Why Is Sports Important In American Society

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As far as I can remember, American society has been obsessed with sports. Whether it’s basketball, football, or even volleyball, you will see crazy fans, beer, and as always, wings! But why is it that our society doesn’t get so hyped up about someone getting a perfect score on their SAT, or getting accepted into three or more Ivy League colleges? It seems like society has become more impressed and more fascinated when their favorite team makes a touchdown or someone from their hometown gets drafted. A photograph taken by Martin Schoeller for Time Magazine depicts Olympic gold medalist, Gabby Douglass, eating a bowl of breakfast while stretching on the stairs, and another gymnast sitting at the bottom of the stairs doing her homework. This picture …show more content…

But according to Dilley-Knoles in “Making the Grade: Academic Success in Today’s Athlete,” he seems to believe the total opposite. He points out “attention has not always been solely about games and competitions” apparently the “spotlight” has recently been “redirected to academics (Dilley-Knoles). Today, athletes wanting to participate in athletics have to meet specific criteria before being on a team of some sort in high-school (Dilley-Knoles). Knoles explains how over the last few years, the National Collegiate Athletic (NCAA) has created certain standards for academic performance for those students who are in sports (Dilley-Knoles). Certain programs have been created to reward sport teams that do well academically, and penalizing those that don’t (Dilley-Knoles). Although Gabby Douglass was the first women of color “of any nationality and the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history” to become the “Individual All-Around Champion,” I believe the photo shows that athletics was more important than academics (Mike). The young girl below her suggests that she’s more focused on school because she might have not had the same opportunity as Gabby did. Athletes, similar to Gabby, find the pursuit of athletics to be “lucrative” which is something that society values through money (Kannan). In “Which is more important, sports or academics, and how can the choice are

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