I go off the professional or semi-professional route and take a stab at something new: Hope Sellers.
Ever walk into a youth sports venue lately and notice the hope that is being sold to parents? In the past two years I have coached several youth sports teams. But, as each day goes by each kid gets more and more specialized. Today I will tackle two of the culprits of kids specializing in sports at a very young age.
Before I take some well deserved shots at some of the culprits...I need to tell a story of a neighbor boy, let's call him Sue (one of my favorite Johnny Cash Songs). Sue is by far the most talented kid his age in just about every sport he's ever played: Hockey, Baseball, (I heard he was awesome at) Soccer, Horseshoes, Lawn Darts, and Bowling (yes, bowling I saw him fire a clean strike at a 7 year old birthday party.) As they say on TV, Sue is a natural (hand/eye, speed, agility, etc). Heck, he's even got good blood lines (kinda like a race horse).
Sue has yet to live a full decade of life and his Dad (culprit #1) told me this is his last year of baseball (poor kid hasn't even seen or thrown a curve ball yet and he's getting the hook). In sadness, our neighborhood 9 just lost one of, if not it's best player. Why would he pull him out of baseball at such a young age? Hockey dads know where this is going already.....Sue is going to start playing hockey year-round. You guessed it, 9 years old and his sports world is now down to 1.....Wow.
Is this all Dad's fault? Mostly. But, there are other culprits....let's call them secondaries. The first one is this new cottage industry of Hope Sellers. People selling parents the hope that their kid is going to play such-and-such sport at the highest level. One such organization, Minnesota Made in Edina, MN, tells parents that players aren't born they are made!!!!
Hmmmmmm....if they told the truth, "Johnny sucks, save your money!" , I'm sure they'd go out of business. So, instead, they ignore the obvious fact that a kid like Sue with or without training and dedication is going to go far, but a kid like Johnny will not. Why? Johnny sucks and Sue is the bomb.
End of Story.
Why do I write this? It all went down over the past month on the baseball diamond.
Over the years, I've coached several baseball teams, taught numerous clinics, and worked the John Anderson (U of MN) baseball camp in college. One night at practice while doing drills with my pitchers, a kid says to me, "Coach, my Pitching Coach tells me......." I really don't remember how the sentence ended because I fainted on the spot. After I was revived, I awoke to another boy telling me...."his pitching coach says he should......" instead of fainting this time, I spoke up. Boys, if your pitching coach is so great, then why isn't he out here today coaching you? The smarter of the two boys raises his hand and says, "cuz you don't get paid and he does...". To that I replied, "Ahaaaaaaa" (sort of like the Jewish Eddie Murphy in Coming to America)!!!!!!!!!' " The kids didn't get my Aha. But I did. My point: That guy is trying to make a buck...plain and simple. So he'll tell any parent, any kid that he's good as long as he's writing a check out to Hope Seller, Inc. Sorry to go nostalgic here, but what happened to practicing what you learned from your well qualified coach with your dad, mom, brother, neighbor, etc? Today, dad just dumps the kid off and writes some washed up ex-pro a check and calls it a day. When I was growing up I had some great non-parent coach role models (Wizzy Wyatt, Al Frost, Quincy Brown). These guys taught us the game, we went home and practiced it with whomever and we said thank you when the season was over. Over the last two years I have watched way too many kids go the route of Sue at way too early of an age.
Please, do your kids a favor. Instead of making them play just one sport....make them play one more sport. Heck, they may even enjoy it.
Rant over.
13 comments:
Well said, the other problem is that Kids are going to burn out big time, Their whole identity is tied to that one sport and when things change or it is no longer fun, watch out.
Best rant you've had yet. This is a conversation Cully and I have at
least 2-3 times a week. Situations such as this are symptomatic of the
"pussification" of society. Nobody wants to be labeled the "bad"
parent, so they decide not to parent at all. To your point, they bring
in "experts" to absolve themselves of any responsibility when it comes
to making tough decisions. My hope is to come across one of these
check-writing Dads in action and give them both barrels of what I really
think.
Rock on Mr. Zosel. Expose them to all of them, let them choose what works
and they enjoy. Steve did every sport out there, not great at any of them
but he knew how they worked. Hated swimming, tried a bunch of others, went
back to swimming in high school because he knew the strokes, still not
really good, teammates liked him, elected captain, was even an Edina sun
athlete of the week when they let the big dogs take the week off against a
weaker team and he won all of his races. He also played football and was on
the tennis team. Couldn't have worked out better with the skills that he
had.
Girl's not that interested in multiple sports, which is fine, but they both
ended up swimming after trying other sports. Emily now swims in college in
California doing well against the California girls and Lindsay did the
swimming leg of a triathlon with us a year or two ago.
Our kids didn't have Sue's ability but I hope his dad changes his mind.
Sincerely,
A boy named Kelly.
Best one yet
Someone Else Wrote this for you
Double edged sword. If your kid has talent there is a tremendous amount of pressure to push and develop that talent to its greatest possible degree. This can happen in both education and sports. The parents that dont push are said to be missing a special opportunity. The parents that do are said to be crazy.
I believe that kids are thrown into organized sports too soon in this day and age. They should be able to develop their interests on their own for a period. I did not get involved in organized sports until I was at the age where some kids are already opting out. My father, brother, and neighborhood freinds sufficed as teamates and coaches up until that point.
In fact, I believe kids are getting into baseball at way too young of an age and it is killing the sport. Let's face it, 90% of kids cant grasp the concept of baseball at age 5 and the same percentage of them do not want to stand in the field and wait for someone to hit the ball to them, which happens maybe 1x per game. The boredom sets in and they are playing soccer the following year so that they can "run around" and get excercise.
I always discourage people from getting their super young kids involved with baseball. If you love the game and want your kids to love the game, do them a favor and spend some time in the backyard together, teach them to catch and throw, and set up the tee if you want. Tee ball should forever be banished as an option for little league.
Nice article. The real question I have hanging over me now is... "who
in your neighborhood has the transvestite 10 year old?"
Nice....
I agree wholeheartedly! Too bad the Hope Sellers don't have a legal mandate to provide the stats on little leaguers that actually get to play in the big leagues when selling their hope story (i.e., out of 700,000 senior football players each year, ~100 get to play NFL...).
I'll use Edina '86 for this...
We had maybe 350 guys in our Senior class.
I think there were 15 seniors on the varsity hockey team that year (they were a dominant team that year).
I think 7 of the 15 got some kind of scholarship to a D1 school (as stated...a lot of talent).
I think 4 out of the 15 went on to play Pro hockey in AHL or Europe, but none made it to the NHL (ditto).
So 4% of the guys made the team.
2% got some college $ and play time
And 1% got to the AHL or Europe
I think we would agree that if the parent is making the kid play because they want them to be an NHL player then they have the wrong approach...and the odds are so stacked against them it isn't even funny (only one American was on the Wild roster this past year btw). Sports should be about competition, building character, learning how to win and lose as an individual and as a teammate...etc. If a kid loves a sport, is blessed with talent, is determined to practice harder/longer then maybe they will rise to the pinnacle.
I also believe that if a young kid (12 and under) needs to play only one sport all year round in order to be competitive then they probably aren't the best athlete so the chips are stacked even more against them.
And if the kid really is a natural all-star athlete then playing exposing them to as many sports as possible when they are young is the parent's job...the kid will naturally gravitate to one or two of the sports over time (the kid...not the parent making the kid).
Great topic. Even I understood this one for a change.
I have heard of studies that show that kids who focus on 1 sport are more prone to injury than those who are developing their minds and bodies by playing multiple sports. Different sports teach different disciplines - individual sports nurture mental toughness, team sports demand cooperation, etc.
The HOPE Sellers capitalize on kids who get out of the block quicker than others, and the others follow so as not to be left behind. We can all probably remember a kid from our childhood who was better at everything and by the time junior high or high school came around, they had either burnt out or been passed up by skill and growth.
Many are to blame - the sports associations, peer pressure on parents - clubs telling the parents their kid is elite and they need to pursue the advanced program (for an enhanced fee and multiple additional hours per week) as in gymnastics (what is the % making it to the Olympics??), high school coaches who are indirectly recruiting from grade schools to build better programs, etc. - not to mention the big sports companies (go out to the Blaine Sports soccer fields and you leave with an Adidas imprint in your eyes).
There are obvious segues: # of hours required for kids (my 8 year is in travelling soccer and baseball concurrently where combined he has 2 practices and 7 games in a 6 day period this week), Who's idea was it for 1st and 2nd graders to have 1-2 practices and 2 games per week in ANY sport? How about the fees for hockey and other sports in addition to the required parent volunteer hours? Travelling teams beginning at 2nd grade???
The HOPE Sellers have dictated how families spend their evenings year-round. Time for parents and coaches to make a stand to say they've had enough. Just be sure not to leave your son, Suzie, behind.
Nice rant Z, makes me wonder if my parents wasted lots of money sending me to wrestling camp trying to be Brock Lesnar before there was a brock Lesnar.
Seriously, nice points all around by you and the previous posters.
Dude that was awesome...I've been thinking that for years!!!!!
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