Youth Sports

With Little Leagues around the nation fully under way and Saturday soccer leagues getting rolling, I think it's important to take a look at the state of youth sports. Back in the day, I remember dads coaching their kid's team. Some of them took it more seriously than others. But what I don't remember is having a ton of teams and an endless supply of leagues for various sports almost year-round. Today there are far less kids who have leadership skills. They expect things to be done for them. In sports, it is rare to see as many leaders on the playing surface as there used to be. Some think this is because so many leagues are set up so gets only get to play. Remember when kids used to get together at the park and pick teams, or they'd have certain rules that only applied to the specific field they were playing on. "If you catch it before the bush it counts, but if you catch it after the bush, it's a redo." Or the rule about playing a fly ball out of the trees or off the roof. That always caused controversy when playing in the next hood over. What I'm saying is, we need to give kids the ability to make up rules like that on their own and they enforce them, not an official/referee, not a parent, but a kid. This teaches the kid to play fair and to stand up for themselves. Sure it's neat to step onto a basketball floor in 4th grade with a jersey, glowing scoreboard, and referees, but that sort of thing can wait. Right now we are forcing kids to grow up to fast athletically. Read this next part carefully. People always say they don't want their kid to specialize in anything at a young age. So instead of just letting them play during the season, they involve the kids equally in as many sports as possible so they are still doing something in the summer with regard to their sport, but they're not specializing in one because they're in 2, 3, or even 4 sports in the summer. Coaches go too far sometimes with regard to their expectations for summer workouts. They want high school kids to be in 2 leagues during the week as well as numerous weekend tournaments.

Wow, got a little off track there.

Let's get back to youth sports, 8th grade and under. Let kids be kids. Don't give them so many leagues to play in. Allow them to become leaders, allow them to have to deal with adversity during the games in the yard, or driveway, or park, allow them to just have fun. Save all the razzle dazzle stuff until they're in high school.

Sorry for the boredom.