Tony's Take: Elementary, High School, College Track Vibes Abound

Alton HS emerging superstar Lajarvia Brown competing in the World Youth Championship (Image of sport photo credit)

Summer is finally here in a big way. Ahh the climes are now consistently in the upper 80's and the sun and humidity is pouring out from the universe. As well this summer has been anything but boring or low-key. The politicians and powers that be have figured out a way to keep themselves in the news when it comes to sports. Let’s do a review of what’s been going on over the past few weeks since I chimed in.

Elementary sports in Chicago could be in trouble-

It is easy to ignore what’s going on in Springfield between opposing politicians who only seem to care about their agendas. But when something drastic hits home hard like in the case of elementary school athletics getting cut, we tend to open up our eyes more. I recently attended a meeting held by a group called “The friends of track field.” This tiny but serious and active group led by Dr. Conrad Worrill has positioned itself as a do-gooder of Chicago Public School sports, especially in the track and field arena. Many of the members of the committee were outstanding athletes in their heyday. I witnessed the passion from each one of them as stories from yesteryear flowed around the room.

As awesome was it to hear about the glory days of the 1970's CPS track and field, the seriousness of what may happen to elementary sports programs getting cut was paramount. Among the $200 million slated to be cut is the central funding of elementary school athletics. The powers that be indicated that will save the CPS $3.2 million dollars. The general consensus in the room was if elementary sports are shutdown, it might as well be a death certificate for high school athletics. A death certificate for high school sports as you know means more trouble for kids to get into.

As dysfunctional as the Chicago Public Schools Sports Administration has been over the years, they were able to keep the underling programs afloat. I believe one of the biggest challenges for Mayor Rahm Emmanuel will be to keep the kiddie programs going. I mean seriously why in the world do politicians think it’s cool to pick on the kids all the time? Don’t they understand that not having organized sports at the lower level will eventually cost the city and state more money in the long term? What I am trying to say there is a correlation between sports and success. Almost everyone knows that sports builds kids self-esteem. Positive self-esteem leads to good grades and many other countless positive outcomes. Either way in my book the government is going to have to spend money on our future. They will either build more jails or build a brighter future. We all know about the penile system success rate is don’t we?