Several years back, a group held a press conference in Washington, D.C. to issue a youth sports national "report card." The Citizenship Through Sports Alliance gave out the following "grades":
As the Alliance report card showed then - and I suspect that things haven't changed all that much since - almost all aspects of youth sports are getting poor grades. If your child brought home these grades, you would call his teacher and quickly come up with a plan to improve them.
Because parents come and go, because change at the national level is unlikely, the path towards fundamental change in youth sports will only be accomplished at the grass roots, community level. It is here that concerned mothers - and fathers - can make youth sports about having fun, make sports safer for our children, to include every child who wants a chance to play.
Here are some of the things parents can do in their own community to improve youth sports:
Listen to what children want. Studies repeatedly show that the vast majority of boys and girls, when asked what they would like to see changed about youth sports, say they would like to see less emphasis on winning. We need to start listening to what our children tell us they want.
Have the courage to speak up! Most parents in this country want a youth sports system that serves the interests of children. They represent a vast silent majority who just need the courage to stand up and band together to fight those who want to preserve a status quo serving the interests of adults. Perhaps the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association said it best: "Carrying the torch for less pressure and more perspective in youth programs may not be a popular position. Those who demand more games, more wins, more trophies, more travel and more of everything can talk the loudest and sound convincing. It's up to all of us to have the courage to be just as passionate on the side of balance."
Push to reform school athletic programs and PE. As John Gerdy writes in his book, Sports in School, "our sports programs are elitist and exclusionary, neither designed nor conducted with the health benefits of participants in mind." He argues that "If we were interested in deriving the greatest health return on dollars spent on athletics, more resources would be spent on broad-based, participatory intramural, club and physical education programs than on the current programs designed to cater to a small population of elite athletes."
Fundamentally altering the outmoded model that most schools follow for interscholastic sports will be a monumental undertaking. It will require the effort of a large and vocal group of committed parents. But it can be done. First, try to eliminate cutting at levels below high school varsity [1].
Second, accommodate the interests of those students not playing competitive team sports but who want to continue to engage in some form of physical exercise or sports in a non-competitive setting, by reforming and expanding school-based physical education programs and by developing and funding after-school programs offering aerobics, dance, exercise walking, self-defense, yoga, pilates, strength training, flag/touch football, and Ultimate Frisbee.
The Women Sports Foundation's 2008 survey, Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America, supports this recommendation. It reports that many of the nation's schools "have cut back on physical education offerings or stopped requiring 'gym classes' entirely. One in five U.S. schools does not offer physical education (PE) at all, and despite Centers for Disease Control recommendations, only handfuls of elementary, middle and high schools offer daily PE classes (i.e., 4%, 8% and 2%, respectively)."
The Women Sports Foundation report contains a number of important recommendations:
Third, ask schools to consider returning to same-sex PE. Co-ed physical education, while it has obvious advantages, also has some significant downsides for both boys and girls. A study of South Carolina middle and high school girls reported in the September 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found that girls taking girls-only PE exercised substantially more than girls in co-ed programs. As for boys, those who support the current shift in the physical education curriculum away from traditional competitive sports, often involving an aggressive component, towards aerobic activities such as riding a stationary bicycle or jogging, argues Dr. Leonard Sax, are ignoring the fact "that many boys need the aggressive element found in sports such as basketball and soccer" and that the result "is that boys who aren't athletic enough to make the team now have no socially acceptable outlet for their aggressive impulses."
Establish noncompetitive programs like that set up by Jim Piatelli, the owner of The Pond, an indoor sports facility and ice hockey rink in Needham, Massachusetts, who developed a program of-no-check, no-scorekeeping, attitude-free hockey for all age groups and levels of play, from pee wee through adult, to provide fun for skaters and spectators alike. The Pond continues to offer competitive hockey, but the program provides parents with an opportunity to have their kids play and improve their basic skills in an atmosphere that emphasizes basic sportsmanship. Mothers at the Pond told me they now feel a "sense of calm while watching their sons focus on their skills instead of their physical strength."
Redefine winning at the pre-high school level. It should be based on on how much effort the participants put in, not the outcome. Borrow a feature from the pickup games of yesteryear when kids divvied up players in such a way as to achieve equally balanced sides; if one side got way ahead, the game was stopped and new teams picked or the game simply ended. By choosing the teams so that they are balanced, the games won't be lopsided affairs.
Seek to abolish tryouts that result in excluding or cutting children prior to sixth grade. One way to accomplish this goal is to deny the use of public facilities for any try-out based teams with children younger than sixth-graders, as was recently done in Scarsdale, New York, where eight out of ten parents overall and three out of four parents involved in tryout-based programs believed there should be no tryouts and cutting [4] before fifth grade. Organize as many teams as there are children wanting to play. If there aren't rules to ensure equal, or at least significant, playing time [5], make them and enforce them (nine out of ten Scarsdale parents were strongly in favor of a policy requiring significant playing time for all kids; among the recommendations of its youth sports task force was the creation of a consistent and fair policy on playing time as a prerequisite for use of public facilities by an independent youth sports organization). Not only will this help develop all players, but it will prevent the benchwarmers, who might be terrific athletes [6]when they grow up, from becoming so discouraged and bored that they quit.
Ask that teams be selected by independent evaluators, not parent coaches. Parents who responded to a survey in Scarsdale were nearly unanimous that tryouts run by parent coaches are unacceptable. As the authors of a 2004 Report on Youth Sports issued by a task force in Scarsdale noted, "very powerful concerns [were expressed] throughout the community about the fairness, politics and behavior associated with the selection of children for teams. ... reflect[ing] a deep cynicism about the fairness of the selection process."
Push for teams comprised of kids of the same age, from the same neighborhood, and of mixed abilities before fifth grade. All too often, a player whom the powers-that-be believe to be exceptionally precocious will be asked to "play up" on a team of older kids. All that this does is deny a roster spot to a player in the older age group, throw the younger child in with kids who he or she doesn't know and aren't his classmates in school, and feed not only the kids' ego, but his parents' as well. In response to those who say that the more "talented" players shouldn't be "forced" to play with players perceived as less talented, point out that there is no evidence that asking them to play with kids their own ages, of mixed abilities, will dilute the competition, hold them back, or prevent them from being a high school, college or pro star. Ask them what is more important: winning or ensuring that the kids have fun and have a chance to develop their skills, and exercise? Play teams from other towns that are equally committed as your program to including every kid who wants to play.
Restore an appropriate balance between sports and family life.
To those who say that such steps won't work, that more training, more tournaments and more travel are necessary to turn out competitive athletes, consider the example of the high school football program in Wyzata, Minnesota, which has sent a team to the state championship game more than a half a dozen times in the past 20 years. Its players honed their skills in a recreation league following the steps just outlined. If a group of parents were to get together and speak with one voice on these issues, you may surprised what can be accomplished.
Push for youth sports safety reforms. In addition to the things you can do as a parent to make the sports experience safer for your child, there are a number of other steps you can take, along with other like-minded parents, to make the experience safer for all children in your community:
First, push your school and community-based programs to adopt comprehensive risk management programs [7]. If concern is expressed that implementing such a program could end up increasing the exposure to lawsuits because any deficiency or oversight in meeting self-imposed safety requirements could provide the basis for a negligence lawsuit, help the club or school board understand that such fear shouldn't be an impediment to implementation. The alternative is worse: without such safety programs, more kids are likely to get hurt.
Second, call for community-, private- and school-based sports organizations to view youth sports safety from a child's rights perspective [8], recognize that children playing sports are owed a duty of care, identify "best practices" and implement child protection programs to combat physical, emotional [9] and sexual abuse [9] in youth sports as has been done in the United Kingdom [10]. Because such programs implement standards that apply to everyone, not just parents, but coaches, players, officials, and other adults who work with children in sports, they won't just reduce the number of out-of-control parents, but the number of out-of-control, abusive coaches, team bullies, spectators, and volunteers as well.
Third, take a public stand against hazing [11] and push for adoption by your child's school of a strict anti-hazing policy; a policy emphasized in pre-season meetings and written materials distributed to every student/team member, and, above all, enforced.
Require accountability and transparency by youth sports organizations. There is an appalling lack of accountability in youth sports. While the worst offenders seem to be the unregulated so-called "travel" ball programs (which, one commentator recently analogized to the Wild West, with "relatively no laws and no sheriffs"), even local youth sports organizations affiliated with national organizations such as Little League Baseball or U.S. Youth Soccer are not as accountable to the parents and children they supposedly serve as they should be.
As Paolo David writes in his book, Human Rights in Sports: A Critical Review of Children's Rights in Competitive Sports, "Sports organizations have an obligation to protect the rights of young athletes, especially when one of their employees acts unlawfully. They cannot escape their responsibilities by failing to prevent violations or refusing to act upon them. But in practice, due to the tradition of self-policing, paternalism, a fierce resistance to independent criticism and a refusal to accept that sport is not always ‘pure' and free from society's problems, the principles of accountability and scrutiny are still inadequately respected by the sporting world, or at best looked upon with suspicion."
So, how can youth sports organizations be more accountable to their "customers" (you and your children)? Here are some suggestions:
Ask for more training of coaches and mandatory evaluation. The United States is the only country in the major sporting world that does not have a national coaching education program. Of the 4.1 million coaches in the United States only 74,000 have received any formal training. Less than 1/3 of the interscholastic coaches in the United States have received any type of coaching education. More than 50% of those coaching interscholastic sports do not have a teaching certificate and have no affiliation with the school system. 49 states allow non-faculty coaches to teach school sports. Twenty-three states do not require any type of certification for interscholastic coaches. Only one state - New Jersey - requires coaches, in order to gain immunity from lawsuits, to attend a safety orientation and training skills program.
With all the money being poured into youth sports, it is simply astounding that the least investment is in coaches, even though they usually have the most impact on kids and keeping them safe. Seven out of ten residents surveyed in Scarsdale felt that there should be mandatory training of coaches, and that "coaches need to know what are age appropriate activities and expectations and how to gently deal with less skilled players, as well as how to foster friendship and team spirit." National and local youth sports organizations need to make coaching education a top priority.
More than eight out of ten Scarsdale residents said it was extremely or very important to have an adequate coaching evaluation system. Nearly nine in ten felt it very important to discipline coaches who fail to adhere to a code of conduct for coaches and parents involving "not only matters such as playing time but abuse of game officials, swearing, inappropriate comments and other forms of unacceptable behavior."
Ask for parent training. Parents who have been trained [14] are better able to handle the stress of watching their child compete [15]without losing their cool, and understand the advantages of mission statements [16] and team charters and how they can not only prevent conflicts from developing between and among parents, coaches and youth sports officials, but restore the balance between winning and skill development [17]. When everyone involved understands in advance that the one of the rules of a particular program is equal playing time [5], parents won't need to scream at the coach to put their child in the game and the coach won't be under pressure to play only the "best" players.
Use the power of the purse. Women are responsible for ninety percent of a family's primary shopping and write eighty percent of the checks. Use the power of the purse to:
As Sports Authority CEO Martin Hanaka told Forbes after a comprehensive survey of Sports Authority stores and shoppers found that women aged 25 to 45 contributed 70 cents of every dollar spent, whether the purchase was footwear, fishing equipment or Little League gear, "Mom is pivotal."
Re-examine Title IX. As a number of recent books argue, Title IX, as it is presently interpreted, isn't working. True, an amazing amount of good has come to girls from the passage of Title IX. The tragedy, however, is that the law has increased athletic opportunities for women at the college level by eliminating opportunities for men. Something is wrong when colleges have a difficult time finding female athletes to fill teams while many men (especially wrestlers) are being deprived of the opportunity to continue playing college sports in the name of gender equity. The law also has appeared to have given female high school athletes an unfair advantage in the college admission process. Although a full discussion of the inadequacies and inequities of Title IX are beyond the scope of this book, this is an issue that is not going to go away. As Jessica Gavora argues, if boys and girls are hard wired differently, "it is time to take a serious look at a federal anti-discrimination law that has come to assume exactly the opposite."
Establish a youth sports council and use the power of the permit. In most places, youth sports organizations (YSOs) don't own their own facilities; they use taxpayer-funded fields, diamonds, tracks, pools, and courts instead. In order to use them they have to obtain permits. This makes them subject to public oversight by the permit-issuing authority, in most instances the town or municipality's parks and recreation department, which should establish guidelines to govern their issuance.
One of the most effective ways to start a community dialog about establishing guidelines to govern the issuance of permits to YSOs is to establish a youth sports task force with representatives from a broad cross section of the community participating in a series of forums to address the question "Are we doing the best that we can for our children with our current sports program?"
Addressing this question will inevitably raise such issues as early specialization, the appropriate age for sports cuts and competitive tryouts, the best way to recruit and train paid and/or volunteer coaches, the stratification of children based on their perceived abilities and skill level, background checks, the way independent YSOs interact and co-exist with and relate to school-based programs, and how permits are issued to use town-owned facilities.
To promote a community dialog and make the process as inclusive as possible, task force representatives can attend PTA meetings in elementary schools, hold a community-wide forum, and develop a survey to send to residents to allow every interested person an opportunity to express his or her opinion.
The objective of the meetings should be to develop an independent Youth Sports Council and a youth sports charter for adoption by the community governing the use of publicly owned facilities. Any YSO that utilizes public facilities should then be required to adhere to guidelines in the Youth Sports Charter or be denied their use.
Vietnam War-era protesters asked the government to return "Power to the
People." The time has come in the 2000's for the silent majority of
parents in this country who want a youth sports system that serves the
interests of children, not adults to stand up and ask their elected
officials to return the "Power of the Permit" to the people. It may be
the best way to achieve reform and accountability.
Links:
[1] https://momsteam.com/node/406
[2] http://www.ed.gov
[3] http://www.pe4life.org
[4] https://momsteam.com/node/1298
[5] https://momsteam.com/node/730
[6] https://momsteam.com/node/1049
[7] https://momsteam.com/node/2579
[8] https://momsteam.com/node/2625
[9] https://momsteam.com/node/414
[10] https://momsteam.com/node/1119
[11] https://momsteam.com/node/407
[12] https://momsteam.com/node/1572
[13] http://www.wejustplay.com/
[14] https://momsteam.com/node/772
[15] https://momsteam.com/node/784
[16] https://momsteam.com/node/705
[17] https://momsteam.com/node/1170
[18] http://www.amazon.com/Home-Team-Advantage-Critical-Mothers/dp/0060881631/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240420528&sr=8-1
[19] https://momsteam.com/team-of-experts/brooke-de-lench/editorials/debating-the-wisdom-of-cuts-from-school-sports-programs
[20] https://momsteam.com/health-safety/emotional-injuries/cut-from-the-team/why-a-no-cut-policy-for-middle-school-teams-is-a-
[21] https://momsteam.com/successful-parenting/reforming-interscholastic-sports-physical-education-programs