You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Youth sports and the affect it has on some people.
A ball. A field. Some kids. It use to be fun.
But as children become young adults, those games that were fun, those games that were opportunities to snap pictures and go to the panckake pantry after, well they have become something else.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, it is Alive.
Perhaps what is alive now, is the incredible intensity that permeates youth sports. Perhaps it is how that incredible intensity affects an individual player, an entire family, an entire community.
Ask any football player’s family in Texas on Friday Night how intense, how important it is.
Remember the joy of watching your 6 year old swing and miss, trying to hit a ball off a T.
Everyone clapped. Everyone encouraged the child. Swing and a miss. No big deal. And when he or she finally hit it, they ran to first and everyone cheered.
A dozen years later, it’s still fun, but sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes it feels like work.
Cheering on the sideline is often replaced by anguish.
“God I hope my kid doesn’t mess up and the coach gives him the hook.”
From field of dreams to something less idealistic.
It use to be about fun. It use to be about development. It use to be about team work.
Sometimes I think those qualities get in the back seat while less desirable characteristics like seriousness and win/loss record and pressure now drive the car.
Is it any wonder that some kids drop out. Is it any wonder that parents yell at officials and even fight one another on the field and in the stands.
The pressure for the kids is magnified because of the pressure from the parents.
Why are parents intense you ask? Well, it’s a big committment.
It’s about money for uniforms and monthly dues and hotel rooms and food. In some cases, parents pay the coaches salary to coach their kids who then decide if they play, when they play. It’s an odd arrangement chock full of opportunities for trouble.
Modern day athletics is about practices and car trips and dragging multiple family members around the region, every weekend. It’s about early morning practices, it’s about late night practices. It’s about standing in the blistering sun and the drenching rain and freezing winds of winter.
Its about return on investment, like a stock portfolio. If you pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time you expect a return on your investment. That return is time on the field where you can watch your child hopefully have fun.
As that playing time decreases, your return on investment decreases. If your portfolio is suffering, you tend to be unhappy, maybe angry.
Sports are a microcosm of life. I have often said, well it’s just 13 year old sports, I’ve got real life problems.
But when you think about the time, the committment, the capital outlay, sometimes its hard to remember it is just a child’s game.
And that is crazy. ™