Yes it’s me.  I’m back for another blog installment.  First let me say I really appreciated Charles Long’s piece on the “Downtime of Summer.”  I think of summer as my season.  It’s all about vacations, birthdays, and the grandson.

For this blog, I want to move a little bit away from the hard hitting stuff and chirp a bit about something that was near and dear to my heart at one time; sports, middle school sports to be precise.  There’s a threat to them becoming endangered.  The loss of after-school programs for middle school kids in general is really starting to bug me.  I guess because I don’t have pre-teens running about anymore I don’t always think about what some of them are missing out on.

Over summer break I had to come to the aid of two young ladies (11 and 13 year olds).   The incident concerned me on multiple levels. The girls had embarked on an unauthorized daylong outing that included public transportation, no sense of direction, and no money for their return trip home.  I cringe when I think about it, and dangers they could have encountered.   Their little adventure also reminds me of how grateful I am to be past those pre-teen years of parenting. Anyway, after my mom and I finished chewing them out for making such bad decisions, I asked them about their extracurricular activities once school was back in session.  “I’m interested in playing basketball or volleyball, but I probably won’t because they been eliminated ‘cause of cut-back.”

I can’t say that I was surprised at the girl’s answer, after all, eliminating sports and music and other activities as a method for cost cutting in the public school system isn’t new.  Hearing it from an actual student versus hearing it on the six o’clock news did make the girl’s statement more personal to me. The other young lady said she had an interest in photography; she also expressed concerns about cuts. My initial reaction upon listening to them was saying to myself   “maybe I can…” At the same time, another little voice in the back of my mind silently replied, “That’s a major issue.”  That issue is too big, you can’t possibly tackle it by yourself.”  In other words, I was hearing “my plate is full, so don’t even try to pretend like you can help.”  It was true, even if I wanted to help, with all I have going on where would I possibly carve out time to create an after-school program for girls?  Not to mention the amount of funding it would require.

Unfortunately, the challenge for both these girls is probably true for so many of our youth who are seeking extracurricular outlets.  Most kids who come from low-income homes don’t have the resources to engage in organized activities outside of school and community.  I personally believe extracurricular activities like sports help develop disciplines and qualities that can shape a young adult’s desire to become socially successful adults.  At least, it helped me.  Growing up, both after-school programs and sports were major for my siblings and me.  It gave us a recreational and a social connection to our community and beyond our community.

I know some of you hard-core activist may be thinking, so what, it’s just sports.  I know some people who do movement building don’t support or believe in competitive sports in school, but this isn’t about “jock’ism,” this is about acknowledging the fact that middle school and high school athletic programs and after-school activities have helped shape and produced some pretty amazing adults who now brilliantly serve their communities.

Maybe I will do something, like putting on my gym shoes and starting a youth sports club or making a financial contribution to a club already in place, or picket a local school board meeting.   Here’s a quirky question; how do we level the playing field, when we have no left fielder?