Sports can be a valuable developmental tool for youth. Many young people today in the US and all over the world participate in sports. Of course, it has physical health benefits.
It gets our young people off the couch, out of the house, and engaging in physical activity. In the long run, it can do many positive things, including mitigating insurance costs and health care costs over the long term.
Self Esteem Building
Beyond all that, it does a lot more. It does something within the individual themselves, perhaps building self-esteem. Also, teaching what it’s like to be part of something bigger than yourself. Particularly in team sports, that comes through loud and clear.
There are many ways in which sports can play a key role in youth development. However, it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes parents can be overzealous, and essentially hijack the sport from their child, which changes the context.
Parents can become obsessed with the possibility of their kid becoming a star athlete in their community, or in college, and maybe one day professionally. But the chance of that kid making it all the way to the professional level is probably lower than 1% for most sports.
So what is the product of these parents putting so much pressure on their kids to perform for such an unrealistic goal? We see kids losing interest in the sport before they even get to middle school, certainly before they get to high school.
Participation Dropping
Participation rates are dropping because there’s so much focus on those few star performers. Then, even with that pool of star performers, how many of them are going to make it? Not a lot.
We have this system that tells kids at an early age to focus on one sport, whether it’s baseball, basketball, or football, to make sure they’re good enough when it comes time to play at the professional level if they ever actually get there.
Then what happens? They end up hurting themselves before they even get to a serious level, before they even get to high school. They blow out their shoulder by pitching too much. They’ve had too many cumulative concussions by getting hit repeatedly on the football field, or they burn out emotionally.
Sports Management Should Put the Focus Back on Kids Having Fun
It’s not fun anymore. What happens to kids when the fun is taken out of this forum that’s designed for their emotional growth and for their social world? They abandon it. They don’t want to do it anymore.
We need to make sure we can take the power away from parents and give it back to the kids. We need to ask, “What is this about”? It’s about the kids. It’s not about your dreams, mom and dad, which are unrealistic and unfair.
