Doubt

Doubt

We hear this word a lot in sports and in life. Many people go through life doubting their ability and therefore who they are. This doubt permeates their persona to such an extent that it affects relationships, performance, and outlook.

Doubt has now become part of the youth sports landscape. People doubt whether they are going to be able to get an athletic scholarship, or be able to pay for college. Children’ self worth, attached to their on field performance raises doubt in their minds. Family’s doubt whether they are going to be able to pay for their child’s participation in “elite” travel sports.

Youth sports in its original concept was supposed to help children manage, and erase that doubt by teaching them life skills and the importance of teamwork, hard work, sacrifice, and fun. How things have changed.

 Young athletes feel their bodies betraying them for the first time in their lives, with injuries, that children at such a young age should rarely if ever experience. They doubt whether they can keep up with the other kids playing on their team. Some children, feeling pressure from their coach and parents, doubt themselves.

 They do not understand, nor should they, why so much emphasis is being put on something that in it’s very description cites PLAY as an important, if not interval part of the experience. We say our children “Play youth sports.” That is right. We do not say our children have job at a very tender and influential young age. Because, for many children, coaches, and organizations youth sports has become so much more than it ever was intended to be.

And I doubt very much that this is a healthy thing.

At Frozen Shorts we have turned the tables on doubt. Every day we question the validity of the way the majority of people are being told, led, and treated in today’s youth sports environment. We question everything. We constantly test people and preconceived notions.

We believe strongly that this “doubt” is a healthy thing. It is a natural reaction to something that can be quite unhealthy for all involved. We want people to “doubt” the validity of what they are doing just as they would question and doubt a suggestion to go out on a frozen stretch of lake, or down a dark alley.

With the injury rate skyrocketing in youth sports and the more is better mantra permeating this environment, a small, but growing group of people are presenting empirical evidence that this journey is flawed and doubt seriously that the facts support the continued pursuit of scholarships versus the reality of the situation.

When 10 year old children are being described as “athletes” and talented, when in fact they are just children playing.  I have been told that we have to question the definition of fun, and that youth a sport does not have to be fun, I seriously doubt that. People have suggested to me that getting children back into the game instead of concentrating on them getting healthy is not such a bad thing. I doubt that.

But most of all I doubt whether children really want to do this. 70% of all children playing youth sports at the age of 10 quit by the time they are 13. I’m told they quit because of other interests. I doubt that and so do major studies done.

 In 20123 there are now more children playing video games than there are children playing youth sports. In a recent weekend the Staple Center in Los Angeles was sold out for a video team game tournament. Seems the creators have figured out a way to get the kids the enjoyment of playing youth sports and competing into their entertainment paradigm.

These kids have great eye hand coordination. They get to PLAY, not sit on the sidelines every day. They put together teams. They have tournaments, leagues. and standings. They compete just as if they were on a youth sports team, except for two major differences. They are sedentary and they don’t ever have to sit on the sideline and watch others play of they don’t want to. Someone has given them an alternative to today’s youth sports model.

The kids are voting, and I doubt whether the outcome is healthy.