Reply to Why is trying for diversity in HS sports not a thing?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can you imagine what people would say if the Science Bowl team had 50 people try out and 10 were URMs and none of them were picked because they presumably had less "talent" than the white or Asian kids?

[b]This is what is happening with sports[/b].[/quote]

Of course, people who are ACTUALLY knowledgeable about sports know that the exact opposite is true.  There is a long history of affirmative action favoring less talented (usually white) kids in sports in every possible way at every level.  It's baked into the rules -- kids with below a 2.3 high school GPA are not eligible for D1 scholarships and all school systems have minimum GPA reqirements, so sports participation is not and has never been purely about sports talent.  Sports participation is also about having the support at home to get good grades and enough famiy money that kids do not need to work a part time job (my kid's varsity team flat out forbids kids from working all year, as did my sports teams when I was in high school).

Finally, parents of athletic white kids in sports where white kids are a minority will know that their kids get noticed more than similarly talented minority kids and definitely get the benefit of the doubt more than minority kids.  As the parent of such a kid, I frequently found the favoritsm and extra consideration shown my kid to be uncomfortable, particularly given that I knew that my kid had support and opporunities that a lot of his equally talented but poorer teammates didn't have.  My kid was assumed to be hard working, fundamentally skilled, a rule follower, a good shooter, a good freethrow shooter, a boost to the team average GPA, and a "high basketball IQ" kid before he stepped on the court or submitted a grade report.  When it became clear that he also had decent speed and a good vertical jump, he was treated as an elite athlete to a degree that was frankly unfair, and some glaring weaknesses were overlooked by far too many coaches in a way they wouldn't have been if he wasn't "the white kid."

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