Any parent of an adolescent child can tell you that getting them involved in an activity tends to keep them out of trouble. As the parent of one former and two current adolescents, I can confirm this fact. With my kids, it is sports.

If your child gets involved in sports in middle school, something magical happens. Over the years, he or she builds a camaraderie not only with teammates from their own school, but with players from other schools, too. They grow up together over the course of cross country and track meets, volleyball or tennis matches, soccer, football, rugby or softball games, or paddling races. They sit and talk while they wait to compete at track meets. They cheer each other on, and even more importantly, they encourage each other. What is especially heartwarming is when you see team members – and members of the competition – support an athlete who may not be as athletically gifted as some of the other players, and celebrate when that athlete makes their first serve over the net, or makes a basket, a good play, catches the ball, or improves their running time. Team members tend to look out for each other, especially in some of our more overcrowded high schools.  

If your child plays in an outside sports league, chances are they will compete as teammates in that league, and against each other in the middle or high school sports leagues. Sometimes, as in my two older children’s cases, they compete for public middle schools and a private high school. So kids they were teammates with in eighth grade become rivals – most of the time friendly ones – in high school.  On Guam, these close relationships make the competition much more special, and I think they keep the play on a much more principled level. (It’s a lesson we parents could definitely take to heart!) It also makes for much more interesting competition, because sometimes you know how a former teammate likes to move around the court, or which side they prefer to kick from, etc.

During last year’s Far East Girl’s Volleyball tournament up at Andersen Air Force Base, when the George Washington Geckos played in the finals, the other teams from Guam – parents and all – were there to cheer them on. It didn’t matter that they had beaten other Guam teams to get there. Because everyone in volleyball knows one another, the Geckos became “our team” in that final game.

Interscholastic sports does wonders for thousands of our children. It strengthens their physical and moral character, and often makes them better students, too. It might just be the program that gives taxpayers their highest rate of return for the meager amount they invest in it.

Officials from the Guam Public School System, or the Department of Education, or whatever we’re calling it this week, should remember that as they meet tomorrow to decide the fate of public school sports. If the administration decides it just can’t afford to pay the coaches, the referees, and the janitors who lock up after the games, it would be so unfair to the athletes. But it would also be unfair to expect the adults who run these programs and who referee the contests to work for free, even though they definitely don’t do it for the money. As the saying goes, “Every little bit helps,” especially in our current economy.  Would the people making the decision work for free? I doubt it.

Please find the money to keep interscholastic sports going. Even if you have to cut your own salaries by five to 10 percent to fund school sports – in the words of a famous athletic brand – just do it.

I can guarantee it will be money well spent.