Playing for Fun

As I walked out of my dorm today at the University of Notre Dame, I saw a group of about 40 students running around on south quad. I stopped because they were not playing any ordinary sport. They had 3 balls in one game and they were using them for different purposes. One player from each team was holding a ball and they were pegging them at the players of the opposing team whenever that player picked up the remaining ball. As I watched a while longer, I saw that the remaining ball was being thrown into hula hoops that were on top of long posts at the end line of each side of the field. I had no idea what game they were playing until the following happened. All of the sudden, as I was watching the field, I turned around and there was a kid from our track team dressed in all gold, wearing wings, and running full speed passed me while being chased by a player from each one of the teams on the field. I now understood that they had made a fictional wizard game into reality. My fellow classmates put together a non-flying game of Quiditch from Harry Potter!
I am writing about this strange, but yet interesting scene today not because of what it was, but because of how much fun my classmates were having with this game. At that moment, I came to the realization that all the games that have been made up in the past were for the pure purpose of enjoyment and I think a lot of coaches and parents can forget that in today’s society. Many parents are caught up in getting their child that D1 scholarship or that professional contract that they forget the whole reason for playing the game in the first place; to have fun!
Many parents do not understand the statistics behind their child’s chances of “making it” as time goes on. The percentage of high school varsity athletes that receive a scholarship to play a D1 sport in college is 4.9% and the percentage of D1 athletes that go on to play a professional sport is even lower at 3.2%. I am not spitting out this data because I want to crush any dreams, I just believe that it is more important to focus on developing our child’s and our player’s morals and values than to focus on making a player or child into the next Lebron James or Peyton Manning. We, as parents and coaches, have more control over developing our child’s moral development than we do over their athletic ability and I think that in the long run, their moral development will get them a lot further than their athletic ability. Aside from the fact that a child going on to play a D1 or professional sport is a long shot, it also can sideline the morals and values that sports potentially can teach these kids. Many coaches and parents argue that if a player is having fun, then they will not be competitive. This could not be further from the truth, especially in youth sports. Studies have proven that when players in youth sports stop enjoying themselves, they are less likely to want to continue playing. When coaches or parents take the fun out of playing for the children, it will cause the children to react in opposite ways of what the sport and the parent actually intends to do.
So what I am trying to say is that as coaches and parents, we should take a step back and look at what we are teaching our children and players. If we cannot honestly say that the most important thing for our players or children is to have fun, then it is time to reevaluate our reason for coaching or supporting our children in that sport.
Brandon Porras
University of Notre Dame
Senior Class of 2011