The beginning of most sports seasons entails conditioning, exhausting practices, and submitting paperwork — lots and lots of paperwork. All athletic paperwork (with the exception of the User Fee) must be handed in before athletes can attend their first practices. This paperwork includes updated physicals, concussion forms, user fees, and permission slips. While physicals and concussion forms and user fees all need to be submitted in paper, the submission of a permission slip for every season is overkill. To ease the anxiety of the Athletic Director William Tompkins, student athletes, and parents, this process of signing up for a sport (which is done through the permission slip) should go online.
Currently, the permission slips (a tri-colored form that is white, pink, and yellow) are required for every season, even though most of the information on the permission slips does not change from season to season. Most coaches send out emails as reminders to athletes who need to submit permission slips. Most athletes, however, end up handing their paperwork in on the last day it is due.
Throughout the entire year, students submit an estimated 5,400 sheets of paper to Athletic Director William Tompkins. He does not have a secretary, and he deals with every single permission slip. He checks off every athlete and emails coaches to notify them who can participate and who cannot participate due to their failure of submitting permission slips.
Moving forward into the paperless age, athletic paperwork should be submitted online to make the process more convenient for everyone involved. The hassle of handing in all the paperwork provides an added stress to the coaches and Athletic Director even before sports seasons begin. However, if all paperwork could be completed and submitted online, athletes and their parents would get all of it done in a more efficient manner. The process would be much easier for coaches as well if permission slips were completed online. If parents had the option to submit the paperwork online, then paperwork would be completed in a timely manner.
Additionally, student athletes should only be required to submit paperwork once a year because most information on the permission slips does not change from season to season. Of course, this idea could pose some problems for students who are injured or become sick during their season, because a major part of the permission slip is about medical history and any concussions a student may have received; however, this can be solved by reminding athletes to update their paperwork online before each season if any health issues have arisen.
Almost everything in the world has entered the digital age and there is no reason why the athletic paperwork system cannot do the same. Students should complete permission slips online and only submit one permission slip per year, or they should at least be able to update the permission slip which has been previously saved. No matter what, the system in place now is outdated — and for the convenience of everyone involved, the school should modernize this process.
