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Why do we have so many levels of competition in youth sports?
I have been slowly (emphasis on slowly) working on my e-book and was just putting the finishing touches to the chapter pertaining to what I have witnessed in terms of youth sports competition over the last 15 years.
When both my kids started (Fundamental stage 4-7 yrs old), like it is for every other kid, organized sports are a supervised version of free play, as coaches we merely try to teach some core fundamental movement skills, and encourage them to have fun so they hopefully come back the following season to continue building on their skills.
Where I saw the most significant change for both girls softball/fastpitch and Hockey was when my kids went from U9 age groups to U11. As literally every province calls these age groups differently, felt best to focus on age groups specifically.
In Softball, as girls were a couple of years ahead of the maturity curve as the boys, the prepubescent girls starting to throw faster, run harder and hit father and develop many of the core skills that the boys I coached at same ages a few years later in baseball.
In hockey, boys were still acting like, well, boys. Goofing off, not paying attention at times and really not being serious, especially when they were in practices.
What I did find was common between the two different sports, was how serious the parents took the games. In Softball, some coaches and their parent groups we played against took games to a level if we were playing at Rigley Field the year the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.
In Hockey, while on the bench during games I would quite often sneak a peek of the parents (particularly those I had been warned about tended to act up) and how vocal they were, in many instances was positive, but almost the same amount was negative.
Why did their behaviour change so drastically from the first few years? Both hockey and softball U11 age groups became competitive with the introduction of banners or medals in tournaments. They had score and time keepers who tended the scoresheets, managers were responsible for inputting the data post games and in hockey not only could the managers and coaches access team records, so could parents.
I remember a parent coming to me when I was coaching Atom for the first year in hockey near the end of league play and he shared with me what we had to do in order to win a banner and how much help we would need from other teams. It was like the end of a NFL football season when it came down to the wire and one team had to win, another had to lose or tie, and three others had to be spoilers and so on…..
His son was 9 years old! Gone are the days where 9 year olds just went to the pond or an outdoor rink and played for hours on end.
I came to realize early on in coaching youth sports that it was nothing like it was when I played, even when I was playing competitive levels of hockey, football, baseball my mother NEVER talked to coaches, she merely sat in the stands, clapped, and cheered me or my brother as well as our teams on. Sometimes she would even take it over the top and cheer on the other teams as well which I would have to reminder her that we were playing competitive level.
Her response was always something like … “I cheer for the sport, the great plays and for you ALL to have fun when you play because that is all that is important. Yes, it is nice to see you or Mike (my brother) win games, tournaments, but what makes me so happy is when I see you come off the field, rink with a big smile on your face.”
My mother truly was my biggest fan, as she was for my kids and each game she would share with us how much she loved watching us play.
Fast forward 25 years and my kids youth sport experience has been filled with winning at all costs focus, coaches running short benches, the adults (coaches, parents, at times board members) screaming at kids for making mistakes in games or practices and the huge push for the Holy Grail, the NCAA Scholarship or playing professionally.
I don’t recall rep or highly competitive teams existing until I was in high school, 13 years and up, prior to that we all just played sports, either for our communities, schools or good old free play (or in my case all 3). Depending on the sport, community teams or high school may be stronger. I remember my high school football team was very weak, but our community team was the reverse, our core group played in two provincial championships, winning the first in the snow, and getting to the final in the second to lose to our arch rivals, the adjacent community football association to ours.
Now there are various levels of club, academy, A, AA, AAA, Silver, Gold, Varsity, Prep, Select, minor, major and even “Elite” references for kids teams starting as early as 6 years old?
Parents, let me go on record, there is no such thing as an elite 6, 8, 10 or 12 year old, elite is when you represent your country at an international event like the Olympics, playing professionally, until then kids (incl. teens) are just an early bloomer, or the leaders of the beehive (with all the others chasing them with the ball, puck).
I know I even got caught up in the insanity aspiring for my kids both to play at the highest level, but as a coach it blows my mind how many levels exist raising the bar for intense competition being introduced earlier and earlier.
When then, is it appropriate to introduce competition (keeping track of the score) in youth sports where we track the outcomes of the games? (for the parents, coach’s sakes, not the kids sakes)?
If you ask any kid what the score is in a game, they will tell you, they also keep track of assists, goals, know who the top players are and those that will be the last picked if they formed their own teams.
Why then do we make such a big deal of all the levels for YOUTH sports?
Because parents want to be able to brag that their 7 year old son Johnny is playing AAA Dominoes, or Suzy is the #1 ranked player U8 for Hopscotch in the state. They also will share that it is costing thousands of dollars for them to do so.
Really?
This is what it is leading to, check out the trailer of “the Costs of Winning”, from our colleagues at Personal Sport Record, we need to figure out a better model to introduce progressive levels of competition vs. what has become winning at all costs so all kids have an opportunity to sample as many sports as possible until their early teens.
Otherwise, they will just become one of the 70% that will quit before they get to high school.
Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.
