Psychology Of Sports

Youth Sport Directed Syndrome

There have been so many changes in the field of youth sport that not only would it be hard to list them it seems impossible to determine the long range effects of these changes. But the short range effects do not look to good.
Today the youth of our nation is so over-coached and directed by adults one has to wonder how our children can think at all.

Gone are the playgrounds and parks where kids worked out their differences between themselves. Gone are the pick-up games where children refereed their own games and decided if a ball was fair or foul and made their own lineups. Can you imagine?

Given the current state of youth-directed sport I cannot imagine how we ever chose up sides and played so many sports and games without adult assistance or direction.

What is perplexing about the whole thing is that for the most part it is the baby-boomer generation who played so freely and creatively who ushered in the “youth sport adult directed syndrome” we have today.

How did we get here?  The exodus to the suburbs surely had something to do with it. I think the economic affluence of this generation also had something to  do with it. Children of today have so many more things than the baby-boomer generation. Perhaps it can be blamed on technology.  Let’s face it you do not have to go to far today to be connected to another human being. If you are  reading this then you are connected, or at least have the capacity to be connected.

How does the mindset of a free thinking generation create a generation that appears to be less active, less productive in creating new and different games to play? I am not sure. 

When you read the quotes below you have to wonder what planet Roger Clemens is living on. You take a job and with that job goes intense media scrutiny and then you want to carve out the pieces that only you want to do. I see this all the time in all professions. People take jobs and are told the job description, in Clemens’ case they literally see the job description, and then they choose the parts they like to do. In theory sounds good. In reality–another planet. No one is saying that a professional athlete has to like the media scrutiny and all that goes with it—but it is part of their jobs. Simple as that.

Funny, Clemens decided to press the issue with the public and Congress. It was his choice–now he wants all the eyes that are on him to go away?  I certainly can understand that, who wants it? He brought a good deal of it on himself. 

No wonder people think some athletes are pampered and spoiled. Nah they are just human.

From Newsday–Ken Davidoff

Roger Clemens ignored reporters when asked Wednesday afternoon about the news that Congress had asked the Justice Department to investigate him on perjury changes.

“Guys, the big team is up that way,” he said, pointing to where the major league team was working out.

Clemens arrived at Astros camp at 10:45 Wednesday morning, smiling, ready to resume his “personal-services” work for the Astros.

There’s a big-league team to the right, I think,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

“Wow,” Clemens contined, “you guys need to get a life.”

Asked if he would take questions after throwing batting practice to minor leaguers, Clemens said, “Nope. I did all I’m gonna do (Monday).”

From The New York Times–William C. Rhoden

In the bizarre, Alice-in-Wonderland world of the N.C.A.A., where up is often down, athletes are told that they are “regular students” but are treated as anything but. They are commodities who facilitate a semiprofessional on-campus entertainment industry. Through lucrative television contracts and sponsor partnerships, football and basketball finance the N.C.A.A. headquarters and an enforcement staff that polices overzealous coaches and keeps players in their place.

Nothing that we do not know—just something that we do not want to acknowledge.  Both football and basketball do not have minor leagues systems like baseball.  Their (football and basketball) minor league system is college. And right behind it high school. 

Highlands Ranch, a 9-year-old boy has special tutors in baseball, basketball and football and a certified athletic trainer who videotapes his workouts. In Bradenton, Fla., a Broomfield teenager practices basketball five hours a day at a sports factory that produces pro and Olympic stars.In Littleton, two dozen youngsters start the school day with a 90-minute soccer class, part of the experimental curriculum at Jefferson County’s first charter school.In Thornton, a mother downloads the computerized results of a novel test that has measured her daughter’s potential in 43 sports. And in Monument, a father writes a $2,500 check to a company that will scour the nation for a college scholarship for his daughter.Welcome to the high-tech, hypercompetitive world of children’s sports, a bustling subculture where time-starved parents chauffeur their booked-up children from one activity to another, spend thousands of dollars a year chasing often elusive dreams and sacrifice their own social lives for child’s play.

The Above is From The Rocky Mountain News– From The Year 2000.

Not much has changed from seven years ago in fact things have probably ramped up a bit.  I have been to so many places that give private baseball lessons, watched thousands of kids getting lessons, been told by hundreds of parents that their kids are taking lessons, that if I had a dollar for all of these my fortune with rival Bloomberg’s.  Actually I am a proponent of kids taking lessons for a number of reasons which I will address in another posting.

Along with the lessons high school sports has also been a growing industry. I like to call it an introduction to professional sports at the high school level.  You have kids coming home from practices and games at midnight.  I have found this is not a good time for a kid to do his homework, or study. But it is what it is-and once again it is what we have created.  It is bigger than what I can control and effect so I try and navigate it. 

It is no mistake that kids drop out of sports at age 13 and from what I see and read obesity is on the rise.  Now there are many more reasons for this drop-out rate and the scale going up other than the ones listed above.  But make no mistake about it, when you need to take lessons, try out for highly competitive school teams and pay huge sums to play on travel teams that go to Australia it can be daunting for parents and kids alike. And the  funny part about it, it is that after you pay you are not guaranteed that your child will play.

We need to have a strong two tiered system. There is nothing the matter with having serious competitive teams in youth sport, it is just at what age and when. However, we need places where kids can play well into their teens without having to be on a team. Schools need to stay open in the evenings and offer this for the kids. Towns need to have strong intra-mural programs that cater to the recreational athlete and we need to make our playgrounds places for kids to meet and play games.  This is just the beginning of an overhaul that is needed in the system.

I woke up this morning and strangely have the same feeling–that Big Blue is going to win. I have had it all week. I think that feeling is going to dissapear once the game starts and I see the Patriots going down the field. I have been speaking to people all week, the Patriots are going to have to play very poorly and the Giants are going to have to minimize their mistakes. Actually, if you look at turnovers-penalties and such it is obvious that you do not want to have them as we have been told over and over. I think more importantly is when and how you made the turnover–error and what happens from there that counts. These factors affect the teams psychologically and emotionally. At times you can feel the air go out of a team though the television set. Just as it does through you.

I think the players did a great job this week. The media was at an all time high. While it is part of the players job to answer questions imagine how you feel when your child or parent asks you the same question over and over and over…… Not only that your every word is being recorded, written or typed. Think about how well you would do. We all see on reality TV what happes when they bring cameras into a home. Think about it. You say it is part of their job, it is.  Well whatever you are doing is part of your job.

Finally, what do you expect players to say when asked if they are going to win? If the players on either team do not believe they have a chance to win–or at least feel prepared to win–then they should not be playing the game.