By Chase Stevens ’12
THE ROUNDUP

One part of the AIMS test this year was a passage where a speech and debate student wrote a letter to the school newspaper saying that it should run more stories about academic clubs, rather than sports.

Most people just read the passage, answered the questions and moved on.

However, the message behind the reading was a very strong one and one that should be heavily considered.

First off, I would like to make it clear that I am not saying that we should get rid of sports at Brophy, or that this newspaper should stop writing about it. On the contrary, sports are usually a benefit to the Brophy community.

Sports games provide an opportunity to socialize with one another, and many alumni donate money to the school for their sports teams.

However, just because we celebrate sports so much doesn’t mean that we should exclude other students at Brophy and their talents. Like myself, many students find that their talents lie in other endeavors which do not get noticed.

For example, the Brophy speech and debate team has received many state and national awards, while other academic clubs achieve similar levels of success, yet most of it goes unnoticed.

While it is true that Brophy does offer plays and the Fine Arts Extravaganza, the number of people who attend these once-a-semester events pales in comparison to the crowd at each weekly football game.

A Speech and Debate tournament might not be as hard-hitting and exciting as a football game, but every bit of competition, rivalry and effort goes into these events too.

Another reason why academics and artistic pursuits should be more highly valued at Brophy is that there is a higher chance of a student at Brophy being able to make a career as an artist than as a professional football player.

Let’s face it, there are only 32 teams in the NFL, meaning that jobs are very limited. Most kids at Brophy will end up getting a job that focuses more on thinking than on physical ability.

While many people don’t take the AIMS seriously, hopefully they can still see the reasons why we should be more focused on our academic pursuits over our athletic ones.