“What are you blind!” See youth sports for what they are…
Posted by Keith Bossey

As some of you know, I coach youth soccer. A consequence of coaching all three of my kids, is that sometimes, I miss games. For instance, this year, my two boys play both soccer and lacrosse, and all the games are on Sunday. This means that while I’m coaching soccer in one town, my wife is shepparding the boys to their lacrosse games. Another consequence of coaching is that I don’t have the traditional parent experience. In most leagues, the kids are on one sideline and the parents are on the other.

This weekend, there were no soccer games scheduled in honor of Mother’s Day, but the boys still had lacrosse games (an issue that irks my wife to no end). That meant that I could play the parent this weekend, and I actually got a chance to see my oldest son play for the first time this year. A couple of comments:

First, the bragging. The boys won, beating the first place (previously undefeated) team, and now taking their share of first place. While my son is clearly not a star, I’m happy to say that he assisted on the first goal in a 5-3 win. Now, the real issue. We got to the game early, and the older kids (sixth grade) were finishing up their game. I mistakenly sat on the opposing sides bleachers, and was surrounded by opposing parents. I was only there for maybe 10 minutes of the end of the game, but I sat through a constant verbal barrage of the officials, by a small group of parents. Comments of “its a good thing I don’t have money on this game” and “how much did blue (our team) pay you for today”, were the lightest of them. At one point, a parent directed his comment to our kids, saying something to the effect of you got lucky today kids, the refs are on your side.

Now none of this is that earth shattering in and of itself, BUT, the fifth grade kids were all sitting on this sideline, waiting to play next. What a great example of sportsmanship! And we wonder why kids feel they are right when they don’t respect the referees.

I’ve been coaching for about 7 years now and over that time, I’ve changed my perspective on the whole youth sports idea. In the beginning, I was very competitive and was much more “vocal” with the refs. What I’ve come to conclude though is that for most of the kids playing out there (pre high school) this will be their sports experience. Few will play on varsity teams, fewer in college, very very few will get a scholarship and a miniscule amount will play professionally. If that’s the case, shouldn’t we concentrate on making this very limited experience a great one? I’m not going to say that it’s not about winning, because even my five year olds can count goals and know if they won or lost. The realization is, that they forget about it pretty quickly. Its the parents that remember records and keep track of goals, assists and rbi’s (even I still do it, see above).

I think that if we all just relaxed a little bit, recognized this couple of hours a week that kids are involved in sports are just one part of their life, we’d all be a little better off. Face it, with very few exceptions, your child will not benefit from their sports involvement in any way monetarily, with maybe few exceptions. It may make them a better student and eventually help in their career by showing them how to be determined, how to successfully work on a team, and for some, it will let their natural leadership skills arise. I think if handled properly, it can give every kid a great boost of confidence as well. Other than that, its a few hours, out in a field, running around, and having fun.