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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The premise was that mandatory participation on a sports team would decrease/prevent drug abuse.  Kids who are only involved in athletics when required  aren't kids who dream of the Olympics or going pro or even NCAA.

And, of course, the whole my body is a temple analysis glosses over both the issues of performance-enhancing drugs and of prescription painkillers.

[/quote]

You seem to have the pre-determined idea that the ONLY reason kids at schools which mandate sports participation, participate in sports IS BECAUSE it is mandated, not because they happen to love their sport or have dreams and ambitions in it. Many , many kids do have big athletic dreams. Most kids do not consider sports a drudgery and most kids feel pretty good about themselves after reaching an athletic goal.[/quote]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The premise was that mandatory participation on a sports team would decrease/prevent drug abuse.  Kids who are only involved in athletics when required aren't kids who dream of the Olympics or going pro or even NCAA.

And, of course, the whole my body is a temple analysis glosses over both the issues of performance-enhancing drugs and of prescription painkillers.

[/quote]
You seem to have the pre-determined idea that the ONLY reason kids at schools which mandate sports participation, participate in sports IS BECAUSE it is mandated, not because they happen to love their sport or have dreams and ambitions in it. Many , many kids do have big athletic dreams. Most kids do not consider sports a drudgery and most kids feel pretty good about themselves after reaching an athletic goal.[/quote]

Oops, sorry -- you've misunderstood.  I've been responding to (and referenced, but increasingly obliquely) a claim made earlier in this thread that GDS is (or is perceived to be) druggier than other local privates because it doesn't have mandatory sports participation.  So, in comparing mandatory vs. voluntary sports participation (e.g. the variable) and asking what difference it makes, I'm focusing on the kids whose behavior would be different if the policy changed.  At GDS, those are the kids who would be on teams only if coerced and, at schools where team participation is mandatory, the kids who are only on teams because they're forced to be.   These kids (the unwilling athletes) aren't likely to experience any sports-induced substance abuse prevention effect if that effect is a function of serious and disciplined athletic aspirations.  They don't have those aspirations.

I'm certainly not claiming other kids don't have such dreams (or making any guess about how many kids fall into which category or suggesting that schools with mandatory participation have fewer such kids).  I'm just assuming that, for the kids who do have serious athletic aspirations, whether or not their school requires team participation is pretty much irrelevant in terms of the whole "My body is a temple"/"I'm in training" thing.

(FWIW, I've got a serious athlete at home.  And since DC's sport is a club sport, not being required to be on a school team will be what enables DC to retain/pursue her athletic aspirations. I know because, in MS, participation on a school team IS pretty much mandatory at GDS and the time pressure can get brutal.)[/quote]

MS sports teams especially at GDS are just not that much of a killer in terms of time. Please get back to me when you are a varsity athlete with 2 1/2 hour practices every day including sat and sometimes on sun. Games that re 2-3 hours away or off season road trips and trying to study for the sat and doing hw for AP's.[/quote]

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