Last week I shared out the article that I contributed to in Today’s Parents Summer Edition, “What rep sports are really doing to kids” that was written by Courtey Shea and digital edition was released on Aug. 10th.

I thought it would be good to share some insight on how the article came to fruition and some of the key takeaways that I thought Courteney did a great job highlighting.

The title itself resonated with me, but as you will note I added: “winning at all costs” to the title of this weeks post as it is that tipping point that is taking the rep or recreational youth sports experience away from kids where it belongs.

Courteney references the terms “professionalism, adultification, specialization” going hand in hand with competitive (rep) sports which is something that I started to see with both my kids that played in the rep streams in Hockey and Softball which completely differed from my rep or club experience in several sports I played.  Then it was all about the spirit of the competition, playing with players of like skill level and truly loving what you played, now it is adults competing with other adults thru kids.

This is why the likes of the example she cited to start the article, the U8 AAA baseball team that had 70 kids try out and 58 were released after three days of tryouts.

Really?

Shouldn’t 7-year-old still be playing T-Ball per Baseball Canada’s LTAD model?  Then learn to play in Tadpole 8-9 years old with a pitching machine for 1/2 the games, then allowing the kids to pitch with rotating pitchers adhering to max pitch counts with age-appropriate throwing distances thereafter?

Last summer the co-op student that worked with me was one of those AAA caliber baseball players going back to his early childhood, he said the hardest thing that he had to deal with early on was when he was the last release of the Little League World Series team when he was 12 years old.  This year, the Whalley Little League program has qualified to represent Canada, a program that I know several kids have moved to for optimal skills and overall development.  What many don’t know, is Whalley is the equivalent of New York’s Harlem, it is had the long-term reputation as not being the greatest place to live or work, but year after year their baseball program field very competitive teams.

Even the parent coach of the Leaside Leafs, Jesse Harrison, is quoted:

In terms of my contributions, a couple of clarification points I would like to share;

1. The reference to Jordan Spieth was a disconnect with myself and Courteney as the interview and subsequent verification coordinator was months back, Jordan did not focus on golf until he graduated from high school, 18 years old, vs. when he entered (at 13).  When he was 12 (grade 6) he told his parents he wanted to focus on golf and they refused as both were multi-sport athletes and knew the benefits, so he continued to play golf in addition to football (fall), basketball (winter), baseball (summer) each year.  Football he was a quarterback, Baseball he was a pitcher and basketball he was the point guard, the most skilled positions in the respective sports.

The reason Jordan Speith became the 23 Million Man at 22 years old is that is is an amazing ATHLETE, not just a great golfer who won the Fedex Cup and at one point ranked #1 golfer in the world.

2.  In terms of the introduction to my background, yes, I played football, in fact I played on a team that won provincials (equivalent to state) while playing receiver/running back, cornerback and on all special teams so I rarely was off the field, but I also won provincials in Hockey, a Gold Medal in Rugby, tournaments in baseball, basketball on the various organized teams I played for.  I also self-taught myself to golf, ski, was a member of first aid ski patrol for a few years and numerous other free play activities like biking, running, fishing, beach volleyball, tackle frisbee, British bulldog and so on.

Like Jordan, I was a good overall athlete, and even though I focused on sports in my late teens, I chose two, Football in the fall, Rugby in the Spring and played both into my 20’s until knee injuries and concussions took their toll (albeit the concussions were not from sports, is another story in itself)

This is why I am such an advocate for multi-sport participation, kids should sample as many sports and activities as you can in their youth from 5 to late teens (16-17 yrs old) before they choose the sport THEY LOVE.

Specializing in one sport before that make it work, leads to overuse injuries, and more often than not will lead to hanging up those skates, cleats, shoes or what have you for good vs. being active well beyond high school.

” I would really like to stress the fact that multi-sport athleticism is critical for the development of the child”

It is really difficult when writers, journalists, news anchors reach out to tell the whole story, especially when they are reaching out to numerous others but I thought Courteney nailed it out of the park to give insight to parents of young children to promote being active in as many sports as possible and buck the current trends of specializing too early.

The proof is in the pudding in terms of paybacks if you aspire for your son or daughter to play at the highest level possible, to do so, they must be the best ATHLETE possible, not the best hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball player.

Every high-level coach that I know from AAA youth sports to professional, collegiate will tell you the same thing, they recruit great athletes who are great people with GREAT PARENTS (not the vocal minority who are acting up in the stands).  Kids that specialize early are also deprived from being normal kids sampling not only various sports but music, drama, art, dance, literature and learning various group dynamics by being on multiple sports teams with different coaches, players, parents etc.

So as I end every talk that I do when I am talking about specialization;

Do you know what you are going to do in life?

Most of us don’t figure it out until we are in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s IF we ever do.

How then can you be the adult either recommending or accepting the recommendation from another to tell a 7-year-old kid they are going to specialize in one sport over 9 months of the year, in most cases 12 months of the year?

Deprive them of a normal childhood of just being a kid, trying as many things as possible before they find what they LOVE later in life.

Please don’t cave into the marketing, recruitment policies and buck the trends.

Say NO to Early Sport Specialization.

Rep sports are not supposed to be year-round sports, the term rep means they are teams to represent their communities to compete with teams in other communities to permit players of like skill, whether it be A, AA, AAA level.

I also could not agree more with Jesse’s quote, we really need to eliminate the word elite when it comes to referencing KIDS.

Elite should only be referenced for Olympians or Accomplished Professional athletes.

Other than that, they are just early bloomers or just good overall athletes continuing to work on their craft.

Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.