Some Random Thoughts on Youth Sports

I don’t have a formal blog this week as I’ve been doing some research and reading on some subjects for future posts dealing with different youth sports models around the world; however, I do have some random thoughts that I would like to share with you. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been posting different inspirational sayings/advice from other youth sports sites that have been popping up on my Facebook feed. These are generally inspirational sayings or advice that I feel are worth sharing with my Facebook friend’s, some who still have children participating in the youth sports arena. Additionally, I feel that the saying/advice that I share is "life" advice and can serve the young athlete and as he/she grows older and transitions into “real life“.

After seeing the saying/advice I usually read some of the comment’s (not that many but some) left by people, usually the parents. There are always a good number of positive comments relating to the post; however, there are always a number of comments that take the saying/advice and turn it against the coach. In other words, “blaming” the coach for their child’s shortcomings. Now, I usually don’t put much stock in any of the comments, positive or negative, because I usually just take them from where they come and please note that I am not going to sit here and say that every coach is perfect and does everything right (whatever your definition of right is) because those parents may have a legitimate complaint with whoever their child’s coach is and what is happening to their child and it is not my place to judge.

As an example of a playing time post I would like to share a story from my past. Throughout my playing career, too many years ago to remember… LOL, I had some good coaches and bad coaches but the difference was when I complained to my parents about playing time, which was very rare, because we just didn’t do that, the first thing my dad asked me was “did you do everything you could to earn playing time”? And then he told me that the conversation we were having should be had with my coach as he was the one who determined playing time and not my parents. That probably wasn’t the answer I was looking for, even though I knew that neither of my parents were going to “demand” that my coach gave me more playing time and honestly, throughout the years those conversations helped me in my personal and professional life as they made me realize that life wasn’t fair and sometimes things just did not go my way and I had to work through the problems I was facing at the time.

What some of these posts deal with a child doing everything required of them and still being overlooked by the coach for various reasons. I am sure that we have all had times when we felt that your child was being overlooked or working harder than the coach’s son’s friend, yet the coach’s son’s friend started every game and got more playing time while your child sat the bench and only got the required half a game playing time. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately and in my opinion, it goes back to my belief that we have lost our way when it comes to youth sports. Youth sports have become a “win at all costs” proposition while the “teaching” part being removed from the equation. Youth sports has become a $15 billion industry with a little oversight by anyone and coaches telling parents that if their child is not specializing in a sport at an early age they will be left behind. My question is left behind from what? The less than 1% of the scholarship money that’s available to them? The even smaller chances of going pro? And who is benefiting from all of these “elite” and “travel” teams and specialized training? And finally, are our children being taught how the skills that they are learning on the field of play now can, and most likely, will be used in later life long after they have hung up their athletic equipment?

These are the questions that I’m going to continue to ask and explore as I look at ways we can improve the youth sporting experience for our youth and looking for different models that might be better for our youth. I hope you will continue to join me in this exploration.