73 percent felt that their school places the right amount of emphasis on sports. 66 percent appreciate their parents encouraging attitudes more than any other attitude parents display toward participation. 95 percent believe that students learn valuable lessons in extracurricular activities that they cannot learn in a regular class routine. 76 percent said they believe the demand on students time by activities is not excessive. They rarely drop out of school, and they have a better chance to get through college than students generally.
Athletes take average and above average courses.
Parents of athletes are more involved with their educational process than parents of non-athletes. Ninety-two percent of students in sports do not use drugs. About 95 percent of students who drop out of high school were not involved in extracurricular activities, National Federation of State High School Associations found. Most schools spend only one to three percent of their overall education budgets for activity programs. Striving to involve as many students as possible, Minnesota schools stretch those dollars to provide athletic and fine arts activities for more than 200,000 students statewide.