Dampier and Effort

But wait: if Dempier wasn't 7 feet, we would cut him. At 6 foot, he would never have gotten any attention at all. We wouldn't send him to footwork camp. We wouldn't be talking about the quality of coach or a supportive environment. Sports picks the few and narrows the few down every year. Size does matter.

With students, we wish we could support ALL students. Environment matters. Support matters. Teachers/Coaches matter. But extend the sports metaphor and imagine schools where only the brightest continue until there are a few hundred academic, professional students. Could we adjust our budgets and effort and environments if we had cuts? Take the metaphor of basketball at my junior high. In basketball, most students don't even bother to try out. Of 450 junior high girls, 60 turned out for basketball. The coaches kept 30 girls. 30/450 students. What if we kept the top 30 academic students? Same number of teachers, budget, technology etc... Boy that would be one smart academic school. We could have our own Pete Newell footwork clinic for the potentially giften and have five teachers working with five students to take care of their crossovers.

But we want to help all 450...all 900 students. I do.