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Elite Soccer?

August 5, 2014

Every four years, the Winter Olympics brings obscure cold-weather sports to American homes; and a few months after that, the World Cup brings the world’s most popular game to the American conscience and conversation.
Predictably, those who don’t understand or don’t like soccer ridiculed the sport, while the sport’s devotees ignored ugly blemishes on the face of the “beautiful game.”
It’s my hope that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or who aspire to, saw the spacing, the strategy and the one-on-one skills of soccer at its highest level on its biggest stage. It really is beautiful!
But I wish even more that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or hope to, will ignore the feigning and the flopping. Grown, athletic men seemed to be tripped up by the slightest push or pull, and then tumbled with comical force, and then trembled dramatically as they held their head or gripped an ankle with both hands.
Oh, there were times when the shoves were real and forceful and the injuries were real and painful; but the vast majority of the players who fell were faking both incident and injury.
At times last month I thought I was watching World Wrestling Federation actors, not World Cup athletes. And in that regard, I prefer our high school version of the world’s highest profile sport.

Culture Wars

January 24, 2017

Our purpose in school sports is to help develop the whole child. That’s why we do not advocate that sports consume a child’s whole life.

We recognize that it’s not good to get too much of a good thing. Too many hours devoted to sports and too many months devoted to the same sport can lead to a life that is out of balance and unhealthy.

Unfortunately, every restriction we impose to protect children from such risks and to promote their good health is exploited by others. For example, by non-school club coaches that covet our kids. And by almost every convention and visitors bureau in the country that is sponsoring sports events to boost their local economy.

While we talk of balanced participation and a long-term approach that leads to a lifetime of physical activity, better health and reduced medical expenses, we are out-shouted by a culture that does not have the whole child in mind. Our frame of reference is helping to raise a healthy human being, which is challenged by a culture that is more intent on raising revenue from the athletic dreams and fantasies of children and their parents.