Day 62: ‘Tell me more when you’ve left school’

LEADING academics once told us the world was flat, so you’ll forgive me for raising my eyebrow at the definitive statements of yet another nutty professor!

This week’s entry comes from Ellis Cashmore from Staffordshire University, who has decided to declare competitive sport in schools a pointless act. He claims children shouldn’t be encouraged to follow their dreams of being sportsmen and women cause hardly any of them will ever make it - and those that do will end up injury-stricken or hooked on performance enhancing drugs.

Now as Mr Cashmore has clearly never left school himself, this must surely be the bitter actions of the last one to be picked for the football team?

To tell children they shouldn’t dream of being something amazing, whether that be a sportsman, musician, artist or TV star, is nothing short of stifling. 

Of course most children won’t become the next David Beckham or Jessica Ennis, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try - surely being inspired is what drives people to succeed. Surely encouraging children and young people to be driven and ‘dare to dream’ can’t be damaging?

Giving a child a competitive spirit in sport, gets them outside, makes them active, helps them to find friends and gives them a purpose. By doing this, you’re naturally creating a much healthier generation, without saying to them: “you need to exercise to keep fit, be healthy, and make sure you don’t add to obesity statistics”. 

I think children should learn what it is to win and lose. Feeling the elation of a win, understanding why you worked so hard, and what it is to achieve something is just as important as learning to lose gracefully.

Cashmore’s lurid suggestion that people who do become successful in sport will either face a life of injuries or become hooked on performance enhancing drugs is ridiculous. Of course some sportsmen will be injured, and a small number will use drugs to get ahead, but there are pitfalls to any career, there are people who cheat in every industry.

Every child should be given the luxury of dreaming, striving for something they want, and school is where they learn to be the person they’re aspiring to be. So let them kick a ball around and come in with a sliding tackle every now and then, winning and losing is a part of life, so on behalf of all our future elite sportsmen and women, I hope Mr Cashmore loses his argument in the press this week.

In short…what a tool!