The runaway train of youth sports and a response
Overbearing parents, lure of money taking fun out of athletics
I found myself agreeing with James Forni last week, even though I didn’t want to agree, even though I found myself a bit embarrassed after I did.
“I tell the kids, sure, you can play three sports,” said Forni, Casa Grande’s athletic director and basketball coach, “but you better be Matt Nadolski.”
Nadolski is Casa’s three-sport star, all-league for the last two years in football, basketball and baseball. Unquestionably, Nadolski is a unique talent. But that’s not what bothered me.
Isn’t it a shame that an athlete has to be that good to play three sports?
Why can’t a kid — and I emphasize KID here — be all thumbs with two left feet and still be allowed to play as many sports as he wants?
Why should a kid who shows any athletic promise be forced to get on the fast track and chose one sport by 15 (high school freshman or sophomore) or, worse yet, around 12 or 13?
“We put enough pressure on our kids already,” said Dennis Bruno, Cardinal Newman’s defensive coordinator in football. “Grades. College. Jobs. Living a clean life. Being responsible. Now we want to turn them into great high school athletes? We are creating nervous wrecks.”
We have entered the age of specialization in youth sports. We are on a runaway locomotive, and while people may scream as I am now for it to stop, how many people are really listening?
That Tiger Woods video, playing golf at the age of 2, that started it all. Tiger became the best golfer in history and so, the grown-ups noted with wonder, a kid could never begin playing too early. Swinging a golf club at 2 obviously didn’t hurt him, we said, conveniently ignoring Tiger’s talent.
Money, of course, turned reason on its ear. The minimum rookie salary right now in the NBA is $442,114, in MLB it’s $400,000 and in the NFL it’s $340,000. Depending on the sport, a kid could be 19 and making that kind of scratch without ever having gone to college or, even if he was forced to attend, he could leave after a year or two. Convenience stores have been robbed for $20. Imagine if there was $442,114 in the till. Money creates very foolish and dangerous behavior.
The passage of Title IX in 1972, long overdue and necessary, basically doubled the opportunities and pressures. Girls now can be driven just as hard as boys. The age of specialization is a game the whole family can play.
The Tiger video, the money and Title IX — either taken separately or tied together with a nice little bow — wouldn’t have gained the required steam to overwhelm amateur athletics if it wasn’t for one very specific and dedicated entity.
“Parents are better at helping out these days,” said Tom Fitchie, boys’ basketball coach at Montgomery.
When Fitchie said that, I laughed out loud and congratulated him on his choice of words. I envied him, in fact, for his adroitly phrased statement. In the 23 months that I have been involved in youth sports in the Empire, no coach, administrator or casual observer ever was so kind to the obsessed Type A parent.
Words not fit for this newspaper have tagged with mud those parents who can only see dollar signs in the eyes of their child and an athletic career they never had.
“I think this whole thing changed when parents became much more organized and involved in their children’s activities,” Bruno said.
In those 23 months I have heard high school administrators speak of the razor’s edge they walk. On one side is the athlete who wants to please his parents, his coach, his peers. On the other side is the parent who doesn’t know how to contain himself, or herself. They yell, they coach, they never back off and they know the sport better than the coach.
The parent in all other aspects of life may be well-balanced and generous. But as a result of his zeal to help his kid, what started as an innocent interaction has erupted into a full-blown overbearing hysteria.
High school sports would be fabulous, I have heard time after time, if it wasn’t for the parents. I have almost as much sympathy for those high school administrators as I do for the kid athletes.
“I remember when Paul (Cronin, Newman’s head football coach) took over,” Bruno said. “We looked around, saw how people were practicing year-round and we said to each other, ‘This is not right. This is wrong.’”
Newman football, of course, has year-round training like almost every other high school.
“You have no choice because you want to be competitive,” Bruno said. “I know right now Palma (which Newman beat last year and is on this year’s schedule) is salivating and doing everything it can to get ready to beat us. I know Del Oro (same situation) was embarrassed last year and can’t wait to get to us again. If we are not at the top of our game with those schools, we’ll get killed. If we go 8-3 for a season, we’ll get hammered.”
So the pressure is everywhere in high school athletics — on administrators, coaches, kids, parents, aunts and uncles, and with college and pro personnel just off stage, to keep the heat on.
And try as I could, I kept looking for the word “fun” in that last sentence. I couldn’t find it.
Worse still, I don’t think I’m ever going to find it.
Another view:
"Because something benefits most athletes does not mean it must benefit all athletes"
A response to:
The runaway train of youth sports
Bob,
Your column on Sunday, May 3rd about parents and sports was a little short on perspective. You take the poor attitudes and behavior of a small minority of parents as typical and you take the comments of a few coaches as somehow - wise and correct.
Those comments might be wise and correct, but they should certainly be examined. For example, what is "not right. This is wrong" with a well planned year round football program for players who love to play football.
The reason that schools don’t have sports programs for "kids all thumbs and two left feet" is probably due to the cost. However, these kids have the opportunity to play various youth sports. Unfortunately, in America we have a forty year history in soccer showing that the great majority of casual young players quit by the age of twelve.
I am more aware about what has been happening in soccer and the good news is that more and more young players who love the sport are playing a schedule based on the World model - a sensible 9 to 10 month season with about 40 games and 80 to 120 practices. This in not an experiment, but copied from programs from all over the world. Not only do many more of these dedicated players continue to play, but they improve with each season - and the health benefits are obvious, continuing and enormous.
As a career teacher, now retired, I am delighted to see average young athletes concentrate on one sport they love and play the others, if they wish, in make-up games. There are many sports - long distance running and soccer come easily to mind, in which dedication and hard work can result in an athlete of average size, build and speed - becoming an excellent player. I am old enough to remember when children were admonished not to be "a jack of all trades and a master of none".
How excellent a player will be is the result of many variables - grades, luck, coaching, lack of serious injuries, dedication, maintaining focus, not beginning work at 16 - but the biggest necessity is having a love and passion for the sport.
Because something benefits most athletes does not mean it must benefit all athletes. If a young person is a "nervous wreck" the adult coaches - along with the parents - should feel a responsibility to help! There is always some helpful nervousness present when people are "striving for excellence" - in any area of life, but it should not be so extreme causing the use the word "wreck".
Some parents do expect their children to do too much and they sometimes need the guidance of people they respect. Some parents and their children are unrealistic about their future and they need honest appraisals from people they respect. However, the great majority of parents are sensible and caring and will listen to common sense - especially that based on real events - not personal theory.
Thank you!
Herb Ziemer
