute teacher and former Republican candidate for the House of Delegates and Roanoke City Council, said the city's current sports program does not meet the needs of many children because some view it as "nothing more than a glorified recess."
There are too many players on teams, he said, adding that there is a lack of serious competition not enough emphasis is placed on team discipline.
"The philosophy is to have a good time. If we win, we win, but it's not serious," he said. "Some kids want serious competition and they realize that athletics is their only ticket to college."
Some youngsters are prevented from playing recreation and sandlot football because of weight restrictions and others don't have transportation to practices and games, he said.
Artis contends that a "quality" athletic program in the middle schools would help reduce dropouts, drug abuse, teen-age pregnancy and other problems.
National studies have shown that sports and other extracurricular activities do help to keep some children in school and out of trouble. But the evidence is less clear on whether athletic programs have to be fiercely competitive to keep youngsters interested in school, said Jeff Sherrill, program manager for middle school activities for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Councilman William White, a former School Board member, and former Councilman Delvis "Mac" McCadden also have advocated a more competitive sports program for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.
Artis and McCadden, a former Roanoke teacher, said the city's middle school sports are basically intramural.
But Superintendent Wayne Harris said that is not correct because Roanoke's six middle schools compete against each other in several sports.
"We offer a wide ranging program. It is competitive sports and goes far beyond intramural competition," Harris said. "It is not an intramural program."
The bottom line is that Artis is really talking about putting football in middle schools, the superintendent said.
Even though the middle schools have competitive athletics, school officials agree that the program encourages broad participation and discourages a winning-at-all-costs attitude.
"We have a middle school concept - winning is not everything," said Barry Akers, assistant principal at Ruffner Middle School.
Artis said the middle schools could keep the current program for those who are interested in participation, but the city should add another level for students who want more competitive athletics.
The middle schools compete against each other in several sports, but they don't schedule games with schools outside the city.
Interviews with students and parents show strong support for middle school athletics, including football, but it's not unanimous.
Dozens of students at Addison and Ruffner middle schools said they like to play sports - and many boys said they would play football if the schools had teams.
Eighth-grader Kyle Ellis said he wishes Addison had football and competed with schools outside the city.
"I think sports help gives us something to do and keep people interested in school," Ellis said.
But Crystal Board, a seventh-grader at Ruffner Middle, said she's not interested in sports and doesn't care whether the school has a football teams.
The parents are divided, too.
"I don't think sixth-graders are ready for full-scale competition sports, particularly in football," said Al Martin, who has a daughter at Jackson Middle. "It might be OK for seventh- and eighth-graders, but the sixth-graders could feel overshadowed and they could get hurt."
Kathy Surace, who has a son at Woodrow Wilson Middle, likes the current program because she said students "have a lot to get settled socially and academically" in middle school and shouldn't feel too much pressure about sports.
But she is concerned that some youngsters who want more competitive athletics might be unable to participate in sandlot and recreation leagues because their parents work in the afternoons and they don't have transportation to practices and games.
Surace's son plays soccer for Wilson and she has two children at Patrick Henry High, including a son who plays freshman football. She said he made the adjustment to high school football without the benefit of having played in middle school.
Pam Hultquist, mother of two boys at Addison Middle, believes academics and the school's aerospace magnet program should take funding priority over sports. Her sons don't participate in athletics.
"I wish every need could be met, but there's not enough money to go around," she said. "You have to prioritize and I would rather see the shuttle and magnet program upgraded first."
Hultquist also believes that it's unfair for supporters of athletics at Addison to have a fund-raiser to buy equipment because it hurts the Parent Teacher Association's efforts to raise money.
But many PTA leaders and parents want middle schools to have a well organized and competitive sports program.
"Competing at the middle school level doesn't bother me," said Lea Lineberry, mother of a daughter at Addison and three other children in elementary and high school.
"I'm a strong advocate of sports, although I'm not so much pro-football," said Lineberry, president of Addison's PTA. "The schools should have a wide range of sports. I wish we had more."
Trish Boyd, president of the Ruffner Middle PTA, said she favors football and a strong athletic program in middle schools.
"It gives the children something to do," Boyd said. "If they get started in sports early, it gives them something to look forward to when they get to William Fleming and Patrick Henry."
Tracie Lambert, mother of two boys at Ruffner Middle and one in elementary school, believes sports provides discipline and guidance for youngsters.
"It gives them an incentive to do their school work. They have to make good grades and have good behavior to play," she said. Her boys play sandlot football, but they would play for Ruffner if the school had a team.
Linda Bunker, a professor of education at the University of Virginia, said studies show sports do help to keep some students out of trouble and reduce the dropout rate. But middle school athletics don't necessarily have to be modeled after high school and college programs to attract students' interest, she said.
Bunker, an expert on physical fitness and sports for children and youth, believes the goal of middle school sports should be to encourage broad participation - not intense competition.
At the middle school level, there is so much difference in the size of boys that it's difficult to have equity in football competition anyway, she said.
If funding limitations force a school system to choose between a sports program that encourages participation and one that fosters competition, Bunker believes it should opt for participation.
If a community has the money to provide both kinds of programs, she sees nothing wrong with a dual setup if youngsters are free to choose and do not feel pressured by parents or others to try out for the competitive interscholastic teams.
Several suburban school systems in the Washington, D.C., area have gradually disbanded interscholastic athletics in middle schools in recent years because some educators question whether competition is appropriate at these ages.
Fairfax and Loudoun counties have intramural sports in their middle schools with no interscholastic competition.
Montgomery County, Md., reinstated a limited interscholastic program this year after a five-year period with only intramural games, but it did not restore football. Still, the move has triggered controversy because some parents question whether the program will serve mainly students with athletic skills.
"The fact that some localities have disbanded middle school athletics is not so much of a trend as it's a matter of how people feel locally about middle school sports," said Sherrill of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
In Western Virginia, many school systems have a full range of interscholastic sports, including football, in their middle schools.
Roanoke County school officials believe athletics have a positive impact on academics in middle schools and help to keep some students out of trouble.
Roanoke had football in its junior high schools for many years, but it eliminated the sport when it switched to the middle school concept.
A recent national survey found that about 75 percent of the middle schools in the country have some form of interscholastic athletics, but not all of these have football, Sherrill said. There is no readily available data on the number of middle schools with football teams.
Studies by the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Resources show that students who participate in sports and other extracurricular activities have better attendance and grades and are less likely to drop out and use drugs, Sherrill said.
He said the studies included all extracurricular activities, not just sports, so it's difficult to say whether sports alone will keep some students interested in school.
Sherrill said a fiercely competitive interscholastic program can be physically and psychologically stressful for middle school students.
There is a wide variation in the size and abilities of middle school students, he said. When a school has tryouts for a team and some students have to be cut, he said, it can hurt their confidence and self-esteem.
By the time the students reach high school, many have become larger, acquired better motor skills and probably could play competitive sports, he said. But a bad experience in being rejected for a middle school team might discourage a student from trying out for high school teams, he said.
Sherrill favors strong intramural sports programs for middle schools. "You will get more students involved and you won't have to make cuts for teams."
For the same amount of money it takes to outfit a football team, a school can finance a good intramural program, he said. "How can you justify spending $200 per player for 35 to 40 kids for a football team when you have a school with 700 students who could benefit from intramural sports?"
But David Spangler, a photography teacher at Ruffner Middle, believes Roanoke middle school students should have the same opportunity to play football as their counterparts in nearby localities.
"I think some city kids are losing out because they do not have football," Spangler said. "Football is in the limelight more than most sports and many students are interested in it."
Football gives students something to do during the afternoons and teaches them discipline and leadership, he said. School officials say sandlot football is available for middle school students who want to play it, but Spangler said weight restrictions prevent some boys from playing.
Just ask Antonio Leftwich, 13, an eighth-grader at Ruffner. He played sandlot football for several years, but he can't play now because he weighs too much.
"I wish Ruffner had a team so I could play," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 251 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. 1. Mary Smith (left) and Ericby CNBCuadrado (right) race for the ball. 2. Jackson Middle School parents
and pupils cheer on the team. color.