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Isn't It Time We Did
Something? By Jerry Norton |
| An argument between two fathers at a youth hockey game in New England recently costs one of the men his life. An irate fan shoots a referee at a kids soccer match in Florida. In California, a coach goes into the stands armed with an aluminum bat to silence a hostile crowd in a baseball game between eight year-old players. A youth football coach gives young players diuretics to insure they make weight. In Cleveland, a girl's 8-14 soccer program instituted "Silent Sunday" requiring parents and coaches to keep quiet or be ejected. Parents in Florida are banned from attending their children's athletic events until they have completed a behavior modification class. These are just a few of the many examples of problems in kids' sports today. | |
| Stories like these in which adults react in inappropriate, senseless, even violent ways at youth sporting events are becoming more and more commonplace. Certainly, these are the really high profile events, but unfortunately there are countless less dramatic tales that don't make the headlines; stories about abusive youth coaches physically and verbally abusing youngsters or demanding parents pressuring kids to perform well in athletic competition and punishing them if they do not. Youth sports today are becoming more about winning than playing, more about adult egos than kids' enjoyment and participation. | |
| How did this happen? For one thing, intense media/TV coverage of high profile athletes with multi-million dollar salaries in high revenue sports has helped to poison the drinking water of youth sports programs throughout this country. Youth coaches emulate their professional or college counterparts. Unrealistic but fantasizing parents see their 8, 9 or 10 year-old child as the next Michael Jordan, Wanye Gretsky, Mark McGwire or Tiger Woods and push hard to make the dream come true. | |
| For many kids between 8 and 12 years of age all-star games and trophies, Little League World Series Championships and Youth Super Bowl titles have taken the place of fun, participation and development. Studies have shown that more than 70 percent of children below age 13 drop out of youth sports because there is an over emphasis on winning, because coaches are abusive or because kids don't get a chance to play. According to Jack Hutslar, Director of the North American Youth Sports Institute, too many youth sports coaches have adopted the philosophy "Play the best and bench the rest." | |
| The truth is that of the 45 million children who play sports, most do not go on to play in high school or college. The chance that your child will play a sport as a professional is about the same as your chance of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. Given those odds, doesn't it make sense to give youth sports back to the kids... I mean all the kids, not just the talented few. Participation and fun for all should be the name of the game, whatever the game, when it comes to kids' sports. | |
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