Reality Check
July 29, 2016
In Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, “all the children are above average.” The greater fiction is that most parents believe their children are way above average, especially when it comes to sports. On that topic most parents are badly in need of a reality check.
A colleague at the MHSAA showed me a letter from the CEO of the Amateur Athletic Union to my colleague’s eight-year-old daughter announcing that she had been selected for a national publication that would identify the brightest future stars of women’s basketball, for a fee of course. A scam certainly; but how many other people might be taken in by this, or contribute to it “just in case” because they wouldn’t want to do anything to discourage their child’s ascension to stardom?
The MHSAA’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation has identified delusional parents as one of the greatest contributors to athletic specialization that is too early and intense, forcing some children out of sports too soon and leading them toward a life of inactivity and obesity, while leading the chosen youth toward overuse injuries that can be equally damaging to adult fitness.
This task force is developing strategies to help inform parents of elementary children that their children will almost certainly not participate in either college or professional sports but, with adequate attention to physical fitness, nutrition and sports sampling, most children can be involved in interscholastic athletics and remain active and fit for life after high school.
Among several task force strategies are a “Reality Check” video for parent meetings and printed pieces on “What Parents Should Know” with units by medical personnel, physical educators and coaches.
These efforts won’t change the world. They are, however, a small part of what we can do, have an obligation to do and will do to promote the health and safety of this and the next generation of young people.
Late to the Game
November 8, 2016
The Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation has learned that school sports are in competition versus non-school youth sports, not only programmatically but also and more fundamentally, philosophically. School sports sees child development quite differently and has as its mission developing the whole child.
Non-school youth sports business interests have convinced consumers (that’s parents) that early and intense specialization with private lessons and personal trainers, and lots of travel and tournaments is necessary for a child’s athletic interests and ultimate happiness. That is sometimes true ... once in a very great while.
What is much more often true is that specialization in a sport that is too early and too intense stunts a young person’s physical literacy, which often leads to less well-rounded athletic ability, a more sedentary lifestyle and poorer health in later life.
The theme of the Task Force recommendations to the MHSAA so far is that we have to reach youth and their parents earlier in life if we hope to compete for their hearts and minds.
When 80 percent of youth drop out of organized sports by the age of 13 – usually because they have been left out or become burned out – we’ve missed the kickoff if we start talking to them in 9th grade about the benefits of multi-sport participation and the school sport experience. In fact, the game is more than half over by then and our messages fall on deaf ears. We are absolutely correct with our message but appear out of step and out of touch to those who have only heard the sports specialization speech from youth coaches and their commercial interests.