Who can talk the bestest?

Dribble, pass, sprint, spike, serve, swing! American pastimes. Who doesn't enjoy watching a basketball player running up the court or feel the adrenaline when one of the baseball players hits a grand slam? How about the enjoyment when a humorous duo takes first place at a competitive speech meet?
Where does this take us? Where exactly is our society heading when people are idolized for being in sports and yet, those who partake in the arts, are criticized. For example, why is it that students who want to better themselves by speaking in public vicinities are not as good as sports stars because they don’t actually do anything.
For the longest time while I was in school, I was told that speech was not actually a sport because no work was ever done. “How hard is it to speak in public?” Well, I always wanted to ask them back, “How hard is it too—” Fill in the blank…
The thing is, in sports, the player – and every player – is a part of a team. They have someone else to help them play their game. There is another person on the court to assist the game. In the arts, such as speech, theater, and choir, the person is on their own in front of the judge. Therefore, the student has to be able to act on their own. This makes the arts harder than people often give credit for.
Now, I don’t mean to sit here and rant on about this, but, when I was at work a couple weeks ago at BCN, there was a huge uproar because of basketball. The head speech coach and I were planning around the basketball team, and then, we find out that they planned against us. Since the district is two schools, we have to drive back and forth 20 miles to get to practice. This creates issues because not all students are allowed to drive on their own.
Now, in other schools, this same thing occurs. Sports stars are idolized and anyone who participates in the arts is looked at as people that are talentless. So, where does that put us? Why is it that we have to divide our students into these two groups: Sports and arts?
Tina Bryn, my head coach, said something that really interested me a couple weeks ago. “My kids are going to pick what they want to be in, yes, but I am going to encourage them to try both sports and arts. It is important to have an understanding of what each activity takes.”
I don’t know where we are heading. As I walked through BCN last week and heard people referencing speech as a waste-of-time activity, I almost wanted to turn and ask, “And where is basketball going to take you?” Of course, there is not forcing people to change their minds. That is what makes our country so special: We all get to decide for ourselves.

If you want more information, look to the experts. Americans for the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts are both websites that place emphasis on how important the arts are for schools and in general.