Johnny is
an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up playing basketball, soccer, and
football for his grade school. Johnny’s sport experience thus far equates to playing with his classmates, who
are now some of his best buds. He has always been talented at all three sports
and enjoys playing them all, but he has recently grown to be a definite stand
out on the soccer field. Together with his teammates, Johnny has even led the
Perry Panthers to a few championships.
Seeing
that Johnny could be a special player, Johnny’s parents learn of Elite, a club soccer
program an hour from their home, which works with the most talented soccer
players in the area and exposes them to other competitive clubs across the
state at weekend tournaments. Johnny makes the team, and thus
begins Johnny’s transition from “school athlete” to “club athlete.” Elite holds
two practices a week, in addition to speed and agility training on Fridays and foot
skills on Mondays. Weekends are spent at tournaments across the state filled
with back-to-back games, usually 4-6 per weekend. The huge time commitment
forces Johnny to quit football and basketball, his other two sports.
Johnny’s
situation is all too familiar in the world of youth sports, and demonstrates the conflict of work versus play, and how this is both amplified and
complicated by the popular trend of quitting school-sponsored sports and
joining AAU or Club teams. At increasingly younger ages, kids are being
convinced to move from playing for their school teams to playing for elite
clubs that consist of rigorous, demanding schedules for both the athlete and
his or her family.
What are
the implications of this transition? What will happen to Johnny as he leaves
his school teams to compete for Elite? It is a common situation that young
athletes, particularly at the 4th or 5th grade level, are
forced to choose between multiple sports due to the demanding schedules of one club
team. Johnny was forced to quit
playing football and basketball, sports that he also loved. He plays soccer 6
days of the week, sometimes all 7, and his parents spend the majority of their
evenings (and practically all of their weekends) shuttling him to practices,
conditioning, and games. How does this end?
Well for a
few of the young club athletes, and some would even argue many, they will end
up becoming solid high school athletes and maybe even be offered college
scholarships. Even at the youth level, there are exposure tournaments that
college scouts attend. I would argue that an athlete is definitely able to have
a great high school career or even receive a scholarship without having played
a club sport, but there is definitely something to be said for the higher level
of competition and level of play of youth club sports that may increase the
chances.
However,
realistically, most of these young club athletes will not even go on to have
great high-school careers. In fact, many, having had five or more years of
playing a club sport, begin to grow sick of it and even end up hating the
sport. Many quit playing the sport entirely before they even begin their freshman
year.
The point
I am trying to make, however, is not that club sports should be eliminated
entirely. Done correctly, as I believe my experience was, you could maintain a
healthy relationship with a sport on a club team. And it is true that an
athlete can be just as apt to quit a sport having only played on school-sponsored
teams. Instead, I am interested in answering, what is the point of youth sports at the grade school/middle school
level? What is the meaning of sports at this age?
I believe
a large part of this answer comes in discussing the difference between work and play.
Kids need
to play. Besides psychological/developmental benefits, some of the best
childhood memories are formed around play. Play, as Giamatti describes it, is
“leisure, that is so important…because it is a form of freedom and is about
making free choices” (22). It is a space
that kids can create to assert their agency, not because they are told, but
because they want to. In contrast, Giamatti describes work as such: “Work is
partner to duty, and brother to obligation. Work is the burden we assume, not
the one we choose” (19). For kids who eventually quit his or her sport after
years of rigorous club seasons, did the sport become a “burden” he or she
“assumed”?
At the
youth level, I would argue that many AAU and club teams promote the idea of
sports as work. Think how scheduled
Johnny’s life has become: he wakes up, goes to school, goes to practice,
sleeps. And repeat. Add in games, conditioning, early morning foot skills, and
he barely has time for anything else. Physically, Johnny often feels burnt out, and the
amount he is playing puts him at a larger risk for injury. His coach seems to be more focused
on results then fostering life lessons and camaraderie. He begins to miss his
school buddies and winning school championships.
On the
flip side, though there are exceptions to every case, I think that school-sponsored teams do a better job at keeping the importance of play in youth sports. There is something
special about being able to wear your school jersey. There is something special
about playing in your own school gym, changing in your own school locker-room,
seeing friends and classmates at your games. With coaching, I have found that
in my own experience, my youth coaches tended to integrate our practices with
fun drills and positive life lessons. While winning is important, it was more
about creating memories with your best friends. School-sponsored teams at the
youth level ideally keep the player’s relationship with the sport a healthy one
by maintaining that you are a student-athlete, and school priorities come
first. Thus, the sport becomes an outlet for physical escape and a privilege,
not a duty or an obligation.
And here
is where I would like to thank my parents for encouraging me to play for my
school all the way through. The memories I have playing
in my school gym and goofing
off with my teammates and classmates are unmatched. Although I did play AAU
basketball and club soccer here and there, it was kept at a healthy amount that
never once made me dislike my sport. I think this is a very large part of why I
played 3 Varsity sports all 4 years of high school, whereas I found most of
my club friends quitting early in their high-school years.
Why should
parents want their children to play sports? Hopefully it is with the intention
of allowing them to do something they love, to learn lessons of discipline and
hard work, to foster strategies to overcome adversity, to create lifelong
memories with friends, and then to ideally win a few games while they’re at it.
Parents of
kids- take notice and make sure you are not over-scheduling your children. Make
sure their relationship with sports, at the youth level, is a healthy one. One
that promotes play, not work. Coaches of kids- winning is fun,
but having fun is also fun. Mold your mindset around the idea that these kids
are kids, and they are playing. While
talent and X’s and O’s are important, it is not and should not be the emphasis
at this level.
I still
remember the motto of my school’s soccer team growing up which we cheered
before every game and wore on the back of our warm ups:
“Play hard. Have fun. Win.”
In that
order.
