If you've read any of my previous posts over the past few years, you're well aware of my thoughts on the direction of youth sports. I won't spend time today giving background for the reasons I believe what I believe, but I do want to make a point on "national" tournaments for youth athletes.
I've been around a large number of young athletes over the past few weeks at various camps and I'm conducting a little experiment. I'm simply asking random kids if they can define a few words for me. One of those words is "national." I have found that nearly every kid 10 years old and younger cannot accurately define the word. If they cannot define the word, certainly I have grounds to believe that they don't value "national" tournaments or understand their significance. Parents do. The kids are just interested in the water slides that follow the event.
This is important to understand if we're in a position to develop athletes and hope to grow the sport of wrestling (or any other youth sport). I maintain that parents are driving youth sports and creating and taking advantage of opportunities based on what they want rather than what their kids need. In the end, it undermines the development and growth of their children.
We're losing sight of what's important - a healthy perspective. I had a little wrestler attend camp last weekend who was a total spitfire and physically ahead of the curve for his age. However, he wore sweatpants from Carter's. With young children of my own, I know that Carter's is a baby clothing store. That made it easy for me to maintain a healthy perspective with this little kid. He is still wearing clothing from a baby store, so he's probably not in a position to be wrestling at national tournaments (or even state or regional tournaments). This goes along with the kid who cannot put his own wrestling shoes on or tie them without Mom or Dad's help; he's probably not physically or mentally capable of learning complex wrestling skills and chain wrestling no matter how much his parents want him to.
Let's maintain a healthy perspective in youth sports and remember that they're children. Do we really need "national" tournaments for 6 year olds?
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I agree with you Kevin! Let them wrestle, Let them learn, but most of all Let them enjoy it! This weekend at Regionals I saw a parent so angry at his YOUNG child that he threw the kids headgear at him. What for? He didn't win because he didn't do what he was told when he was told. The parent was barking out moves that NO BANTAM should ever know. I love this sport! I only hope that other parents will let their wrestlers be kids and enjoy it so that they can grow up to Love it also.
ReplyDeleteWell Kevin I totally agree. My kids are not old enough to be that involved with any sport, but I can tell that a lot has changed since we were in youth sports. As someone with a good perspective, can you tell me how can you balance the fact that with most kids the purpose of sports is to have fun, stay fit, and learn dedication with the fact that now days you almost have to be a full time one sport kid to excel or even play?
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