I believe I learned more on my high school sports team than all my time in classes, and I’m fine with public schools fielding teams.
But when you get parents (and uncles) frothing at the mouth over playing time, things have got way out of whack. Wouldn’t bother me at all if kids’ sports teams were organized and run separate from the public schools.
Communities are great things, and they are stronger when they come together to provide positive things—even if they are outside of the public school system.
And when you’re a kid, your one certain job is to go to school—I don’t care if you have to find a club sport on your own afterwards.
I think the US is the only country where so much emphasis is put on high school sports.
In most countries, they have Athletic Clubs for youngsters to play. Look at English soccer, the pro teams actually represent Athletic Clubs, which field teams in different sports, they have their own youth teams to develop young players, generally if you want to play sports, you go through the local Athletic Club....perhaps decoupling athletics from education would be the way to go.