Amitai Etzioni teaches at George Washington University and is the author of The Spirit of Community.

While millions of Americans just finished cheering Olympic athletes from the depths of their recliners and couches, our schools opened this year with twice as many children overweight as 30 years ago -- and rushed to cancel physical-education requirements.

Despite medical reports that less activity leads to more obesity, only Illinois still requires phys ed from kindergarten through the end of high school, and only Alabama and Washington from kindergarten to eighth grade. Between 1991 and 1995, high schoolers' daily enrollment in phys ed dropped from 42% to 25%. Many schools are even carving gyms into classrooms as they respond to pressures from parents to excel in academics and prepare kids for college.

In the meantime, Congress has ignored the Clinton administration's suggestions that schools be provided $25 billion worth of modernization bonds and $6.5 billion in grants and loans for emergency repairs. Neither major-party candidate has made school construction or renovation an issue so far, presumably because they think it is just fine to use the gyms and playgrounds for something other than phys ed.

Developing more than muscle

First, a word about PE for those parents, educators, and school board members who cannot see any future but a college mortarboard and gown: PE is good for college.

As someone who has been teaching college for more than 40 years -- at Columbia, Harvard, Berkeley and George Washington University -- let me tell you that one of the most important requirements for success in college, and in life, is self-discipline. Many of my incoming students lack not merely a command of English and math but also the ability to stick to a task, to concentrate and to play by the rules.

Indeed, one major reason students often are poorly prepared for college is that they could not sit still long enough in high school to listen to the teacher or do their homework. Phys ed would have helped.

A study of fourth-graders showed that those who participated in even light physical activity -- 15 minutes of stretching and aerobic walking -- before a test of concentration had better scores than those students who sat quietly before the test. A student does not achieve academic success merely by having a high IQ and getting pumped full of knowledge; he first must be able to learn.

And in sports, people can acquire stamina, even when tested to their limits, and keep their eyes on the goal. Better yet, sports -- we have known since the ancient Greeks, since the first Olympics -- develop character. Here people may learn to deal with defeat, to play fair, to abide by rules, to deal with authority.

Coaches often have a closer relationship with their charges and are more able to reach them than other teachers. In short, properly constructed phys ed classes and sports in schools can deliver a double whammy: They can make kids into better students and better people.

The good outweighs the bad

I keep qualifying my arguments by referring to what phys ed classes are "supposed to" and "may" do because I am painfully aware that both may be corrupted. Young people who work with me tell me of schools they attended where phys ed was a Mickey Mouse requirement that demanded no challenges.

Sports also can be turned into vicious competitions that teach youngsters that winning is not just an important thing but the only thing. Indeed, sports can be perverted to the point where the coaches teach young people to violate the rules when the referee is not looking and to cheat when they think they windeedill not get caught. Sports can become all consuming, too, thus undermining academic studies.

But the fact that sports, like all other good things, can be corrupted should not stop us from using phys ed as a teaching tool. I have heard unprepared social-studies teachers spout politically correct commentaries gleaned from the TV news the night before. I have heard English instructors teach Romeo and Juliet as if it was nothing but a Harlequin novelette.

Indeed, if we canceled every course of instruction just because it needed improvements, there would be precious little to teach in many schools. Phys ed and sports, like the rest of the curriculum, need to be fixed, not ditched.

Not just an afterthought

"Like the rest of the curriculum" is not a slip of the pen. To highlight that phys ed is to be taken seriously, it should be moved from the marginal category of extracurricular activity into the core curriculum.

Phys ed teachers should be accorded the same status as all others, and their classes should not be cut before, say, history classes. And as they do with other important subjects, educators should make concentrated efforts to mold phys ed into what it is supposed to be: a time where kids acquire the taste and skills for exercise, let off steam without insulting anyone and, above all, develop self-discipline.

That would do wonders for their characterand academics, sparing us from having to agree as to which is more important. Students would even enjoy watching the Olympics more.