By Harry Shade
Many of you who read my articles and/or blogs may not know this but I have been a youth sports coach for over 30 years now and I am currently writing a book about coaching youth sports but I wanted to take the time today to address some issues that I feel are ruining youth sports.
As always try and remember these are my opinions on this issue and I know that not all of you will agree with everything I have to say, so I just ask that once again you read this with an open mind and the willingness to learn and grow. I will say that my decades of experience certainly have given me some insight into this topic.
Not too long ago I forwarded an article to parents in my school district concerning kids and sports scholarships. I will say that in the article they reference how too few kids actually receive any financial aid for college, let alone the coveted “full ride” and yet there are too many parents out there looking for the “golden goose” and in turn are sacrificing both financial stability and their kids’ childhood to make them the next Michael Jordan.
Unrealistic expectations and living vicariously through their children are two things that parents have or are doing to ruin youth sports. I would be a very wealthy man if I had a dollar for every time I have heard a parent exclaim how fantastic their child is at whatever particular sport and come to find that the child is all of between the ages of five and ten years old.
There are way too many parents that have unrealistic expectations for their child’s sports career that they place an undue amount of pressure on the young athlete at a very early age. This can lead to anxiety, burnout, and in a lot of cases severe injuries that are showing up at younger and younger ages due to overuse and overexertion. Parents try to rationalize this by saying that sports builds character, trains these athletes to be leaders, instills discipline and teaches them dedication and commitment.
While I have to agree that sports can do those things, it is also dependent upon the expectations of the coaches and parents, whether or not those lessons will truly ever be learned. I am finding more and more that young athletes are more likely to learn that winning is everything, that one should win at all costs and that humiliating an opponent is acceptable as long as it is not your child and/or team that is on the receiving end of the humiliation. Those types of things lead to learning also but the athletes are learning bad habits like poor sportsmanship, disrespect for officials, coaches and opponents and selfishness, which are the opposite things that sports should be teaching.
Like anything else, I believe it is the minority of parents and coaches that are doing this but the minority seems to be growing more and more every year. As a parent myself, I have always wanted the best for my daughter when it came to sports but at an early age I let her decide what sports she wanted to try and which ones she wanted to stick with. I was a three sport athlete during my school age years but I always told her that she did not even have to play sports just because I did. I wanted her to make her own path. Coincidentally, she ended up playing basketball and running track, two sports that I competed in and I even coached her in basketball for several years. I helped my daughter set goals for her and I encouraged her to practice but I treated her just like any other athlete I ever coached. Most of all I was realistic about her athletic ability and knew that academics were the way to college scholarship money not athletics. Don’t get me wrong, she was good athlete but I knew that she was not, even at her best, college athlete material. I was at every game or meet I could make it to and I cheered for her and her teams but I never bad mouthed the coaches and/or officials and I allowed them to do their jobs and just enjoyed watching my daughter compete.
Now, I could not end this without saying something about coaching. The same things apply to coaching as parenting when it comes to coaching young athletes. You have to remember that you are a teacher first and foremost and what you say and do will be impressed upon that young athlete for a lifetime. So, positive reinforcement, encouragement, showing good sportsmanship, being fair and having fun are the most important things you as a coach can do for your young athletes.
I know that our society places a huge emphasis on winning but at what cost? As a kid, I could go play my little league baseball game and then go swim or fish with my friends. I was not drug from tournament to tournament every weekend without anytime to just be a kid. I was really saddened to see the Little League World Series being broadcast on ESPN because it is stealing our children’s youth. We need to remember that youth sports is about having fun and playing a game. Did you get that last word? Game! Let’s not forget that playing games is supposed to be fun!
About the Author, Harry Shade: I am an author, inspirational speaker, trainer and coach. I live in Columbus, OH with my wife, daughter, one dog and two cats.