Community Voice: The Athlete's Parent

“Here go the sports parents again!”

We’ve all heard it. That’s what many folks in our community mutter under their breath whenever the parents of our student-athletes contest proposed budget cuts to sports programs within the Wantagh schools.

Oh sure, there have been times when even I, the parent of two student-athletes at and one student-athlete at , cringed upon hearing loud, disrespectful lash-outs from my fellow sports parents…sometimes even throwing each other under the bus with comments like, “Don’t cut sport X…cut sport Y instead!”

But it’s important that we not lose sight of what’s really at stake when we as a community contemplate the elimination or massive reduction in student athletic programs, namely the opportunity to develop character, a sense of belonging, strength, perseverance, and skills that will shape who they become as adults and contributing members of the Wantagh community.

At the most recent round of budget discussions, the superintendent of our schools actually said, “At the end of the day, what colleges are looking for is performance in the classroom, not performance on the field.”

Well, kind of. For the past 22 years I have worked as the dean of admissions for several colleges and reviewed tens of thousands of admissions applications from hopeful students who are seeking to stand-out in crowded piles of qualified candidates. True, successful transcripts that show a student’s ability to master coursework and challenge themselves academically are critical. But often, it is the student’s accomplishments outside of the classroom that enable a student to distinguish himself as a 360-degree person, rather than just a set of numbers and scores on a transcript.

I stood in an over-crowded cafeteria at a recent community forum to voice my concerns about the elimination of the swim team, despite the fact that my own son, a varsity swimmer, had just completed his final year at Wantagh High School and will be heading off to college in the fall. No, he didn’t earn a swim scholarship. He may never swim competitively again. But the experience of being a member of this ‘rental’ team (a term used for a sport that uses facilities that the schools themselves don’t have, such as a pool or golf course), transformed his life.

The coaches taught my son never to give up even when he felt he couldn’t go on. His teammates cheered for him on even his ‘less than perfect performance’ days and reminded him to keep his head held high because he was a member of the team. And in his college application essays, he wrote about how he took a chance and tried something new, something he’d never done before, when he made the decision to try out for the swim team as a sophomore, having never had a formal
swim lesson in his life. If the Wantagh swim team could have that impact on my son, it pains me to think that students who come up behind him might be deprived of such life-altering experiences.

Some students find these experiences through drama. Others find them through academics. Still others find them through working after school and on weekends. We can’t arbitrarily decide which of these experiences holds more value than another. We have to insist that students have many, many opportunities to discover themselves both in and out of the classrooms.

Budget-building is never easy. And when faced with demands to do more with less, it may seem tempting to eliminate sports that aren’t as popular, that don’t draw big crowds and that ‘only impact a small group of athletes.’ I urge you to seek alternative means to balance the budget.

-Jacquelyn Nealon

Editor's Note: Patch is interested in your viewpoint as well. Please send your opinion to andrewc@patch.com.