Hello, my name is Donald W. Albertson, author of Catch a Rising Star: The Adult Game of Youth Sports, an adult novel about an obsessed sports parent and the glorious and tragic results of his obsession.
I have set up this blog to discuss the issues in youth sports today. What issues you may ask? How about these to start:
Are parents pushing their kids too hard, too fast?
Is competition good for kids?
How does a coach deal with an out-of-control parent?
Should it be all about winning?
This is just a start. There are many other issues in the adult world of youth sports that people want to discuss. Well, here's the place. Bring your questions, concerns and suggestions to our community and let's try and work them out together. All are welcome!
| | Posted by Donald at 3:59 PM - | |
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How old were the teams that were on the court, watching this disgraceful display? Seven and eight.
We can't be too surprised about another incident at a youth sport game. No, it happens too often for us to be shocked by it. Are we becoming desensitized to the violence around us? How angry would you be if someone brandished a gun around your kids? Incensed, I'm sure. But, here we are again at that question with the ever-elusive answer: What can we do about it?
We are already requiring background checks, parental education, code of ethics statements; some have even gone so far as to ban parents from the games (a decision that angers both the parents and the kids). What we don't want to do is act out of fear and anger. When we make knee-jerk reactions we often create more problems than we fix.
So, what is the answer? I don't know, but what I do know is that we have to keep talking about it. The more dialog we maintain, the closer we can get to understanding. I believe we are intelligent enough to work out sound solutions if we just keep talking to each other. What do you think?
That flip side is an increasing knowledge base forming around many aspects of kids' experience in sports: From fitness, nutrition, and injury prevention, to understanding cognitive development, to new expectations for coaching, to volunteer league operations, to options available for college (even if your kid isn't the star of the team). These are all pushbacks to the excesses. So while there is more specialized instruction for younger and younger players (i.e., repetitive shortstop practice for 5-year-olds), there is a countervailing body of knowledge on the effects of overuse, on focusing on single-sports too early.
One of the things we can do is to make sure that the adults who manage the games -- league and system administrators, ADs, coaches, and the regional administrative bodies for each sport (US Soccer, US Lacrosse, Babe Ruth...whatever) -- are bringing this new information into their educational programs and requiring coaches and parents to become familiar with it. (I know...easy to say...) One of the primary attributes of this information is that it is still unfolding.
I think it will also help to acknowledge that, at root, youth sports is entirely emotional, for everyone. How can it not be? I've long thought that the main attractions for a parent (OK, as a guy with daughters) is that you get to hang around with your kids who would otherwise not have the time of day for you in those adolescent years. And once in, you're in.
I received your personal message, but the link was bad, so I couldn't respond to it. If you want to try again and give me an email address we can discuss those technical issues.
For those of you in the Chicago area, I will be on the Steve Cochran Show (WGN Radio)tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 11:20 EST. Your analysis will be welcomed (gulp).
There are programs out there; most, I think, are very helpful and are taking the first step: creating awareness. Yet, the number of reported instances of violence have nearly quadrupled over the past decade. Are these programs not working, or is the problem just escalating? Don't take me wrong, I am not putting down these parental education-based programs. But, they are only a first step, a very important, and necessary step. So, we are going in the right direction.
Now, we have to talk about it. Bring more parents, coaches and school administrators into the discussion, and let's define the issues. Once we know what the right question is, then we can reach answers that will effectively deal with the problems in our communities.
Zach’s post reveals another nail in the coffin of team sports. When parents only see what affects their stars, and expects the coach to see it the same way; well, how can that coach possibly do his job? Zach coached for 21 years at this high school. I don’t know the circumstances of his dismissal, but if he were there for 21 years, then I would have to say his services were appreciated by most of the community. If every coach gave into the request of every parent, that coach would be ineffectual in his job. I had picked up a soccer player mid-season one year. The father of this girl came to the first practice and proceeded to explain to me how I had to change my offense to fit his daughter. After four months working with this team and getting them to function in my system, this father wanted me to shuck it all so his star could shine.
Don’t parents understand the function of the coach of a team sport? Obviously many do not, when their only concern is their child’s role on that team. The coach has to look after the well being of the entire team. It’s his job to turn this group of individuals into a team (no small task).
Ironically, this is the second instance of a high school girl’s basketball coach with more than twenty years of service to be “let go” because of the demands of a parent, who obviously doesn’t care about “team.” I was interviewed this week by the Cincinnati Post http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060217/SPT08/602170333/1035/SPT&template=printpicart about a high school girls’ basketball coach who was let go after she kicked a player off the team for a dispute with another player (again, I don’t have all the details, I am responding to the limited information I have).
Should parents have this kind of control over how a school should be run? As long as we have local school boards they are going to have their way, and school administrators are going to yield to their will to save their jobs. Yet, if the coach yields, he will not have a cohesive team, and when their record starts to slide someone else will be calling for his head because their star is now stuck on a losing team.
Catch-22, anyone?
I’d say this is a tough age to be a coach, but was it ever easy? Was there ever a time when parents didn’t get emotionally involved in their child’s sport? Yet, today, it seems that many parents assume that their star is, of course, right and the coach is, of course, wrong.
The coach in Cincinnati has filed a lawsuit to be reinstated in her job. I will certainly stay up with that. Zack, are you still coaching somewhere? I’m sure after twenty-one years of refining your skills that you would have a lot to offer another high school or youth team.
I’d be glad to help you get started in your research. Much has been written on the psychology of competition in youth sports. A great place to start would be two books by Rick Wolff (Sports Illustrated columnist and Chairman of the Center for Sports Parenting). The Sports Parenting Edge has an extensive bibliography of books and websites on sports psychology and parenting. Good Sports: The Concerned Parent’s Guide to Competitive Youth Sports is an excellent overview of parental concerns, like zealous coaching and competition. Youth Sports and Self Esteem by Darrell J. Burnett, Ph.D., a child psychologist who wrote an excellent guide for Spalding that deals with the self-esteem issue. A classic book by three experts in the field of sports psychology is the Parents’ Complete Guide to Youth Sports, Ronald E. Smith, Ph.D., Frank L. Smoll, Ph.D., Nathan J. Smith, M.D. Why Johnny Hates Sports: Why Organized Youth Sports are Failing Our Children and What We Can Do About It, by Fred Engh, President of the National Alliance for Youth Sports is a non-academic classic work that is a must read. A very eye-opening work on the obsessed parent is Searching For Bobby Fischer, by Fred Waitzkin. Another must read on the obsessed youth sport parent is my novel, Catch a Rising Star: The Adult Game of Youth Sports. The protagonist, Tom Anderson, is a failed athlete who tries to regain the glory through his twelve-year-old son. This is an in-depth view into the mindset of the obsessed parent, showing his motivations and justifications. This is a great place for you to begin your research.
Surveys show that the number one reason an overwhelming majority of kids want to play a sport is "because it's fun." By the age of thirteen, 70% have dropped out. The number one reason they give for quitting? It's not fun anymore.
Parents, listen to your kids!
My publicist continues to keep me busy on radio all over the US and Canada. Check the web site ( www.donaldwalbertson.com) for updates.
Last Thursday, the trial in France for the obsessed tennis Dad, who was caught drugging his kids' opponents, ended. He was sentenced to eight years. If you are not familiar with the case, this dad drugged 28 different opponents of his two children with the tranquilizer Temesta. He would sneek the pills into their water bottles or soda cans. One opponent, after trying to sleep it off, drove home and feel asleep at the wheel, killing himself.
Christophe Fauviau admitted his crimes in court, but tried an insanity plea that was rejected by the judge. The following quote is very telling of this man's obsession:
"When my children were playing, I was suffering. It was as if I were playing myself. I felt I was my child. I felt something crying inside me."
This is a classic example of a parent living vicariously through his children in a very unhealthy way. Win-at-all-costs will almost always result in heavy losses for someone. In this case, someone's life.
Another disturbing revelation that came out of this trial was that many young players scoffed at the notion that this man's behavior is startling. Some commented that this is not unusual, they see this kind of thing often.
Here is another way that obsession damages our kids: they are becoming desensitized to the violence. This makes me look back at the time I saw the two mothers wrestling on the softball diamond. I didn't realize that the look of shock and disbelief on those seven-year-old faces would soon turn cold, desensitized by seeing too much, too young.
Hopefully the parents and the victims in this case will find some solace in this man's conviction.
An article in yesterday’s Acorn (Agoura Hills, CA) tells a tale of how influence in youth sports is sometimes used to gain an unfair advantage. Am I surprised? No, just further saddened by the lengths some parents will go to give their kid an advantage. I have added the link to the article below, so I will limit the detail here. An official for a girls’ basketball league issued a memo that one particular fourth grade player can only play two quarters of the next playoff game. The official admitted that parents had come to him complaining about her high level of skill. What self-serving purpose could motivate a parent to ask the league to limit the playing time of a single player because she is too good? Have these parents forgotten whose game it is? Have they given a nanosecond of thought about how this will affect this ten-year-old girl? Is she embarrassed, outraged, or heartbroken? Somehow I think those people never thought of that. I would bet they were only thinking how to give their kid an edge in the playoffs and are probably patting themselves on the back over their accomplishment.
How sad.
Remember that this is a fourth grade basketball league. Do the parents of the winning team in this league get multimillion-dollar contracts? An all expense paid trip to Hawaii? No, of course not. Just the thrill of seeing your child do well at something. Yet, that is enough for some people to play politics to give their kid an edge.
Competition in youth sports should be left on the field.
http://www.theacorn.com/news/2006/0406/Community/016.html
Professional athletes are role models; like it, or not.
Do young athletes emulate their sports heroes? Of course they do. That’s how their dreams begin, by watching others accomplish those things they wish they could do. It gives kids a visual they can use as a standard to work toward. Whether they want it or not, professional athletes are role models to our youth. So, when it comes out that some of baseball’s greatest sluggers have become great with the help of steroids, then we are going to have a problem in youth sports.
At this year’s NFL winter meetings, they tightened the rules about end zone celebrations. Why did they do this? Because they were inundated by requests to do so by youth sport administrators. If T.O. premieres a new end zone stunt on Sunday, next week hundreds of future stars are going to try to perfect his technique. If a professional’s on-field antics are inappropriate how much more so is it when performed by a twelve-year-old? I remember when a player scored a touchdown his teammates ran to the end zone to celebrate together; together, as a team, which is how the touchdown happened in the first place, by the team.
If the professionals have lost the concept of team the trickle down to youth sports cannot be good.
As an author and speaker on youth sports issues, I am often asked what parents can do to make their child’s youth sport experience more fulfilling. I have one simple piece of advice that is, perhaps, the most important thing a parent can do:
Listen to your child.
They will tell you what they want. Surveys show quite clearly what the overwhelming number one reason kids give for wanting to play a sport:
Because it’s fun.
When parents say that what their child wants is a career in sports, I am skeptical. Does a prepubescent child really have any idea what kind of commitment it takes to reach a level of athletic excellence to be a professional or an Olympian? Emily Hughes started skating when she was three, and started working with the coach that took her to the Olympics when she was four. At what age would she have made a conscious decision to commit to athletic excellence? I have to ask:
Whose dream is it?
By the age of thirteen, 70% of youth sport players drop out. What would cause such an exodus? The number one reason they give is:
Because it’s not fun anymore.
Parents and coaches, do you see a pattern? When I coached soccer, I would give the kids the last ten or fifteen minutes of practice to just scrimmage. I felt that I could hold their attention longer because they would soon get to just play the game. If we would give our kids back a little of what they came out for, it would go a long way to reducing that 70% drop out rate.
When a parent asks what they can do to make their child’s youth sports experience more fulfilling, I have to wonder, fulfilling for whom? Do they mean for the child or for the parent? If they mean the child, then my advice is simple:
Let them have some fun.
Rooting out illegal steroids from the black market will not stop these girls from hating the way they look. We need to help them see themselves through a better self-image. If advertisers would stop beating them with the "thin is beautiful" message, and the rest of us would stop buying into it, our girls can start feeling good about who they are and how they look.
But, the battle has a new front. The cry has gone up proclaiming the "epidemic" of child obesity. Certainly there are health issues here that should be addressed, but this sudden outcry further reinforces the "thin is beautiful" message, further lowering the self-image of our girls.
Love your kids for who they are, not what you want them to be.
It is always a pleasure to meet other authors on the road and swap “war” stories. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Debra Galant, author of Rattled. Her novel is a humorous look at the exurban sprawl overtaking the farmlands of South Jersey. McMansions, which now grow like weeds throughout south Jersey’s farmland, are a crop that is often not compatible with the locals, human or animal. Protagonist, Heather Peters, picks out one of these oversized abodes, the one by the pond (Heather would just die if she didn’t get the one by the pond). Lawyer husband, stay-at-home Mom, and somewhat disturbed third-grader settle into their piece of paradise to live happily ever after. Well, that would be too boring and this very talented author would miss out on the joy of publication. Instead, Galant piles trouble after trouble on Heather’s eden, to the delight of readers. Heather has a rude awakening when she discovers that this perfect spot by the pond already has occupants: the dreaded timber rattlesnake. When the snake makes an unwelcome appearance on Heather’s stone patio (that she had extended by out-witting the evil developer), her perfect world begins to spiral out of control.
Galant’s prose is entertaining and easy to follow, but every once in a while I would stop dead with a “huh?” poised on my lips. If you encountered a five-foot poisonous snake on your new stone patio, would you ever set foot out back again? Well, Heather does, and that really doesn’t make sense. This was an enjoyable read with an interesting view of life here in south Jersey. Well done, Debra.
“It’s a social problem and I’d like to think this can get better but any steps the association have taken by suspending officials and handing out fines do not seem to be working,” according to Allan Archibald, secretary of the ERYFA.
Sports rage in youth sports is, truly, an international issue. Should it really matter to us if the incidents happen in Scotland or America? Australia or Somalia? It should. If they are experiencing the same behavior we are, then we can all learn from each other, and we should. How different is the father in Nebraska, who punched his son in the face four times for, apparently, striking out twice in his baseball game, and the father in France who drugged his children’s tennis opponents? They are both examples of obsession and the out-of-control desire to make their kids the best in their sport.
Could this happen in your town? It not only could, it may already be there.
In the case of the first boy, good for him, he went out and found out that football was not for him. He tried it and didn’t like it. So, he will not be playing this year based on his own experience: tried it, didn’t like it. Hopefully, this kid’s parents let him know that this is okay. And, hopefully, his self-image is still intact and he will go out and try something else that he may like a whole lot more.
The second boy didn’t stop playing because he didn’t like the game; he stopped because the coach took the fun away from the game. Apparently, this team won their league championship game last year. Did they win the championship because the coach made the team practice for two and a quarter hours every night? Maybe, but when the kids are no longer enjoying the game because of this rigorous practice schedule then these kids are paying too big a price for victory.
Remember my motto (?): “Give the kids back some of what they came out for in the first place.”
Youth sports studies consistently show that what kids want from the youth sports experience is to have some fun, and the number one reason 70% drop out by the age of thirteen is because it’s not fun anymore. Parents and coaches need to get this very loud and clear message from their kids. When I coached soccer, I would give the kids the last fifteen minutes of practice to just scrimmage. I think I had their attention longer because they knew that they would soon just get to play the game.
If you give the kids back a little of what they came out for in the first place, this will go a long way to reducing that drop out rate.
Is this a new phenomenon? No, recruiting has been around longer than I have (now, that’s old). What is new is the steady raising of the bar that keeps our kids out of school, or at least making their education secondary so they can effectively compete.
That is the true tragedy of the big business of college recruiting.
Well, the World Cup is over, and what an exciting tournament it has been, being capped off with the greatest controversy to ever hit the sport of soccer, plus one of the games greatest players ending his illustrious career with an ugly red card. “What world cup?” many Americans might ask. Over the past month the most common question I was asked, “Why do Americans not watch the World Cup?” There are many causes for American apathy toward soccer, but one smacked me right between the eyes:
Because they played the game.
When the World Cup was here in the US back in 1994 (do you remember that?), I was convinced that that generation of kids would be the ones to popularize soccer in the US. After all, they knew the game, the rules, and the skill it takes to move the ball up and down the field. Yet, that didn’t happen. Why not? It all made sense on paper.
Do you remember this statistic: 70% of youth sport participants dropout by the age of thirteen. Do you also remember the overwhelming reason they give for quitting? Yes, because it’s not fun anymore.
If kids are being burned out by such a young age it is no wonder that they are not watching the game as adults.
So, why do Americans shun the World Cup? Because they played the game.