"Baseball is 90% Mental; The Other Half is Physical"
Just in my lifetime, I have seen some evolution of children’s sports–and it concerns me.
When I was growing up on Memaw‘s farm, most kids in my school played sports. We lived in a small town and there wasn’t much else to do. Some of the kids got pretty good but everyone always played. In high school, each class had about 70 to 80 kids in it total, so the coaches didn’t really have a big pond to pick their fish. But most of the kids played football, basketball, wrestling, and baseball. Those were the biggest sports. We did not have soccer or track in our small town nor many girls’ sports.
Sports were played through the school or through the park district. Businesses would sponsor a team by giving them a few hundred dollars and buying them T-shirts or jerseys that advertised their company. If you played in school, then you wore the school jerseys and had the typical seasons. If you played for the Park District, they usually tried to make sure that the practices and games did not interfere with the school schedule so that people could play both if they wanted to. Sports was a way to keep kids interested in school, to keep them out of trouble, but it also taught them a lot of valuable life lessons like teamwork, cooperation, communication, being humble, and being a good winner or loser.
When my girls were growing up, we lived in the suburbs of Chicago and it wasn’t too much different. You played sports in the schools, the park district or you could do a private route. My girls didn’t play much sports so it was mostly the park district. They accepted everyone, everyone played, and it was just good clean fun. They played softball, a little lacrosse, and a little soccer. My youngest did get into competitive dance and that was done through a private dance studio. Dance turned into Poms in high school.
Once they graduated from high school, they didn’t play any sports. Even my youngest stopped dance. They were done but they made really good friends and even to this day they’re in their 20s and 30s and still keep in contact with some of their team teammates.
However, we did have to adjust to the competitiveness of being on a sport (I didn’t have that growing up), how serious the coaches were (you need to attend every practice and game), and how insane some of the parents were. But we adjusted and I still felt it was a good experience for my girls.
I went to lunch with a few of my younger coworkers the other day and their children are in upper middle school and high school. To hear them talk about what sports is like now blew my mind. They talked about how you have to be in the special leagues and traveling teams because if you’re not, you will not make the team at the school. It’s almost like a fact. Their children try out for these traveling teams, the parents pay a lot of money to be on these traveling teams, and the family travels for these teams all year long. Every weekend you are going to a different state, different cities, and it’s an all weekend event. The parents have to pay for traveling, a place to stay, and for all their child’s equipment. If your child makes the team that’s wonderful, but they may not be on the same team as their friends. Even if two friends made the team together they may not always stay on that team. The teams are reevaluated constantly so that the more elite players can stay on the more elite team. Just because your child and their friend made the team does not mean that they will stay on the same team throughout the year….what???
I’m not sure what this is teaching the kids, but I do see the effect that it has on the parents. They are frazzled. They are anxious, they are worried, and they are broke. They have no time for anything else, especially if there are siblings in the family.
Why has there been this change? Are more kids getting into college sports with full scholarships and then going onto professional sports? Absolutely not. It is still a very very low percentage of kids that can compete on full scholarship in college— about two percent.
What are the chances of your child playing professional sports? It is .00056%. Let’s put that into perspective. First, how many children do you know personally play professional sports? I’m willing to bet zero to less than 2-3 at the most. Second, how many people do you know that have won $50,000 or more playing Powerball lottery? Because the odds are very similar to your child playing professional sports (.00010%). Hopefully, these are some sobering statistics.
So why is it so competitive for kids at a young age when the odds are so against them making this into a career? The answer is capitalism. What is happening? Investment groups and businesses have bought these leagues and clubs. Then they have parents pay for their children to be on these elite leagues and clubs. But how else do they make their money? Well, one of the ways is that if your child is in this club organization, you cannot film their playing or their game. The business that owns it also owns the rights. They have cameras set up to film the game or match and then you pay a monthly subscription of like 30 bucks a month to be able to stream the game and to be able to record it. If you record the game yourself and are caught, then that affects your child’s standings in the club. No, seriously, that is the punishment. Your child will be punished by being taken off the elite teams because you filmed the game!
Gone are the days of local businesses just paying for the jerseys. Now, it is investment groups who want to actually make money (not just get their investment back) for your child to play in their league.
Now, looking at all of this, the easiest answer for me would be just not to have my children compete in these leagues or or clubs. But that’s not as easy as it sounds. For one thing, as a parent, you always want to give your child all the advantages in life as you can. If your child really wants to play baseball, then you will do everything you can so that they can play baseball. They will not make the high school baseball team because they’re not in this traveling club, so you’re gonna put them in the traveling club. If that’s what they really want. Also, the kids get pressure from their friends. All of their friends are in these leagues and organizations and they want to be with their friends. It is very hard as a parent to argue with that. You always worry about your child’s socialization and you want them to be able to be with their friends as much as possible. Finally, another reason that probably no parent will admit is that they do secretly hope that their child will become that 1% of 1% of 1% that actually plays in the pros. I do have to say that I do know of two kids. One went to school with my oldest–they were in the same grade. He played soccer forever and then the football team recruited him as a kicker. Jake Elliott has been the kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles, a professional football team, since 2017. We also have a neighborhood boy who went the very elite route, especially during Covid. His sister was friends with my youngest. JJ McCarthy is now the quarterback for the New York Giants.
Yes, there is a chance that your child could go professional. I don’t know the true route of both of these kids that I just mentioned, but I’m sure that their parents put them in the clubs and the leagues so that they could be elite and get into college with that full ride. Then, eventually, played the professional sports and I bet those parents don’t regret one day of all of that.
I do wish for the simpler times, of just playing sports and enjoying it. But that is not the society we live in now. Luckily, my kids are grown so I don’t have to make these decisions. And I feel very sorry for parents nowadays and parents in the future that have to decide what is best for their child–to play in the clubs and leagues or not to play sports at all. I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what we would have done.
Blog Website: https://www.lifelessonsfrommemaw.com/
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