No, high schools should not have competitive sports teams. And especially not in under-resourced inner city high schools where academic programs are often sacrificed to finance sport teams. And not in their current form. Like in colleges and universities, the once “extracurricular activity” of an after-school sport (especially football) has gotten out of control. 

High school teams going to preseason sport camps (often out of state); coaches that have no academic connection to the school; the building of huge, expensive stadiums; the opening of the sport season before school even starts: these are all indicators that the primary mission of high school has been supplanted and replaced — especially for those young men playing football and basketball — by sports. Even the student bodies in many high schools have developed cultures that glorify sports at the expense of the scholar, as in the Jocks vs. Puke mentality that sports columnist Robert Lipsyte has written about. 

And, for those who defend this system by invoking it as a route to a college scholarship, the social science research has shown (over and over) that the chances are slim to none, especially for young women, who are often dismayed to find that even when they are talented enough to win a scholarship, it is usually afraction of what they need. Even in football and basketball, only 2 to 5 percent of young men playing on their high school team will earn a college scholarship. 

Let's return high school sports to the simple after-school activity it once was, like the drama club or the science club. Give young men and women an opportunity to develop holistically, in moderation, and with realistic expectations for their college and professional lives.