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I would caution against too much adulation of the US school sport system (Education, 11 September). I had three sons involved in high-school basketball for several years and have attended many a Friday-night match. The level of involvement for these kids and their families is so consuming it leaves little time for anything else, and the vast majority will never make it to the big time. The real problem is that sport in the US is driven by obscene amounts of money paid ultimately by advertising. Kids as young as four are being groomed to feed this machine with the tantalising hope of scholarships to university, where the big money starts. Our two largest Texas universities have football stadiums that seat around 75,000 and are always sold out. This is the breeding ground for the future stars in a greed-ridden, exploitative industry that sucks millions in on the hope of the "fields of dreams". But the closest most come to the dream is watching on TV as fodder for the hours of repetitive adverts that support the corporations these sports are really all about.
David Clarke
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
