Youth Sports: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This past weekend I watched some 9 and 10-year-olds play very exciting baseball at the Bellefonte Little League field. It was a wonderful experience (other than the heat, of course).

There were families from communities across Central PA, and the concession stand and 50-50 raffle tickets were doing a brisk business. As the National Anthem was played prior to the start of the day’s semi-finals and finals, I looked around to see the players and coaches with their caps placed over their hearts, younger siblings standing in awe of their big brothers about to compete, and parents and grandparents singing along. It was ‘America the Beautiful’ — blue skies, family, food and, of course, Little League Baseball.

All was good, all was righteous. Well, almost.

I have been waiting for the right moment to take on what I believe will be an interesting and perhaps, at times, controversial look at the topic of youth sports.

Let me state for the record that I believe youth sports are a very good thing for our society. I believe this because of my own experiences as an athlete and coach and for of all the ‘usual reasons’ why participating in youth sport is a positive (exercise, team work, competition, etc.).

But like any activity that involves people of all different ages, socio-economic backgrounds, education and values, there are bound to be differences. Some good, some bad and some ugly.

So over the next few months I will periodically visit this topic. There will no doubt be readers who will agree with my point of view and those who will argue with my thinking. I hope I can challenge you to re-think your views on youth sports and where we are heading in the future. Sport, as a business, is one of the top ten industries in the world. It is all around us and very few people can say that sports don’t impact their lives in some way almost daily.

So this column will merely whet your appetite and give an overview of some of the issues I hope to address. I am quite certain I will strike a nerve on both sides of the youth sports continuum: those who believe it is an essential part of any young person’s childhood and those who believe the emphasis on sports has gotten out of control.

First, I want to give kudos to Bellefonte Little League, its parents and volunteers, and especially Tournament Director Mark Rudloff. I will bet getting back to work will be a relief after all the time and pressure of pulling off such a successful tournament. There were team’s competing on two fields in All-Star and Tournament Team Divisions, playing non-stop. The Sloppy Joes and meatball sandwiches were a hit with my family all weekend!

My son Ryan’s team played in several incredibly exciting and entertaining games coming from behind twice in dramatic fashion. In one game they were down 8-3 with two outs in the top of the 5th and scored 8 runs to go ahead 11-8. Their opponent scored twice in their final at-bat before the tying run was thrown out at home to end the game. In another game, Ryan’s team was down 9-1 after 2 innings before pulling out a dramatic 10-9 victory in the bottom of the 6th inning. Alas, they fell 12-11 in another back-and-forth, up-and-down nail-biter in the Championship Game.

The kids were disappointed, but both teams knew they gave their all, and good sportsmanship ruled the day. The parents gave the kids on both teams an extended and well-deserved ovation. I even watched a young State College player walk over to the home plate umpire, who had just completed his third game with all that equipment on in the sweltering heat, to thank him for being there all day. That was uplifting. It was all good.

However, during the course of the weekend I also witnessed and heard of behavior from this tournament and one taking place elsewhere in Centre County that showed the darker side of youth sports.

These are actual issues/incidents that occurred this weekend:

• A coach was yelling at his son, ‘If we lose this game it’s all your fault because you let down the whole team. Wait till we get home.’
• A Mom was yelling at the umpire about being ‘a retard’ while a young girl with Down Syndrome and her family were sitting just a few feet away.
• A frustrated dad was yelling at his team’s coaches for bad decisions on who was pitching and playing what positions and that they didn’t know what they were doing.
• An umpire made a questionable call and the parents jumped all over him. The umpire became unglued and started yelling back. Tempers escalated until the umpire threw a fan out. Things get even uglier, and eventually the umpire is removed from the game to keep peace (a tough, but good decision by the tournament director).

In the coaching profession we joke about the best team to get to coach is ‘a team of orphans’. Too often it is not the kids who create problems but overzealous parents reliving the glory days or having unrealistic expectations. (Think about the recent TV commercial emphasizing that 99 percent of all NCAA athletes will be pro in something other than their sport). We’ll dive into that topic soon!

Contrast this to the calm, cool demeanor of our head coach, Randy Paroda. His kids are learning lessons about sportsmanship, teamwork, and winning and losing graciously and with dignity. We feel very fortunate to have such a terrific and capable group of coaches working with our kids. This has been such a positive experience and the kids, parents and coaches are all having fun and bonding during this extended season of play.

In full disclosure, anyone who knows me knows I am a competitive and emotionally charged sports guy. I was no wallflower as a kid, an athlete, or a coach. But like my father, I always taught my players to play with class and to respect their opponent and the game. I also coached as part of my job and worked with college kids, young men who could handle the pressures of competition and had a level of maturity to handle public criticism. But I constantly reminded the players that it was ultimately just a game and not life and death.

So get ready for some juicy topics all regarding this fascination that we have as a society with sport. A few more teasers:

• We’ll delve into why finding good coaches and setting up clear understanding with kids and parents helps everyone more fully enjoy their athletics experiences. We’ll touch on a book titled, ‘Why good coaches quit’ by John Anderson.
• Athletes as role models. I do believe they have a responsibility, to a point, to lead by example. However, I have been so turned off by the spectacle surrounding LeBron James, the revelation that former Phillie Len Dykstra and former Steeler Dermontti Dawson had to file personal bankruptcy after compiling tens of millions of dollars in debt, and the Tiger Woods and Ben Roethislberger sagas, that I am not so sure we can look at them as role models.
• I will touch on the decisions that ‘elite’ athletes are faced with and how to know if you are considered to be one in a discussion I call ‘Developing Options and Making Informed Choices.’

Year-round travel teams worry me. While college expenses continue to rise faster than inflation and disposable income falls, people are faced with very real decisions regarding their spending priorities. Do you spend your money on retirement savings, health care, college savings, investments, rainy day funds? Or the best camps, clinics, private lessons, private trainers, nutritionists, etc. for your kids?

I am all for wanting to be better. But too often we seem to make irrational decisions based on the low probability that somehow our kid will be the next Alex Rodriguez, Sidney Crosby, LeBron James, or Payton Manning.

When I Googled ‘what’s wrong about youth sports today,’ I was stunned at the number of articles, books, seminars and discussions that popped up, so I at least know I have stumbled onto an interesting subject if nothing else!

Sports are supposed to teach life lessons. Character, perseverence, friendship, etc. I believe that in the vast majority of cases, it does and that sport in society is mostly good. But there are land mines out there and perhaps, like most things in life, with better education, meaningful discussion and debate, we can help find a way to keep sport in perspective.