EDITORIAL: It starts with kids

In neighboring Delaware County the program is called the Inner City Educational or ICE League. It consisted of four seventh-grade and four eighth-grade teams representing youth-oriented Muncie organizations, such as that community’s Boys and Girls Club and YMCA.

The teams played where the high school team plays and the players had their playing time tied to how well they performed academically. Organizers required a minimum of a 2.0 grade point average to play at all. Anyone with a 2.5 or better GPA played all four quarters, students in the 2.3 to 2.49 range played two quarters and those in the 2.0 to 2.29 range played just one quarter.

The program extended the game to the classroom and made it part of the equation for winning. To that extent, sports really does become a metaphor for real life.

Of course, basketball is just one example. Academic success could be tied to any competitive sport or activity loved by kids. A carrot that is more effective than all the sticks in the world.

Such programs, like Project Leadership’s mentoring program, are not hypothetical in nature. They involve people getting involved with each other. In the end, that will be the best solution to our social problems. Over recent decades we have spent too much time disconnecting from one another, not just in Marion and Grant County but everywhere. We need to come back together as a community and provide values and priorities for our children. This program would aid in that. We wish Project Leadership luck in getting such a program going in Grant County. Our future needs such practical ideas.