As many of you know, Timpview High School’s football team just won the state championship. As all of you know, this is wonderful news. It may feel like this is the most important thing in Timpview history! But it’s not. Timpview Theatre just put on a fantastic rendition of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The marching band has won several competitions in just the last couple of months. Jane Hedengren of our girls’ cross country team is the Gatorade athlete of the year. Sterling scholars were just announced. Girls’ cross country just won state. All of these accomplishments and many more were just briefly announced at last Thursday’s pep assembly to get the student body excited for the football state championship. 

 In case you still don’t see the problem I am trying to highlight, allow me to make it very clear. Our football team receives more recognition than any other sport, performing art, extracurricular activity, or academic achievement happening at this school. While our football team is great, the amount of attention they receive is strange and, in my opinion, alarming. The reason for my concern is very simple; Timpview is a high school, not a football team. Timpview High School’s primary purpose is to educate, to teach 9th to 12th graders how to learn, grow, and succeed after high school. Timpview High School’s purpose is not to teach students cheers they can chant at football games, but last Thursday an hour was taken out of the school day for an assembly to do just that. 

I am not suggesting that extracurricular activities and school sports are not important and shouldn’t be celebrated. I am simply suggesting that less time, energy, and money should be put into school sports (specifically football) and more of these resources and feelings should be channeled into the reason schools exist; our education.

The federal school system we have in this country, while it is flawed, was established to create schools in which anybody of any background could be educated. Why is it that these schools have become places of worship for football? Why is it that people care so deeply about how well one team does, at one sport, rather than the quality of education provided at these schools? Schools are meant to educate, and while school sports certainly have their benefits, it is worrying that they seem to matter more than our learning. 

Perhaps my opinion is a biased and inexperienced one because I spent much of my childhood outside of the U.S. and perhaps don’t understand the importance of “school spirit” as well as most Americans do. But I think it is fair to say that the quality of the education we receive in high school will have a much greater impact on the rest of our lives than our ability to sing the school fight song. 

With this story, it is not my intention to turn the student body against high school football or to accuse Timpview of insufficiently educating us. I only hope to bring awareness to the fact that high school football is more recognized, funded, and supported than any other high school sport or activity, including our real education. I encourage students and faculty to place more emphasis on the other amazing things students accomplish at Timpview and to focus more on learning than football. It is my wish that the learning we do at school can be our focus, not the games our football team plays.