The Joy of Youth Sports Adopted by Wingate University's School of Sport Sciences

I was pleased to learn that Wingate University's School of Sport Sciences adopted my book, The Joy of Youth Sports, for use in its SMGT 306 "Sport for Children and Youth" class for the spring 2011 semester.

Here's the link to the Wingate University bookstore:

SMGT 306 Required Materials


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Are Sports Your Passion or Your Child’s?

One of life’s most fulfilling aspects is finding an activity for which you have a passion. Whether it’s sports, music, art, science, or any of the other countless areas of human endeavor, discovering an area in which you’re both passionate and capable represents found treasure. If your passion is sports, it’s natural that you want your child to experience the same joy. Unfortunately, parents can mistakenly believe that their child has the same enthusiasm for a sport, or sports in general, that they do. Instead of pushing your passion onto your child, simply provide the opportunity to participate and give words of encouragement.

Growing up, I was fortunate to have parents that provided me with every opportunity to play a variety of sports. Throwing a baseball or football around with my Dad, enjoying pickup games in backyards, playing Little League baseball and football, earning varsity letters in multiple high school sports, and playing a year of college basketball were all meaningful parts of my young life. My parents possessed the good sense not to force any sport on me. They simply provided the basic equipment, car rides to and from my youth league practices and games, words of encouragement and small doses of constructive criticism.

Should your child desire not to participate in a sport, make sure that the reasons are good ones and not simply based on avoiding some uncomfortable situation. A measure of success can make all of the difference as to how a child views participating in a sport. A good youth coach, individual lessons, unstructured neighborhood games, or the right words of parental encouragement are all potential gateways that can transport a child to a new world of fun and satisfaction. But in the end, despite your best efforts, the child’s true nature will prevail.

Remember that your goal is for your child to find a passion—not your passion!

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Choosing a Path for Your Child in Sports—All Things are Sold

In his essay on Compensation, Ralph Waldo Emerson writes about the dualistic nature of the world we live in. He states, “For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something… In nature nothing can be given, all things are sold.”

As our life experience grows, most of us realize the essential truth of Emerson’s views on compensation. As discussed elsewhere in this blog (You're NOT too Small, Heavy, or Slow!), compensation plays an important role in an athlete’s success. An athlete, small in stature, may also possess extraordinary quickness; one who is slow may have exceptional strength. These compensatory attributes often provide athletes with different paths to success.

But as a parent or coach, have you also considered the compensatory effect of your choices? Have you considered how the same excesses that lead to athletic “success” may also exact an equal or greater price? Do you know what you’re selling?

Take for example a high school girl’s varsity basketball team that I helped coach during its “Open Gym” and Fall League preseason. The head coach, a friend with whom I played years ago, is a knowledgeable, hardnosed disciplinarian. In pursuing excellence, he’s more likely to chastise a player’s mistake than compliment one’s success. Fun is secondary to work. The preseason commitment for players, stretching over a three-month period, involved three voluntary two-hour practices and one game per week. Perfectly legal under the by-laws of our state’s high school association, the time commitment of these preseason activities approached that of my regular high school basketball season many years ago. Under the grind of this heavy preseason schedule and my friend’s uncompromising coaching style, a number of girls quit (and still others considered doing so).

So in the balanced equation that is Emerson’s law of compensation, what do these players gain and what do they lose?

I fully expect that this team will enjoy greater success on the court. (It’s already evident in their early season record.) They will win more games than they otherwise would under many other coaches. They will take pride in their accomplishments, appreciate how hard work has prepared them for success, and possibly apply this lesson to other parts of their lives. With their shared sacrifice, they may enjoy an even closer bond with their teammates. And for a few, the likelihood of a college scholarship may be improved.

But to the opposite, a price is also paid. Girls who might have enjoyed the high school basketball experience (and still succeeded on the court) were lost early on. In at least one instance, participation in anther sport was sacrificed. For some, the tough, critical coaching style may diminish the experience as a whole. What should be a fun, rewarding, and successful experience, may instead become a chore—just one more activity to list on their college application. Players may “burn out” later in the season. More troubling is the potential long-term effect on each girl’s desire to continue playing sports. I suspect that many of the girls on this team, though appreciating their high school basketball experience, may never want to pick up a ball again once their “career” is over. The enjoyment and health benefits of continued adult participation will be lost.

So what’s the best path? Do the benefits justify the excesses and price paid? In the example cited above, are the possible rewards worth the long practices, extended season, and other sacrifices made by the players? That’s for every administrator, coach, parent, and athlete to decide. But it’s a decision that should be made with full awareness of what’s lost to the path not taken.

For my part, I believe that the type of high school experience I described above is too skewed towards the work/sacrifice component. I suspect that it’s not atypical of many other high school sports programs that have morphed into coach-driven, all consuming extracurricular activities. Sports seasons today are too long, participation in other high school sports is diminished, and joy too often sucked out of the young athletes who want to participate in organized sports at this higher level. Self-directed play is also a casualty of the extensive time commitment associated with today’s organized sports activities.

Maybe I’m wrong about this. Possibly the girls on my friend’s team will enjoy their season and learn valuable life lessons. Maybe they will see their sacrifices as worthwhile. It will be interesting to follow these girls over the next several years and to learn what each of them thinks in retrospect about her experience.

But in regard to youth sports, coaches and parents should undoubtedly seek a more balanced approach—one that protects joy, while also encouraging a child to begin appreciating the importance of hard work and its connection to success. Positive coaching and parental support, with an age-appropriate emphasis on winning, should dominate the organized youth sports experience. Encouraging excesses early on, and paying the compensatory price, is simply a wrong-headed approach. For each parent and coach, the goal is to help each child achieve his or her potential while also preserving the long-term benefits (joy, continued participation, health) for every child!

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The Joy of Youth Sports—the Sports Parent Gift that Keeps on Giving

Would you like to help a sports parent discover how his or her child can enjoy success in sports? Do you have a “problem” sports parent on your Christmas list? (You know, the Mom or Dad who yells at referees, complains about the coach, or is convinced a college scholarship is waiting for his or her star.)

The Joy of Youth Sports makes a great gift for all sports parents. And it's one that keeps giving long after the holiday season is over.

Available on Amazon for only $8.95, this easy read describes five steps to a great youth sports experience—the one that not only maximizes athletic abilities, but also helps a child develop life skills and a joyful appreciation for playing sports.

It’s not too late to save a child! :-)



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Community

Playing sports provides you with many benefits including fun, physical exercise, competition, and an outlet to express yourself. When you get together with your friends in the backyard or driveway for a pickup game, you probably also enjoy the camaraderie—the warm feeling of good fellowship we get when we share an experience with others. To varying degrees, most of us take pleasure in this sense of community.

In both individual and team sports, pickup or organized, you will find many opportunities to be part of an enjoyable shared experience. In some cases you will find others that share the same passion for your sport—who enjoy its beauty and flow, competing to win, or the challenge of testing one’s abilities against personal limits or some standard of performance. With these individuals you often find friendship based on this common bond. In other instances, casual or less skilled players may have a limited interest in playing, but do so mainly because they enjoy being part of a group.

In team sports, your teammates share the experience with you. In games with your friends, everybody enjoys the shared friendly competition. But even in more serious competitive situations, with opponents you do not know, there is often a mutual respect based on everyone’s shared passion and enjoyment of the sport. You and your opponent are both part of the same community.

Individual sports also provide an opportunity for community—each competitor respectful of the other’s similar passion and commitment. Individual competitors can even find a sense of team between each other in certain situations. For example, two competitive tennis players representing rival schools may find themselves supporting and rooting for each other in a distant tournament.

In team sports, try to minimize internal cliques (i.e., small groups) and their often destructive effect on the chemistry of your team. Find and promote shared common ground with all of your teammates. If you’re in a position to lead, try to recognize potential disruptions within your team before they grow and take hold. A key word from you to another player may be all that’s needed to short-circuit a potential problem.

As you grow older, and begin to experience more injuries or responsibilities that take you away from your game, you will come to value the communal aspect of sports even more. In your pursuit of excellence, always try to respect your teammates, opponents and the game itself. Recognize and appreciate that you are all part of the same community, and that your sport makes the reward of this shared experience possible.

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Games Are Rarely Decided by the Refs

While watching a game from the stands, you will see missed or bad calls made by the referee or umpire. Sometimes the referee’s mistakes will seem to come in bunches or possibly at a crucial moment in a contest. But before you lose control and scream at the referee’s incompetence, keep in mind that most games and matches are rarely decided by poor calls. Almost always, the results are based on player performance.

Within each game, there are countless opportunities for your child’s team to exert its dominance over the other. Besides making the necessary physical plays, eliminating even a few of the many mental mistakes that occur in a game can often dictate who wins. Consider the number of errors made by your child and team over the course of the game, compared to the relatively few made by the game’s referees. Yes, referees can place their imprint on a game. Sometimes as a contest winds down, a single bad call makes a difference. But in the end, the game’s outcome is usually controlled and decided by the players performance (over the entire game)—not the referees.

One of the unfortunate aspects of youth sports is the behavior of some parents in the stands. As it relates to referees, certain parents will not only criticize the referees for actual mistakes made, but also for proper calls that go against their child or team. Sometimes parents do this out of misguided parental interest in their child’s success while other times they don’t understand the actual rules of the game. Even worse, some parents see referees as their personal whipping dog, an opportunity to let go of their day’s frustrations.

Almost everyone makes a critical comment here and there—sports are emotional for both the child and parent. But when a parent loudly and constantly berates a referee on every call that goes against his or her child, it’s time to step back and recognize the parent’s behavior for what it is—rude and unacceptable. This conduct sets a bad example for children and runs counter to the principles of every youth and scholastic program. Among the reasons why this behavior is harmful is that a child sees their parent assigning blame to the referee instead of where it typically belongs—with the player or team. In place of teaching the child accountability, the parent’s behavior is promoting a detrimental “victim” mentality.

If you find yourself headed down this path, either don’t attend your child’s games or do a better job of controlling your behavior. Try to appreciate and enjoy the game in its entirety—not just from a win/loss perspective or one that overemphasizes the natural interest that you have in seeing your child succeed. Focus more on how your child is playing compared to the last time and whether your child is playing up to his or her demonstrated potential.

When the inevitable bad calls occur, view them as just one more obstacle that your child must overcome and carefully watch how your child responds. Your goal is to help instill a champion’s heart in your child.

Support your child by behaving in a way that builds his or her character and remember that most games aren’t decided by the referee’s poor calls.

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