High School Athletics: Evolution and Cultural Implications

J. Thomas Jable

Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
7 (Summer 1992). ISSN 0882-228X
Copyright (c) 1992, Organization of American Historians

The lesson requires two class periods, each lasting approximately fifty minutes, though modifications can easily be made to fit shorter or longer time frames. Although the lesson has been designed for a high school social studies class, it is quite suitable for college courses in United States history, educational history, social and cultural history, or sport and physical education history. In fact this lesson has been tested in a history and philosophy of sport and physical education course for college sophomores and juniors.

At the completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. Identify at least three cultural forces which contributed to the emergence of high school athletics in America.

2. Compare the nature and purposes of high school athletics during the first and last decades of the twentieth century.

3. Discuss at least two purposes athletics serve their own high school and community (or neighborhood, if large city) based on their observations of an interscholastic athletic contest.

4. Select and express with some degree of substance their position on whether or not athletics are educational.

A multitude of social and cultural forces have led to the emergence of high school athletics, but the time constraints of one lesson will only permit adequate analyses of three or four. The paragraphs below identify several basic forces which might be examined. This inventory is, by no means, complete; other forces not included here may be substituted. High school athletics represent, among a myriad of things, humankind's competitive urge which is rooted in human nature and can be traced to the dawn of civilization. Human beings are curious about their attributes and abilities. To find out about their assets (or deficits in some cases), they compare themselves with one another in a variety of life experiences. The competitive nature of athletics enables them to assess their physical abilities.

Throughout history, parents, youth workers, and community leaders have promoted athletics as a viable mechanism for the socialization of youth for adulthood through the nurturing of discipline, order, obedience, cooperation, and team work. Progressive era reformers believed that interscholastic athletics could help to inculcate those values in youth and thereby prevent crime and delinquency. These two themes are prevalent and persistent in late nineteenth and early twentieth century literature. Another persistent theme is the conception of school loyalty and community involvement. Athletics tend to have a unifying effect on the student body as well as within the community, particularly in small villages where interscholastic athletics provide the primary source of entertainment.

While modern scholars generally accept the traditional explanations of the evolution of high school athletics, several have put forth new hypotheses. Joel Spring has theorized that the excitement and adventure of athletics helps the industrial laborer or future worker to cope with the regimentation and tedium of manufacturing jobs. Tim O'Hanlon has argued that the inherent inequality of athletics (the best make the team and the best of those play) prepared students to accept unequal roles in a society based on free enterprise with unequal jobs and unequal pay. Jeffrey Mirel has documented the intervention of high school administrators taking control of student-initiated and student-run athletic programs. In doing so, the high school administrators have adopted the intercollegiate model of governance already in place (1).

Prior to the lesson, all students must attend one varsity athletic contest as a spectator. They are given a set of instructions (Appendix A) for the observation which asks them to record their impressions of the behavior of the players, spectators, and school officials. They bring this information to both sessions of the lesson. Secondly, they must read two journal articles: "High School Athletics: History Justifies Extracurricular Status" by Thomas Jable and "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger. Both articles are distributed in class one week prior to the lesson (2). Lastly, they must answer several questions that will be discussed during the lesson. A sample of the questions appears in Appendix B.

Session I of the two-part lesson begins with a fifteen-minute class discussion of the students' observations of an interscholastic contest which should evoke examples and perhaps trends of school spirit and unity and community involvement based on their observations. Then in fifteen minutes the students discuss Bissinger's article which focuses on high school football and intense community involvement at Permian High School in Odessa, Texas. Not only do they examine the situation at Permian, but they also compare their own high school's athletic program with that of Permian's (3). The instructor then makes a twenty-minute presentation on the evolution of high school athletics, emphasizing several social and cultural forces covered in the Jable reading.

Session II of the lesson continues with the cultural implications of high school athletics. During the first fifteen minutes, students perform a written exercise in which they draw cultural and social analogies between high school athletics of today and those of the early twentieth century. Students identify the analogies and discuss several of them. Next, students are organized into small groups (five or six students per group) to discuss the central question: Are athletics educational? They have ten minutes to analyze this question before the class is reconvened as a whole for general discussion. Each group then reports its position on the question and explains how it reached its conclusion. Fifteen minutes are allotted for this portion of the lesson which leaves ten minutes for a summation of high school athletics and a concluding statement by the instructor.

One variation might have students attending both boys and girls varsity contests. They could discuss similarities and differences between the two games and then investigate the history of boys and girls athletic programs in high schools which would provide stimulating discussion. Another variation might examine the participation of ethnic groups in high school athletics and then explore whether or not such participation contributed to the assimilation of immigrants. A third variation might be a multicultural lesson which compares high school athletics in the United States with similar programs (high school, club, youth group) in other countries.

1. Complete citations of the works of Spring, O'Hanlon, and Mirel appear in the bibliography.

2. Complete citations for Bissinger and Jable appear in the bibliography.

3. The lesson can be enhanced by a fifteen-minute video, "Friday Night Lights," which was aired on "60 Minutes," 25 November 1990. It can be purchased for thirty-five dollars from Ambrose Video Publishing, Inc. (800) 843-0048. Use of the video will, of course, reduce discussion, and adjustments will have to be made for Session I.

Bissinger, H.G. "Friday Night Lights." Sports Illustrated, 17 September 1990, 82-96.

Coleman, James S. "Athletics in High School." Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science 338 (November 1961): 33-43.

Eitzen, D. Stanley. "Athletics in the Status System of Male Adolescents: A Replication of Coleman's Adolescent Society." Adolescence 10 (Summer 1975): 267-76.

Howell, Frank M., Andrew W. Miracle, and Roger C. Rees. "Do High School Athletics Pay? The Effects of Varsity Participation on Socioeconomic Attainment." Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 1 (1984): 15-25.

Jable, J. Thomas. "High School Athletics: History Justifies Extracurricular Status." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance 52 (February 1986): 61-68.

------. "The Public Schools Athletic League of New York City: Organized Athletics for City School Children, 1903-1914." In The American Sporting Experience: A Historical Anthology of Sport in America, edited by Steven A. Riess, 219-38. West Point, NY: Leisure Press, 1984.

Lewis, Guy M. "Adoption of the Sports Program, 1906-1939: The Role of Accommodation in the Transformation of Physical Education." Quest 12 (May 1969): 34-46.

Massingale, John D. "The Americanization of School Sports: Historical and Social Consequences." The Physical Educator 36 (May 1979): 59-69.

Mirel, Jeffrey. "From Student Control to Institutional Control of High School Athletics: Three Michigan Cities, 1883-1905." Journal of Social History 16 (Winter 1982): 83-100.

O'Hanlon, Timothy P. "Interscholastic Athletics, 1900-1940: Shaping Citizens for Unequal Roles in the Modern Industrial State." Educational Theory 30 (Spring 1980): 89-103.

------. "School Sports as Social Training: The Case of Athletics and the Crisis of World War I." Journal of Sport History 9 (Spring 1982): 5-29.

Seagrave, Jeffrey O. and Douglas N. Hastad. "Interscholastic Athletic Participation and Delinquent Behavior: An Empirical Assessment of Relevant Variables." Sociology of Sport Journal 1 (1984): 117-37.

Spring, Joel H. "Mass Culture and School Sports." History of Education Quarterly 14 (Winter 1974): 483-98.

Thirer, Joel and Stephen D. Wright. "Sport and Social Status for Adolescent Males and Females." Sociology of Sport Journal 2 (1985): 164-71.

J. Thomas Jable is Professor in the Department of Movement Science and Leisure Studies, William Paterson College. He has served as past president of the North American Society for Sport History and has published several articles on interscholastic sport and American sport in the nineteenth century.