Robservations: Give youth sports back to the young
The national magazine “U.S. News and World Report” isn’t known for devoting cover stories to unimportant issues.
Their June 7 edition featured an article on a topic which is familiar to many of us around Warren County — youth sports. And while some of the examples they displayed seemed extreme, some seemed disappointingly familiar.
In their article, written by Peter Cary and headlined “Fixing Kids’ Sports: Rescuing children’s games from crazed coaches and parents,” the magazine used two credible main sources to describe the growing problem of adults’ fixation on their children’s competitions.
Fred Engh, the founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports, and major league superstar Cal Ripken Jr., both begin the article describing examples of disgraceful behavior that — I’m ashamed to admit — didn’t seem far from the realm of possibility right here in our own youth leagues.
But stopping the borderline abusive actions of certain overly competitive adults is only one of the factors now driving Engh and Ripken, along with several others, to clean up the youth games. They’re also concerned about the burnout rate of America’s young athletes.
It was Engh’s book, “Why Johnny Hates Sports,” that inspired Ripken to join the crusade to “give kids’ sports back to the kids.”
If you don’t think this is a problem in this country, read the following statistics. The numbers don’t lie.
Quoting the “U.S. News” article, “a survey of 3,300 parents published in the January/February issue of “SportingKid” magazine last year found that 84 percent had witnessed “violent parental behavior” toward children, coaches or officials at kids’ sports events; 80 percent said they had been victims of such behavior. A survey in South Florida in 1999 of 500 adults found 82 percent saying parents were too aggressive in youth sports, and 56 percent said they had personally witnessed overly aggressive behavior.”
The end result? Kids grow tired of adults’ demands on them and their time, and they simply do what any kid would do: They quit.
Back to the article, “Not surprisingly, the dropout rate of all children from organized sports is said to be 70 percent.”
Look at our own city leagues, and you’ll see evidence of this. The 7- and 8-year-old boys league boasts 11 teams, while the 9- and 10-year-olds have 14. Move up a level, and you’ll find just six 11- and 12-year-old squads. As they get older, there are even fewer boys playing ball. The 13- and 14-year-old Babe Ruth league, once the cream of the crop, has just five teams, and only a handful of 15- and 16-year-olds sign up to play on their level. Teams often have to pull up younger players just to field a squad at tournament time.
Why are the numbers dwindling? Because kids are burning out, and dropping out. If they’re not just up and quitting, they’re starting even younger, specializing in one sport due to demands of their parents or some coach, and they’re playing that sport year-round thanks to traveling teams, “open gyms” and the like.
Soccer seems to be one sport that goes about it the right way. The American Youth Soccer Organization, which was founded in California and sanctions leagues throughout the nation — including here in Warren County — began under the principles including “the ideas every kid had to play at least have of every game and that teams had to be balanced in talent to ensure fairness. …In 2003, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association reported that 6.1 million kids from ages 6 to 17 played soccer more than 25 days a year.”
It’s not right — period. It’s not right to suck the fun out of something as simple as little league by demanding that a child — a child, mind you — focus on it as if it was their vocation.
So what causes this problem, First and foremost, it’s the unrealistic expectations placed on young athletes by their parents and coaches.
I remember a few years back, hearing a mother brag that her child’s Jaycee basketball coach had confided in her the fact that her son “was the only one on the team with a shot of going pro.” Looking back, I wish I had gone ahead and burst her bubble, then and there.
Going pro? Who can look someone in the face and tell them that about a child less than 10 years old? Let’s crunch some more numbers, thanks to Dan Doyle’s forthcoming book “The Encyclopedia of Sports Parenting.”
“Using date from nationally affiliated basketball leagues, (Doyle’s researchers) estimated that the total number of fourth-grade boys playing organized basketball was about 475,000. At the same time, the team found, only 87,000 teens were playing basketball as seniors in high school. Of the 87,000, they say, 1,560 will win Division I college scholarships, 1,350 will get Division II scholarships, and 1,400 more will play at Division III schools. And of those 4,310, about 30 will make it to the National Basketball Association. An additional 130 will play pro ball in Europe.”
The worst possible effect of adults’ endless pushing of young athletes is the possibility that they may be — literally — hurting their children.
Paul Stricker, a pediatric sports medicine specialist in San Diego, is quoted by “U.S. News” on the increasing number of stress-related injuries to youngsters. Since 1991, he says, “I’ve had at least a 30 to 40 percent increase in overuse injuries like stress fractures and tendinitis. Those are things we just didn’t see much in kids previously.”
Think about that the next time you send little Johnny out to the mound on two days rest because it’s “an important game.”
I know this piece has run more than twice the length of your normal Friday fare, and it’s been void of the smart-aleck comments and jokes some of you hopefully enjoy. I promise, we’ll get back to that next week. But this issue is too important to be ignored, and I believe we’re not so far gone around here that we can’t recover. We all have a chance to make sure what’s happening around the country will not happen here, and our children will be the ones that benefit from it — now, and in the future.
Please, if you’re involved in youth sports as a parent or coach, find a copy of this magazine and read it. If you can’t find one, call me. I’ll do you the favor a friend of mine did, and make you a copy of the copy he made me.
If everyone can understand the possible negative implications of what they do on the court, on the field, from the bleachers or from the sidelines, maybe we can all begin to focus once again on the positives. Maybe we can bring the fun back to what were designed as fun activities — as distractions for our kids.
And maybe, we can save ourselves, and our children, before we all kill these youth sports for good.