All,
I'm building a "business case" to start a high school swim team at my daughters' charter high school. The school is very academically oriented (which I love) and has not had sports programs. However, I've got initial support from some teachers and parts of the administration to explore this. Being a lifelong swimmer, I know how valuable sports can be, but I need some external validation of this (school was founded by two, PhD economists).
I'd love any input on the following:
Does there exist academic research (or even strong case studies) that demonstrates the value of high school swimming relative to:
academic performance
college admission
Can anyone point me to a list (or lists) of the kinds of academic + athletic award programs that exist for high school swimmers that can then be further used to bolster their admission opportunities to top tier universities?
Thanks for any help.
Just brainstorming, but here you go:
Academic research - well, it's college, but I would think there is some application to high schoolers...
I would check out www.ncaa.org and you can find a bunch of interesting stuff under the academics link, a lot of studies.
Where did you swim college? Ask for the academic athletic advisor in the athletic department. They'd love to talk to you. Go see someone at ASU. I remember talking with ours while I was at TAMU. He was working on a paper why TAMU had a zero percent graduation rate for the men's basketball team.
As far as awards, it's pretty standard for schools to have "Honor Roll" and "Academic Athletic" awards; just pick whatever criteria. I got a bunch in college, like every semester! You either had to have 3.0 or sometimes a 3.5 (what you had to score to get out of MANDATORY study hall), and then I got some other award for something like a 4.0 semester GPA and qualifying/scoring at NCAAs.
Similar to the MIAA (sounds really cool!), we had PIAA (as in, uh, Pennsylvania!), and about 12 regions rolled up to the state level. Ours was WPIAL (Western PA Interschol Athl League, but you pronounce it whip-e-al, or slang, like "I qualified for whips!"). Here's what they got:
www.wpial.org/.../overview.pdf
You could establish the PWBrundage Academic Athletic Award, which goes to the outstanding male and female senior swimmers who exhibit excellence in academics, athletics, and contribution to their community.
See also USA Swimming
Applications and Forms
current year's Scholastic All American application
But the real question is do you really believe they would support starting a swim program, or will they have a meeting with you and then say thank you for all your work and then put it in a file drawer?
Just brainstorming, but here you go:
Academic research - well, it's college, but I would think there is some application to high schoolers...
I would check out www.ncaa.org and you can find a bunch of interesting stuff under the academics link, a lot of studies.
Where did you swim college? Ask for the academic athletic advisor in the athletic department. They'd love to talk to you. Go see someone at ASU. I remember talking with ours while I was at TAMU. He was working on a paper why TAMU had a zero percent graduation rate for the men's basketball team.
As far as awards, it's pretty standard for schools to have "Honor Roll" and "Academic Athletic" awards; just pick whatever criteria. I got a bunch in college, like every semester! You either had to have 3.0 or sometimes a 3.5 (what you had to score to get out of MANDATORY study hall), and then I got some other award for something like a 4.0 semester GPA and qualifying/scoring at NCAAs.
Similar to the MIAA (sounds really cool!), we had PIAA (as in, uh, Pennsylvania!), and about 12 regions rolled up to the state level. Ours was WPIAL (Western PA Interschol Athl League, but you pronounce it whip-e-al, or slang, like "I qualified for whips!"). Here's what they got:
www.wpial.org/.../overview.pdf
You could establish the PWBrundage Academic Athletic Award, which goes to the outstanding male and female senior swimmers who exhibit excellence in academics, athletics, and contribution to their community.
See also USA Swimming
Applications and Forms
current year's Scholastic All American application
But the real question is do you really believe they would support starting a swim program, or will they have a meeting with you and then say thank you for all your work and then put it in a file drawer?
