Harford County middle school students to join sports teams, compete
BALTIMORE -- Harford County is starting middle school sports this year.
Boys and girls basketball teams will start practicing next month and additional sports teams will begin to play later.
The effort starts in-house with people like Dwayne Howell, a school safety liaison at Magnolia Middle School in Joppatowne.
This winter, Howell will be one of the county's new basketball coaches.
"Middle school is a tough time for kids," he said. "To have something extra they can look forward to, any way we can, is a plus."
Middle school athletics in Harford County will be run just like high school sports teams. These are not intramural or clubs.
Students will have to try out, pass all of their classes, and travel to other schools to compete.
"It gives us a chance to experience sports before we get to high school and put ourselves out there," one middle school student said.
Some of the kids are simply looking forward to playing with their friends.
""We know them and they're our friends," a middle school student said. "We're always with them in school. To be on a bus with them and playing other middle schoolers, I think that will be really good for us."
The hope is that lessons learned through sports will translate to life outside of sports.
"Time management, sportsmanship, responsibility, commitment, how to handle adversity, all of those things we are going to be emphasizing in our instruction on the court," Harford County Public Schools Athletics Supervisor Debbie Basler said.
And those lessons will likely lead to continued success in the classroom, she said.
"Education-based athletics has been so successful at the high school level, why not middle school," Basler said. "It's a student-centered approach to educating our kids while they participate in sports. It's just a great opportunity."
