INTRODUCTION:
“What happened?”
What if I told you that .
. .?
*balanced excellence, not specialization, is the key to athletic success
and life?
*athletes only get better playing in games, not sitting on
the bench?
*nothing a child does before puberty is a solid indicator of
future athletic success?
*health is the leading indicator of future success for an
athlete? (that includes structured rest)
*playing for fun can help teams win way more than playing a
sport just to win?
*just because you specialize in one sport, doesn’t mean your talent is
special?
Let the
journey through this book, just like your journey through youth sports and
life, reveal to you the extrinsic message that will trigger the internal,
intrinsic change in your own journey through youth sports and life.
Are you
frustrated and tired of paying fees and footing the bill for your child’s
participation in youth sports? Is the time you spend year-round going to
practices and attending games wearing you down? Does your son or daughter find
playing youth sports to be a chore, a job? Does it seem that the farther the
player goes “up the ladder” in competition, the more problems arise and the
less fun the player has? Are the bulk of
your financial contributions to your child’s participation in youth sports
being used to support the development of one or two “star” players (not your
child) on the team? Do you and your
family feel left out, alone? Do you feel the need to look at other options, but
can’t figure out what they are and how to find them?
Are you
thinking of volunteering to coach a team, but are unsure of what you’re getting
into? Are you presently a coach who finds things just aren’t going the way you
thought they would? Are you finding it difficult to get objective advice from
people, worried they may have a hidden agenda?
Whether a
parent or a coach, would you like some pointers and tips that will give a
better feeling about what you’re doing? Are you just plain confused about the
whole “youth sports” thing and would like to know what happened to the “fun”
you experienced when you were young and part of a team?
Families and
players are leaving youth sports en masse because of adverse treatment by
coaches, players, and parents. Fun has been replaced by angst, bewilderment,
and sometimes anger.
Why is all
this happening? What are the short- and long-term consequences of people
feeling this way?
One of my
goals in writing this book is for people to understand how important balance is
in achieving happiness and contentment in youth sports and life. I’m really trying to help calm the angst and
tense atmosphere so prevalent in today’s youth sports world.
***
Youth sports
are supposed to be fun. The number one goal is for the young athletes to enjoy
playing their chosen sport or sports. But, how can they do this given the
current state of things?
There is a
way. It’s called “balanced excellence.”
Balanced excellence is a mindset that allows everyone, including but not
exclusively players, coaches, and parents, to benefit from the desire to excel
in all areas of life in a balanced manner. We should strive for the qualities
of excellence pertaining to and including humility, sportsmanship, and
accountability. There is no ulterior motive or long-term financial goal. It’s
all about fun. Enjoyment and learning life skills are the only real goals of
the experience of playing youth sports. Everything else, winning, getting
better, scholarships, will take care of itself, but only when this essential
base is established.
Children
want to be able to trust that the people and the teams they are with will
include them in play. Trust is a huge part of youth sports and life that has
been somewhat devalued. In life, how does trust, or the lack thereof, affect us
on a daily basis at work, in school, and in relationships? Children should benefit from this trust
placed in coaches, parents, and teammates. Life lessons ought to be positive in
nature. Children want to be happy. So, what happened to playing youth sports
for fun?
Why has a
primary goal of youth sports become a vehicle for Division I athletic
scholarships? What are the consequences of this transformation? Why is the
journey through a child’s playing youth sports now mostly for the reward, the
glory? Athletes, coaches, and parents think that the more you win the better
you are, and that is not necessarily the case.
College
coaches want to see athletes in team sports working hard and playing well with
others, not just winning. Why are youth sports so “goal-orientated?” Youth
sports have morphed into a Tsunami, a wave of epic proportions, crashing over
children and their families, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake. The
allure of athletes playing for Division I schools and, possibly professionally,
has become so enticing that for reasons we will explain in this book, we can’t
see how unrealistic a goal that allure is to most children’s dreams. How did
this happen? When did this wave begin to take over our lives, creating an
undertow pulling our children, us, coaches, schools and businesses in its wake?
Will adults
pass on to their families, and those generations to come, the stress-related
environment created by the time and money spent on their children’s
participation in youth sports? Will parents rationalize the manipulation of
rules to justify their behavior? Will they fall into the undertow of “the rules
apply to everyone but their children?” In turn, will the children then embrace
that same attitude in their lives and the lives of their children? What
consequences will, though unintentional but inevitable, come from this? Will young players’ reputations carry through
and adversely affect them and other players’ ability to improve? What will be the fallout?
When looked
at cumulatively, “pay for play” can run into the thousands of dollars per year.
Does the cost of participation on a higher level of a sport give people the
excuse to use the rationalization as a way to bend the rules in the name of
entitlement? Could this phenomenon affect the judgment and decisions of most
everyone involved now and in the future?
The answer
is, “Yes!” That is, until we collectively agree to stop it.
***
The erosion
of youth sports can be linked directly to the decision to have our children
play one sport year-round and to the increased monetary commitment to the “pay-for-play”
concept. When did it become acceptable
to have personal coaches, surgery before an injury, and rehabilitation as a way
to get back on the playing field instead of just getting healthy? The atmosphere surrounding youth sports
programs has changed dramatically and negatively over the years since this
concept was created. Good kids, good athletes, are telling their parents that
they do not want to play anymore. The truth is that they are not having fun.
Seventy percent of all youth sports participants at the age of ten stop playing
by age thirteen. There are those children who love playing their sports so much
they want to play year-round.
My daughter loves chocolate, but I
don’t let her have it all the time. It would make her sick!
It used to
be a normal occurrence for children to play multiple sports. They played one
sport for a season, putting away the equipment until the next season. They then
went on to the next sport. Kids enjoyed going to practice and playing in games
with their teammates. The enjoyment and improvement in skills were enhanced by
having balance and diversity. This approach helped to develop the mind and
body, together, through years of playing youth sports. “Specialization” referred to the particular
ice-cream or snack the player preferred to eat after each contest.
It used to
be that children had fun playing sports just for the enjoyment of playing with
friends. Between sports, they could have
active rest by playing pickup games in different sports or some other unrelated
activity. They could do school work or
community service. These all helped to achieve “balanced excellence.”
Now,
children are told by organizations, parents, and coaches to pick a sport and
stay with it year-round. Few people want
to talk about where this is leading, as well as what the long-term consequences
are if playing year-round doesn’t work out as planned. There is too much ego and money involved for
those close to youth sports to think clearly for the good of the children. No
one wants to talk about the children, families, and coaches who have been
consumed by this recent phenomenon of specialization. Many have ended up
breaking down mentally, physically and emotionally by the journey and
results. They are quietly being pushed
aside and their discontent is silenced as a new generation of hopefuls takes
their place. How did this transformation
evolve? Is there something going on in
society that helps fuel this change?
We live in a
time of “instant” gratification, information, contact, reward, and
success. Long-term goals are being
overrun by short-term gratification, leading to the justification of selfish
behavior. Youth sports have enveloped
good people, families, coaches, and school districts like a Tsunami, repeatedly
knocking them down until they are too tired to resist. They just “go with the flow.” Some fear retribution; others feel they will
fall behind or be ostracized by the athletic community in which they socialize
and participate.
Why isn’t
the idea of children having fun playing sports good enough anymore? Why are playing multiple sports
discouraged? What happened to the
enjoyment and the importance of the journey?
The value of the process itself has been, at the very least, diminished
through year-round playing. Youth sports
have taken on a life of their own in importance and status in our culture. When did having quality family time, or
taking a family vacation become an interruption to the participation in
year-round youth sports? Time away from
youth sports should not need an excuse and justification for an absence. We must get back to the fundamentals of
playing for fun, learning life skills, and “balanced excellence.”
Recently,
questions have begun surfacing regarding what is really going on in youth
sports. The long-term ramifications of
playing year-round are beginning to emerge.
The idea that children enjoy sports and learn from the experience,
taking the journey, has been replaced with short-term gratification and the hope
of long-term financial rewards. Most spend
more than they will ever get back.
Glory, false
rewards, and debilitating spending have overwhelmed youth sports. Parents and
coaches are led to believe that the way to get to the “pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow” can only come from playing one sport year-round. The short term
reward of course, is winning. The long term reward is either a scholarship or
professional contract.
This simply
is not true.
My book is
available from my website, frozenshorts.com in e book form now for $9.95 and
the book will be out in paperback by the end of November 2012 for $15. You can
follow me on twitter @VJJStanley, on Facebook at frozenshorts.com, you can
reach me by email vj@frozenshorts.com
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