Kids

Participation in high school sports is dwindling at a time when our young men need them most

The Northamption High School Konkrete Kids lacrosse team.

A few nights a week, I drive 11 miles northeast along Pennsylvania Route 329 from my home in Allentown to the Borough of Northampton, a gritty town on the eastern bank of the Lehigh River. 
 
Within minutes of leaving my house, I’m surrounded by acres of apple orchards and cornfields, shorn to stubble, before passing the Ormrod Blacktop Plant, Egypt Limestone Quarry, and Whitehall Cement Company. 
 
I drive past Northampton’s Main Street and neighborhoods of solid, brick row homes before getting to Northampton High School, which sits on the former site of Atlas Portland Cement Company.

At one time, Atlas quarried local limestone to make the world’s best Portland cement, and it was used to build the Panama Canal, Empire State Building, and Holland Tunnel.

Atlas was the largest of a dozen local cement plants that turned Northampton into a destination for thousands of Eastern European immigrants looking for work at the turn of the 20th century, and for decades it was a prosperous middle-class community.

I travel there after work to coach high school boy’s lacrosse to the great-great-grandsons of the town’s pioneers, and it’s clear many of them share the same work ethic and toughness as their forebearers. In fact, the team’s nickname is the "Konkrete Kids."
 
When I drive through town on my way to the high school, it’s easy to get the feeling that things haven't changed much in communities like these.

But they have. Dramatically.

Atlas closed in 1982 –- the same year Billy Joel debuted his song Allentown -- and nearby Mack Trucks (1987) and Bethlehem Steel (1995) followed suit. Just one small cement company remains.

As a result, the bottom fell out of the local economy with only low-paying service and warehouse jobs to fill the blue-collar employment gap.

This downturn is one reason that Northampton County –- comprised of Northampton and Bethlehem -- is one of the keys to winning the crucial state of Pennsylvania in the upcoming presidential election.

No matter who wins, communities like these need help. I’m lucky to coach young men who are motivated and disciplined, but I despair for those who have fallen through the cracks.

The high school-age boys who quit the team, drop out of school, or take jobs that offer little opportunity to get ahead.

If you follow social trends, you’ll see that it’s not an isolated issue, that boys and young men everywhere are struggling to meet the demands of adulthood.

Boys start school less prepared than girls and they’re less likely to graduate from high school and attend or graduate from college.

By high school, two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class, ranked by GPA, are girls, while about two-thirds of students in the lowest grouping are boys.

By age 27, high school dropouts are four times more likely to be arrested, fired by their employer, on government aid, or addicted to drugs than their peers who graduated. 

One in seven men reports having no friends, and three of every four deaths of despair in America — suicides and drug overdoses — are men.

What’s more, young men between ages 18-32 are increasingly unmotivated, isolated, and unable to create and sustain success in school, at work, and in relationships.

Clearly, it’s a good thing that young women are doing so well by comparison, but it begs the question why are young men so stuck?

In his book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It, author Richard Reeves argues that our attitudes, institutions, and laws have failed to keep up with the intense economic and social changes of the last 50 years.

Conservative and progressive politicians, mired in their own ideological warfare, have by and large failed to provide thoughtful solutions to what is a complex problem.

During this election season, you’ll hear dozens of recommendations from national and local politicians, but those in communities like Northampton feel powerless to effect change.

But I do see high school sports as a useful way to help -- or at least it’s my way to help.

In many ways, playing sports saved me. I’m not sure I can name more than a few teachers I had growing up, but I can name every coach:

Men like Coach Toby, Coach McMurtry, Coach Goss, Coach Sheridan, Coach Weakland, Coach Waugh, Coach Atlee, and Coach Fouts all encouraged me in athletics until I was mature enough to translate those lessons to other areas of my life.

It saddens me that participation in high school sports is dwindling at a time when we need them most.

Playing sports and joining a team culture gets high school-age boys off the couch, demands they put down their phones, and teaches them time-management, goal setting, self-discipline, teamwork, and leadership. What’s more it gives them a sense of identity and a reason to avoid bad choices.

Practices and games provide an environment where they learn to do hard things, work with others, take direction, deal with failure, and show up every day.

It teaches them to follow a process that leads to repeatable success even as they experience ups and downs.

Our lacrosse program is just four years old, and the team has gone from one win to 10 wins and district playoff spot. That success has built a culture that will continue to develop young men for years to come.

Last spring, on Senior Night, a number of our graduated players from past classes came out to support the latest team.

I took great pride in seeing the athletes who helped start and build our program show up to support the team.

So many of them are thriving. They are studying finance and computer programming in college, construction and diesel engine mechanics at technical school, and working as apprentice electricians and pipe fitters. They have friends and relationships.

They are building their lives with intention and are positioning themselves for future success.

I hope their experience as Konkrete Kids had something to do with their success. It’s a small thing, really, but if we can create more experiences like this for young men, we can help them find their place in the world.

The Best Thing Ever Said About: Kids

“Youth is a disease, but it’s curable and passes quickly.” -- Nick Mad

Worth Reading:

Playing Through the Whistle: Steel, Football, and an American Town, by S.L. Price.

From the Amazon description:

“In the early twentieth century, down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company built one of the largest mills in the world and a town to go with it.

Aliquippa pulled in thousands of families from Europe and the Jim Crow south. The J&L mill, though dirty and dangerous, offered a chance at a better life. It produced the steel that built American cities and won World War II and even became something of a workers’ paradise.

But then, in the 1980’s, the steel industry cratered. The mill closed. Crime rose and crack hit big.

But another industry grew in Aliquippa. The town didn’t just make steel; it made elite football players, from Mike Ditka to Ty Law to Darrelle Revis.

A masterpiece of narrative journalism, Playing Through the Whistle tells the remarkable story of Aliquippa and through it, the larger history of American industry, sports, and life. Like football, it will make you marvel, wince, cry, and cheer.”