Summary and Response

can be even more hazardous. Thomas Tutko, a psychology professor at San Jose State

University and coauthor of the book

Winning Is Everything and Ofher American Myths

,

writes:

I am strongly opposed to young kids playing tackle football. It is not the right

stage of development for them to be taught to crash into other kids. Kids under the

age of fourteen are not by nature physical. Their main concern is self-preservation.

They don't want to meet head on and slam into each other. But tackle football

absolutely requires that they try to hit each other as hard as they can. And it IS too

traumatic for young kids. (qtd. In Tosches A1 )

As Tutko indicates, even when children are not injured, fear of being hurt detracts

from their enjoyment of the sport. The Little League Web site ranks fear of injury as the

seventh of seven reasons children quit ("What about My Child?"). One mother of an

elght-year-old Peewee Football player explained "The kids get so scared They get hit

once and they don't want anything to do with football anymore. They'll sit on the bench

and pretend their leg hurts . . ." (qtd. in Tosches). Some children are driven to even more

desperate measures. For example, in one Peewee Football game, a reporter watched the

following scene as a player took himself out of the game:

"Coach, my tummy hurts. I can't play," he said. The coach told the player to get

back onto the field. 'there's nothing wrong with your stomach, he said. When the

coach turned his head the seven-year-old stuck a finger down his throat and made

himself vomit. When the coach fumed back, the boy pointed to the ground and

told him, "Yes there is, coach, See?" (Tosches A33)

Besides physical hazards and anxieties, competitive sports pose psychological

dangers for children. Martin Rablovsky, a former sports editor for the New York Times

says that in all his years of watching young children play organized sports, he has noticed

very few of them smiling. "I've seen children enjoying a spontaneous pre-practice

scrimmage become somber and serious when the coach's whistle blows," Rablovsky says.

"The spirit of play suddenly disappears, and sport becomes joblike" (qtd. in Coakley 94).

The primary goal of a professional athlete -winning- is not appropriate for children. Their

goals should be having fun, learning, and being with friends. Although winning does add

to the fun, too many adults lose sight of what matters and make winning the most

important goal. Several studies have shown that when children are asked whether they

would rather be warming the bench on a winning team or playing regularly on a losing

team, about 90 percent choose the latter (Smith, Smith, and Smoll 11).

Winning and losing may be an inevitable part of adult life, but they should not be

part.of childhood. Too much competition too early in life can affect a child's

development. Children are easily influenced, and when they sense that their competence

and worth are based on their ability to live up to their parents' and coaches' high

expectations

-and on their ability to win- they can become discouraged and depressed. Little League

advises parents to "keep winning in perspective" ("Your Role"), noting that the most

common reasons children give for quitting aside from change in interest, are lack of

playing time, failure and fear of failure, disapproval by significant others, and

psychological stress ("What about My Child?"). According to Dr. Glyn C. Roberts, a

professor of kinesiology at the institute of Child Behavior and Development at the

University of Illinois, 80 to 90 percent of children who play competitive sports at a young

age drop out by sixteen (Kutner).

This statistic illustrates another reason I oppose competetive sports for children:

because they are so highly selective, very few children get to participate. Far too soon, a

few children are singled out for their athletic promise, while many others who may be on

the verge of developing the necessary strength and ability, are screened out and

discouraged from trying out again. Like adults, children fear failure, and so even those

with good physical skills may stay away because they lack self-confidence. Consequently,

teams lose many promising players who with some encouragement and experience might

have become stars. The problem is that many parent-sponsored, out-of-school programs

give more importance to having a winning team than to developing children's physical

skills and self-esteem.

Indeed, it is no secret that too often scorekeeping, league standings, and the drive

to win bring out the worst in adults who are more absorbed in living out their own

fantasies than in enhancing the quality of the experience for children (Smith, Smith, and

Smoll 9). Recent newspaper articles on children's sports contain plenty of horror stories.

Los Angeles Times reporter Rich Tosches, for example, tells the story of a brawl among

seventy-five parents following a Peewee Football game (A33). As a result of the brawl,

which began when a parent from one team confronted a player from the other team, the

teams are now thinking of hiring security guards for future games. Another example is

provided by an L.A. Times editorial about a Little League manager who intimidated the

opposing team by setting fire to one of their team's jerseys on the pitching mound before

the game began. As the editorial writer commented, the manager showed his young team

that "intimidation could substitute for playing well" ("The Bad News").

Although not all parents or coaches behave so inappropriately, the seriousness of

the problem is illustrated by the fact that Adelphi University in Garden City, New York,

offers a sports psychology workshop for Little League coaches, designed to balance their

"animal instincts" with "educational theory" in hopes of reducing the "screaming and

hollering," in the words of Harold Weisman, manager of sixteen Little Leagues in New

York City (Schmitt). In a three-and-one-half-hour Sunday morning workshop, coaches

learn how to make practices more fun, treat injuries, deal with irate parents, and be "more

sensitive to their young players' fears, emotional frailties, and need for recognition." Little

League is to be credited with recognizing the need for such workshops.

Some parents would no doubt argue that children. cannot start too soon preparing

to live in a competitive free-market economy. After all, secondary schools and colleges

require students to compete for grades, and college admission is extremely competitive.

And it is perfectly obvious how important competitive skills are in finding a job. Yet the

ability to cooperate is also important for success in life. Before children are

psychologically ready for competition, maybe we should emphasize cooperation and

individual performance in team sports rather than winning.

Many people are ready for such an emphasis. In 1988, one New York Little

League official who had attended the Adelphi workshop tried to ban scoring from six- to

eightyear-olds' games

²

but parents wouldn't support him (Schmitt). An innovative

children's sports program in New York City, City Sports for Kids, emphasizes fitness,

self-esteem, and sportsmanship. In this program's basketball games, every member on a

team plays at least two of six eight-minute periods. The basket is seven feet from the

floor, rather than ten feet, and a player can score a point just by hitting the rim (Bloch). l

believe this kind of local program should replace overly competitive programs like

Peewee Football and Little League Baseball. As one coach explains, significant

improvements can result from a few simple rule changes, such as including every player

in the batting order and giving every player, regardless of age or ability, the opportunity to

play at least four innings a game (Frank).

Authorities have clearly documented the excesses and dangers of many

competitive sports programs for children. It would seem that few children benefit from

these programs and that those who do would benefit even more from programs

emphasizing fitness, cooperation, sportsmanship, and individual performance. Thirteen-

and fourteen-year-olds may be eager for competition, but few younger children are. These

younger children deserve sports programs designed specifically for their needs and

abilities.