Too much too soon

Is there a path that assures future success in sports? Many parents and coaches seem to believe that there is. They don’t have the expertise to determine on their own what the path is, so they have allowed the current sports culture to define it for them. Youth sports are telling parents that more is better. It resonates with them because they don’t want their kid to fall behind. It starts very early for parents. They measure their parenting by how quickly their sons and daughters crawl, talk and walk in comparison to others. If their child is behind, they do what they can make sure they catch the pack…then pass it. Youth sports attacks that soft spot in the hearts of parents and it corrupts them and the children suffer. Parents grab onto the notion presented by our current sports culture without carefully considering the future. Our organizations need to help parents to be more responsible with the path they choose.

USA Hockey has taken an extremely bold stance to change the culture of youth sports. They have unequivocally said that more is NOT better. Of course, they were instantly lambasted by an array of uneducated parents and coaches who had been drinking the Kool-Aid given to them by youth hockey. “More is definitely better,” they all thought. After all, they were just taking advantage of the opportunities USA Hockey was providing for them to develop future NHL stars. When the NHL finally jumped on board and supported USA Hockey, people started to listen. A few prominent professional hockey players were quoted saying that the typical youth hockey season is longer than the NHL season. Kids are playing more games than the professionals.

Parents have the dream of seeing their child play in the NHL, so they believe in the system that tells them they’ll arrive there soon enough. They don’t want their child to fall behind early in his career, so they embark on a sports journey, often times robbing him of his childhood and damaging important relationships, with the genuine hope that it will land him a roster spot on a NHL team. The problem is it’s not. It’s doing the exact opposite, unfortunately, and USA Hockey finally recognized it. They noticed that there has been a steady decline in American-born players in the NHL. They couldn’t put their finger on why until after extensive research, they concluded that the USA Hockey system was broken and kids were getting too much too soon. They eliminated the youngest age group national championships and parents lost their minds, but USA Hockey stood their ground, with the support of the NHL, and is trying to steer the ship in the right direction. Now, we need to get other sports to follow this trend.

Hockey is not alone. Nearly every sport has a youth system that has created a path to burnout. Too much too soon is certainly an issue in wrestling. Youth athletes are competing more than our highest level wrestlers. It’s not uncommon for a 5th grade wrestler to compete in over 100 matches in one season while our best senior-level wrestlers compete in 30 or less. We have it all backwards.

A step in the right direction is to understand the importance of development, not competition, at a young age. Youth athletes need to learn how to play the game before they actually engage in competition. I have adopted a philosophy for my club that requires youth wrestlers to have more practices than competitive matches in one season. This helps place the emphasis on learning the sport and all it has to offer and not on competition. The amount of competitions, which is far greater than the quality of practice time, is the catalyst to burnout.

When considering the guidelines that are in place at the high school and collegiate levels, you will see the backwards trend. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) places limits on the high school wrestling season. According to their rules, the 2011-12 wrestling season may begin on November 13 (beginning of Week 20) and end on March 3 (end of Week 35). This makes the season 111 actual days long. The WIAA mandates a day off every six consecutive days, or a minimum 16 days without practice or competition this year. Taking into account the 14 allowed competition dates and 5 postseason tournaments; teams are left with 75 days to practice. Obviously, in high school teams typically don’t practice on weekends or holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, nor do they practice on certain hunting days and other random ones. The typical high school team practices around 65 times during a season. The top wrestlers are getting no less than 50 competitive matches under these guidelines.

Move into the NCAA Division 1 wrestling arena and guidelines permit a team to begin practice on October 10 (preseason) and conclude at the NCAA Championships on March 17th, or 162 days. They required team to take off one day, competition or practice, every calendar week (23 days). Take away the 16 competition dates and the post season tournament series and that leaves approximately 118 days. Teams cannot practice during finals week (7 days) or holidays (3 days). Then with random days off on weekends and training breaks, we’re looking at around 100 practices in a season. The top wrestlers have 30-40 competitive matches.

There are no regulations for younger athletes, but you can already see a trend with the two age levels mentioned above. Across the board, the average youth wrestling club begins in January and ends in March. Many youth athletes are practicing and competing far beyond the parameters set within their own community. If the average program is 13 weeks and practices are held two times per week most wrestlers’ competitive opportunities far out-weighs their practice time. In the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation tournament series alone, top athletes are competing in at least 20 competitive matches in the month of March. This doesn’t include the abundance of local youth tournaments that are offered on Saturday and Sunday every weekend during the season. It’s extremely difficult for young athletes to find enough opportunities to practice to keep up with the number of competitive matches they have.

The system is broken. The number of practices compared to competitive matches at the highest level (senior-level) heavily favors practices whereas the lowest level (youth) heavily favors competitive matches. In between, the trend is clear as the high school athlete sees 65 practices to 50 matches and collegiate athletes see 100 practices to 35 matches. It’s time to wake-up to reality because the athletes (and parents) who follow the ways of the youth sports culture are not around long enough to enjoy opportunities at the highest levels because they’re taking the opportunities offered at the lowest levels.