Fun Factors
June 3, 2016
It is well documented that the No. 1 reason youth from age 6 through high school participate in sports is to have fun. Fun is the outcome they seek most. But what does fun mean to them?
That was the question on my mind as I read the work of George Washington University, Boston College and Georgia Southern University researchers in a paper published in March of 2015 in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health, and as I tried to understand their “four fundamental tenets of fun in youth soccer within 11 fun-dimensions composed of 81 specific fun-determinants.” Eighty-one? I guess my question isn’t so simple to answer.
But, with one-third of youth sports participants dropping out of organized sports participation each year (and as many as 70 percent dropping out by age 13), it’s important we look for answers.
The researchers have developed a “Fun Map” that allows them to see young soccer players’ responses in clusters. They have discovered “social” aspects of participation – for example, team friendships and team rituals – received significantly more favorable responses from the athletes than other aspects.
Top-rated determinants tend to be ...
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Hanging out with teammates outside of practice or games.
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Having a group of friends outside of school.
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Carpooling with teammates to practices and games.
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Going out to eat as a team.
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End of season/team parties.
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Meeting new people.
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Being a part of the same team year after year.
One of the lead researchers has said independent of this paper that the responses of parents and coaches differ – that their “Fun Maps” don’t match the young players’ – which concerns the researchers, and requires attention by youth sports leaders.
Transfer Culture
March 14, 2017
It is rare when a problem of major college athletics doesn’t eventually become a pollutant of high school athletics. A current issue demonstrates the point.
In 2015, NCAA research reported that about 40 percent of Division I men’s basketball players who had entered an NCAA institution directly from high school as freshmen had departed that institution by the end of their sophomore year.
Approximately 44 percent of the transfers were to other Division I programs, 33 percent to Division II programs, one percent to Division III, and 23 percent to non-NCAA colleges. Nearly 90 percent of all transfers said they changed schools for athletic reasons.
At the 2016 Men’s Final Four, NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the issue of transfers is one of the most hotly debated in NCAA men’s basketball and football.
The culture that contributes to this is created in youth programs, starting even before students reach high school. There are no rules that govern players’ change from one non-school team to another, year after year. Players, parents and handlers talk with each other about where players can find the coach or team that will give them the best shot for a college scholarship or to fulfill their dreams of a professional career; and they will drive any distance from their homes to connect with that non-school team or coach.
This culture has infected high school sports, as witnessed by what appears to be increasing numbers of students who change schools for reasons more related to their non-school contacts and their college dreams than their high school experience, either athletic or academic.
These pressures will only increase under the current model of major college sports that treats superior athletes as if they were superior human beings and lavishes publicity and perks upon them. Until the major college sports experience is disincentivised, those colleges will have transfer troubles. And so will we.