How to Kill Your Sports Program and Get Away With It

This season I’ve spent a few Saturdays, my one day to sleep in, at track meets. Last Saturday I got up at 5 a.m. and drove in silence while my athlete slept in the car. The weather had been typical for a northeastern spring: first brutal wind, the next week rain, and now the blistering sun.

The worst part wasn’t forgetting my sunscreen. The worst part was watching the students from my uncomfortable seat and seeing that they were happy. I’m their English teacher, so I see them Monday through Friday when they’re watching the clock and trying to stay awake.

But today they were not miserable, and I hardly recognized them. No one was asking the time or begging to go home, and even students not on the track team came to cheer on their friends and siblings. I expected to find a defeated competitor in tears, but even a runner who had come in dead last was beaming because he had beaten his “personal record.” The girls were working together on relays, and the boys were focused, so no one was policing the bleachers or bathrooms. No one got demerits. No whiny voice demanded: “When am I going to use this in real life?” Apparently, reading and writing essays are useless activities required for college, while running, jumping, and throwing things are real goods, enjoyed for their own sake.

As I tried to think of one student who would get up at 5 a.m. to read Dante, I grew jealous of my students’ hearts, and on my way to the concession stand, I resolved to kill track and field.

My plan was simple and so deceptive that I laughed out loud, even when they told me they were out of coffee. I would destroy track and field with the same weapon that killed the liberal arts, the grading system. If you, too, wish to destroy those remaining outposts of joy, read on.

First, push to make track and field required for graduation and implement the standard grading system. Instead of meeting for two hours after school and on Saturdays, break the program into daily 40-minute chunks, ensuring that nothing really gets done.

Create a curriculum with a syllabus and a 180-day plan. Start with a thick, spiral-bound teacher’s edition filled with scripted material and pre-made tests and quizzes (don’t forget the answer keys). Use an online generator to make matching, fill-in-the-blank, and multiple-choice questions, which adds to the ephemeral nature of the information. Fill the disposable student books with blanks, but give the books flat bindings, making them impossible to write in. This will be a lot of work, but the French didn’t burn down their country in a day. There was paperwork.

The curriculum will cover everything tangentially related to running: the history of running, running-related injuries, and obvious safety procedures Add call-out boxes featuring track and field stars and worldview analyses for each section. The last unit of the curriculum should explain how the students can use this in the future: graphs showing the correlation between high jumps and college acceptance and a list of careers that might require you to run fast and throw things (e.g., teaching).

To cover the material, you’ll need more teachers, preferably ones that have never run a day in their lives. Someone who loves track and field could ruin everything. (Good teachers can overcome even the worst curriculum.) Fill the curriculum with terms to memorize (the kind that works well with Quizlet). Some of your students might try to go running after school, so you need them cramming for quizzes and tests instead. If you’re teaching the curriculum, add games, videos, and wacky discussions. It’s OK if they have fun in class, as long as they know deep down that it’s all a waste of time.

In the rare event that they do go outside to run, give them five points for starting, five points for finishing, and fifteen points for breathing. Use a convoluted rubric to grade their attitude, their effort, their sportsmanship, their exertion, and their footwork. Grade their outfits, their footwear, their deodorant, and their blood types. If they do well, take off a few points to discourage them from trying next time. Some girls will develop anxiety trying to figure it all out. Some boys will just quit trying. If anyone escapes the system and still enjoys running for its own sake, try a final exam that carries inordinate weight. No one survives the final exam.

As the students’ love for track and field decreases, their anxiety about grades will increase. Grade them on everything. I repeat, allow no activity that isn’t graded. This kind of conditioning is crucial to your program because you must get the students to refuse to do anything that isn’t graded. If you say, “This isn’t on the test,” a well-trained student will immediately zone out and drop to the ground.

It’s important to keep the grades accessible on an online platform so they can access them 24/7 and feed their obsessions. Grades must become the sole focus of the program. Do whatever it takes to get the focus off running and onto the arbitrary grades. Everyone will end up with an A or B, but that’s OK, the point is not to grade fairly; the point is to destroy track and field.

Will track and field continue? Yes, you will still have to get up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to stand in the rain all day, but at least the students will be as miserable as you are. Best of luck to you all.