Q: If you could change any one thing about high school athletics, what would it be?

John Wiley, The Overlake School: At most schools, most kids don’t make it. It’s a numbers game. If you go to a 4A school and there’s 1,600 people, 80 percent of those are not playing sports. The kids who really need to be part of something, involved in something… most don’t have the opportunity. Maybe they didn’t just grow enough or weren’t strong enough that year, or just didn’t have a good turnout, and they get cut.  Those kids could have gotten so much out of athletics. At a bigger school, that is the challenge, knowing there are a lot of kids in the stands that would give anything to be on the court or on the field. Also, a lot of decisions get made not for the kids’ benefit, but for revenue-generating reasons. It’s reality, but the state basketball tournament is a good example. We had something very special, one of the last states to have a 16-team, double-elimination tourney, but because of the financial reality… that’s a good example where the kids lose the experience. I wish the people making decisions for children would remember that at the end of the day.

John Appelgate, Redmond High School: The ($275) participation fee, and perspective. High school athletics are an important piece of the educational process, and I’m seeing a slippery slope in society with now high school football games on ESPN. I don’t want it to lose the purity, for high school football to become a commercial venue for corporate America.  I just hope we can keep it in perspective, that athletics are a piece of the high school experience. There’s too much specialization. I want kids to be kids, and I think that plays a role, and often times athletes think ‘if ‘I want to be a college football, baseball or basketball player, I better start in ninth grade and that’s all I’m going to do.’ Too many kids miss out on other great things about it.

Chad Pohlman, The Bear Creek School: I’ve seen a lot of things change with high school athletics. I’m continuing to see this push towards… sometimes for kids and families it’s just not good enough to play a high school varsity sport. Too early on, it becomes too much about going to college, playing professionally. When you’re getting private lessons at age six. It’s just the culture we live in, and thankfully we don’t stress that or push that here at Bear Creek. It’s becoming more and more prevalent to push our kids at an early age. Even at the high school level at times, as parents and adults, we forget it’s okay to just let the kids love the sport. The toughest challenge moving forward is specialization. The commitment it takes to be really good at any one sport — we’re in a time now that if you want to be the best, you have to commit yourself year-round to that craft. If you don’t, you’re going to be left behind. I think we’re at a point where we have to change that, or make sure we understand and tell our kids, ‘it’s okay to not be the best.’ Just love your sport and play it because you love it.