Sports are essential to American culture and the Academy, where cheerleaders tell students to “buy in” by committing to team culture and by showing support at games. However, the prevalence of sports in the US means that American students don’t often consider the different ways other cultures from around the world view sports.
Sports in America serve as a unifier across social and economic groups in a quintessentially diverse nation. Athletic competition’s place in American society is further strengthened by sports’ long history in American higher educational institutions.
The popularity of sports in America is boosted by the intense commercialization of professional sports leagues like Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League in the late nineteenth and earliest twentieth centuries.
However, international students at Deerfield provide a unique perspective on how American athletics are similar and different from the nature of athletic competition in their home countries.
“There are some universities that prioritize sports and might offer scholarships, but generally, when you’re applying to colleges, you’re not assessed on how good you are at sports,” explained Science Teacher David Hallwood, who was raised in the UK. “In fact, some colleges might think, ‘You’re too interested in sports,’ and not accept you because of it… For soccer, for example, there’s no connection between college and playing professionally. You’re recruited by a club before you leave high school.”
Ukrainian student Nikol Kmita ’25 echoed Dr. Hallwood’s comment about how, outside the US, sports are not as important when it comes to college admissions. She said, “[In Ukraine,] Universities only rely on final exam scores [to make admission decisions]. Sports have no relationship to success unless you play really competitively.”
This disconnect isn’t just in the college admissions process. In general, there is a lack of connection between high school and college sports culture, with sports based around local and national clubs and sports academies similar to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Silvie Sobotka ’26 highlighted how most high school students in Germany do not focus on their athletics. She said serious athletes have the “option to attend a ski academy or a boarding school specific for sports. There, you get intense training, and school becomes less important because you’re trying to make it to the Olympics.”
Sobotka further explained that, in Germany, athletic extracurriculars are focused around physical fitness, rather than pure competition. Sobotka said, “[In Germany, ] We usually have Physical Education classes, which everyone is required to take, but we don’t have teams associated with [high schools/colleges].”
Johan Wilkerson ’27 observed a similar pattern in Sweden, where hockey players compete in local clubs up until high school, at which point athletes who want to play professionally either join clubs in the J18 and J20 hockey leagues or attend a hockey gymnasium (upper secondary school in Sweden, grades 10-12), where classes are tailored to the athletes’ hockey schedule.
Rania Limam ’27 said, “Young Moroccans who aspire to become professional athletes often don’t have a structured framework or government support to make achieving their goals easier.” She also mentioned how class divides and monetary commitment determine who can pursue certain sports. She said, “Their [young athletes’] parents often do everything they can to pay for private coaching, training sessions, and club memberships.”
Mac Wang ’25 and Leo Ma ’25 both mentioned how athletes in China play sports to become professional athletes, and how athletic achievement is often seen as a viable alternative to academic success. “There ’s not a lot of student-athletes back home— they’re mainly just students or athletes,” Ma said. “It’s different [in the US] because it’s more of a culture rather than a profession.”
“From my experience and from what I’ve seen, it’s extremely difficult to balance being a good student and a good athlete [in China],” Wang affirmed.
Sobotka shared that the fervor of German sports crowds in comparison to their American counterparts. “[German fans] are much more vocal!” Sobotka said. “If you look up German soccer fans on YouTube… you’ll see they make the stadium shake. You’d be scared to stand there! Going to a soccer game in Germany is probably the most fun, especially for smaller, less well-known teams. Their fan bases are like cults—they love it.”
Limam emphasized the higher importance of sports in Moroccan society and culture. She said that during the 2022 Soccer World Cup, “[her] school gave [the students] free afternoons to watch matches where the Moroccan soccer team competed… [A person] could hear screams in the streets whenever the team scored a goal, and cafes would be completely full two hours before the match.”
On the other hand, Wang believes that Chinese sports culture is weaker compared to that of the US. “In my opinion, there’s no real sports culture in China. Sports are seen as something you do for fun—you can’t really pursue it as a main focus in life unless you’re a professional athlete,” he shared. “In the US, it feels like everyone plays sports. As a freshman, I was shocked to see senior rowers who were just brick walls—huge, strong athletes.”
When it comes to differences in coaching and training styles, Wilkerson mentioned how technical skating skills are prioritized by Swedish coaching philosophy in early hockey development as opposed to actual gameplay. “In Sweden, hockey players’ primary focus isn’t on game performance—it’s on developing skating first,” Wilkerson said, “Until I was about ten, I’d never played a full-ice game.
Dr. Hallwood explains that coaching philosophy in the UK is slightly more removed on game day. “When I coached rugby at my last school, we’d coach the team throughout the week, but on game day, it was up to the players. We might make a couple of substitutions or give advice at halftime, but during the game, the players made the decisions. In the US, there’s much greater interaction and control from coaches during the game,” he explained. Ultimately, international students experience a dichotomy when they play sports in America because of differences in playing styles, team cultures, and coaching techniques.
