Badly Overworked, This Ploy Named Sue

Tue., Sept. 12, 2000

By Doug Floyd dougf@spokesman.com

A promising teenage soccer player’s dilemma landed in federal court last week. Where else? That’s the American way.

Although the legal documents indicate the dispute is between 17-year-old Liz Hail and the Coeur d’Alene School District, the case actually is one more skirmish in a larger contest between individual rights and social values.

Hail, by all accounts, is a dynamite athlete who wants to parlay her skills into a college scholarship and even a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. To maximize her chances, she and her family believe, she should play for both Coeur d’Alene High School and the Spokane Valley Flash, a premier amateur soccer club in Spokane County. She’s good enough but the problem - and the target of her lawsuit - is a rule that says Idaho high school soccer players can’t play for both the school varsity and an outside team.

The restriction is not arbitrary.

In Idaho, as in other states, high school athletics are governed by a private nonprofit association. Those organizations, part of the National Federation of State High School Associations, exist to make sure that sports and other extracurricular activities are compatible with a sound educational program. In keeping with that duty, they set limits. Limits on the amount of time a student can devote to extracurricular activities. Limits on the number of competitive events in which a student can participate. That’s true of debate. It’s true of dance and drill teams. And it’s true of sports such as soccer.

The limitations reflect an awareness of the demands competitive programs put on youngsters. Overcommitted kids don’t have enough time for studies. Tired kids are prone to injury. It’s not fair if elite athletes divide their energies between two teams while keeping less-talented kids off the school team.

But the balance between education and extracurricular activities isn’t a concern of the U.S. Soccer Federation, which oversees amateur programs such as the Spokane Valley Flash.

Schools, of course, can’t halt individual youngsters from joining clubs like the Flash but they can set the conditions under which students may participate in school activities.

There are appropriate public forums and procedures in which those conditions can be shaped to serve community values rather than individual aspirations. The ideal outcome would be a balancing of individual rights and the community good. Public deliberation promotes such an outcome but litigation subverts it.

Local journalism is essential.

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