>Athletics at school are a good thing. Over index in one area is utter stupidity.

I completely agree - there's a huge problem when athletics become the focus of a school district, and this should absolutely be addressed. I mostly just wanted to point out in my previous post that this isn't an unavoidable end point for athletics - I was fortunate in that I attended a high school that valued both academics and athletics, and feel both have enriched my life and the idea of dropping athletics for pure academics feels very short-sighted.