Hyperlink Assignment

Christine L. Wrote about the importance of parents in the lives of children. What if she explored a world in which children were born into a world without any parents at all. Where babies and children didn't rely on parents but instead some other source of "parenting." How would these new "parenting" sources change the type of people we are today and what would it say about how much our parents affect the lives of their children.

Kyle K. Based his essay on the stresses the teenagers face and how some have chosen the "escape route" of suicide.  What if he looked into the possibility of a teenager that had made the decision to commit suicide because of the pressures that he's facing but couldn't die.  It would take his attempts at suicide to give him a new outlook on life.

Phil Z. Was confounded by the discussion of the influence of video games on young minds and how it creates an aggressive nature in kids. So what if he looked at it in a new light.  If the moment you started playing video games, the player was sucked into the game and was actually the protagonist within the game. Soon kids would start gaming every night but some begin to be consumed by the gaming world and  begin to act the way they do in the games in the real society.  What kind of world would this create and would children start becoming more aggressive?

Youth Competition: How Much is Too Much?

Kari Koga

Dr. Zerwin

SLCC/ Pd. 4

18 November, 2010

Balance: Is it Possible for Kids to Balance Athletics, Academics and a Social Life?

Athletes and spectators alike have experienced it, the coach or parent that degrades their own player or child for performing “poorly” in their sport. The “stress for success” has become a highly controversial topic for young athletes, parents and coaches.  The amount of pressure to develop a “child prodigy” has escalated to astonishing levels and is currently an epidemic taking over the country.  With all the competitiveness and stress in youth athletics is it really possible to train and bring up a well balanced student athlete, with a healthy understanding of fairness, sportsmanship and passion for the game?  With the correct support system and a balance between academics, athletics and social life kids will not only grow to become more successful in athletics but also in their daily lives.  

Coaches play a huge role in a growing athlete’s development.  Whether it is a highly positive affect or negative affect, a coach is the person entrusted with task of developing the athlete.  So with all of this influential potential it is essential that coaches channel their efforts into a form of coaching that will benefit the young athletes.  The National Allicance for Youth Sports proctored a survey in 2008 that found that 74% of parents have seen a coach yell at a child for making a mistake, promoting a do-or-die ethic (Hanson).  It is appalling behavior like this that has ignited the founding of several organizations that moderate the behavior of coaches. Programs such as the National Coaching Alliance have the goal of “making team sports less pressurized, safer, and more child friendly” (Cary, Dotinga and Comarow). Among the many concepts coaches are supposed to teach their young athletes is sportsmanship.  As written on the National Federation of State High School Association's bulletin, the executive director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association wrote:

Sportsmanship is the starting point - if not essence - of good citizenship. It is what we’re supposed to teach in educational athletics more than anything else.  We are to teach sportsmanship more than fitness, more than skills, more than strategies, more than discipline, more then sacrifice, more than hard work (qtd. in Engh 23).

In teaching young athletes sportsmanship, coaches can help facilitate young athletes that value honesty, work ethic and fairness.  Three very important characteristics that many look for when admitting students into college and/or a job.  The Positive Coaching Alliance is another program that is dedicated to educating coaches on effective ways of instructing that is good for both the coaches and the players.  The PCA’s strives to emphasize “striving to win, but using sports to teach life lessons” (Cary, Dotinga and Comarow).  A prime coaching example of the PCA’s “goal” is the legendary coach, John Wooden.  He believed that coaching should not only be to make his players better basketball players but also better people (Wooden 84).  He taught his players life lessons that he believed would help shape the boys into fine basketball players but also fine young men. Among the many of his life lessons this one applies to both athletics and everyday life and is something that I wish all children would have to the chance to learn from, “‘faith is not waiting, hoping and wanting things to happen.  Rather it is working hard to make things happen and realizing that there are no failures- just disappointments- when you have done your best” (Wooden).  Both Coach Wooden and the many members of the National Coaching Alliance and the Positive Coaching Alliance have proven that by the success of their players as athletes, the proper coaching can make all of the difference in a young athletes outlook of the sport.  Some of the most successful coaches have shown that they have created highly successful athletes by teaching them lessons that can be applied both in sports and the athlete’s lives. As Coach Wooden wrote in his autobiography, “We gave them a foundation; it was up to them to improve the structure” (Wooden 93).

So your child has a wonderful coach and your team has some incredible players, including you child, but why exactly does it feel like there is still so much pressure of young athletes today?  One of America’s biggest downfalls is its bloated image of the all American kids.  The image of flawless kids who are the best at any given sport and always excel in school, but life isn’t really like that.  The competitiveness of sports has greatly increased mainly because “college athletic scholarships are on the line, and that's just another step closer to the lucrative pay checks that await at the professional level” (Engh 24)  These lures have pressured children to have the feeling that they need to be the best in any one sport.  Some kids are starting to specialize in a single sport as early as six years old (Hansen). This puts all the emphasis on athletic development in young children, many of whom aren’t physically ready. As defined by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson early specialization is the “effortful practice that lacks inherent enjoyment and is done with the sole purpose of improving current levels of performance. With all of this considered Ericsson concluded that if a child did not start training at an early age, that child would not be able to catch up with other children that began early specialization at earlier (qtd. in Baker 86).    This has caused recent generations of children to start specializing in a single sport at a very early age.    As children begin to specialize in sports at earlier ages it is hard for many of them to meet the demanding commitment and physical toll of being so devoted to one sport.  Therefore in recent years the number of children that quit playing sports has increased dramatically.  As found in an informal survey taken by the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission, “the dropout rate of all children from organized sports is said to be 70 percent (Cary, Dotinga, and Comarow) and all of this hassle is in pursuit of the allure of a college scholarships or a chance to play professionally. This is an alarming number considering the fact that children play sports for the enjoyment of the game, or do they?  With the increase in competitiveness and the stress of sports that young athletes have taken upon themselves, the burden of excelling in their sport at such early ages has taken its toll on many of the young athletes.  By the time many of them reach high school they are either burnt out and/or no longer with to make the commitment of playing the sport they once loved (Engh).

However some would argue that early specialization is very good for children.  Some believe that specializing in the one sport gives the child athlete an edge on the rest of his or her peers.  Researchers R. N. Singer and C. M. Janelle believe that “the acquisitions of expertise in sport is the result of complex interactions among biological, psychological and sociological constraints” (qtd. in Baker 85).  Building off of Singer and Janelle’s findings, Dr. Wiersma suggests that there is an exact balance between the three constraints that allow athletes to reach the highest levels of performance. However if the balance is not found it may lead to burnt out athletes and/or the drop out of sports and school (qtd. in Baker 85). Many parents want to give their child the best opportunity to really excel at the sport they play and that is why they would push their child to do early specialization.  If done correctly the product should be a well disciplined, knowledgeable and experienced athlete, one that has an edge on his or her peers and will, in the future, obtain an athletic scholarship and/or professionally pursue their sport of choice (Baker 86).

While intensive training may give young athletes some what of an edge on others their age, the repetitious training takes a huge tole on the athletes both mentally and physically on these young athletes.  The huge decrease in the starting ages for child athletes does not guarantee that a child would become a professional at the sport of their choice.  The chairman of the Center for Sports Parenting at the University of Rhode Island agrees saying , “Most of today’s professional athletes didn’t even think to specialize in just one sport until they were in High School, around the age of 15,’”(Cary, Dotinga, and Comarow). Trying to make decisions like this so early in life makes it really hard on little kids because they don’t always know what they truly want to do.  Some experts believe that an athlete’s success is directly proportional to the amount of dedicated practice the athlete puts in but with all of this demanding training, the bodies of these athletes also takes a heavy load. A pediatric sports medicine specialist by the name of Dr. Paul Stricker from San Diego found that since the start of his practice ,in 1991, there has been a 30-40% increase in overuse injuries (Cary, Dotinga, and Comarow).  While the logic behind repetitious practice for a long period of time does have it’s merits, its consequences greatly out way its benefits especially when it comes to a young athlete’s heath.  But the health of a young athlete is not the only the first what happens when you look at the “big picture” of a student athlete’s life? What would you most likely see?

Some student athletes have obtained the perfect balance between academics, athletics and their social life, but some still struggle with it. Some get caught up in a relentless cycle in which sports completely dominate their lives and their grades and social lives suffer the consequence for it.  So what aspects of life really do suffer the consequences of an overwhelming sports career that consumes the life of a child athlete? Many student athletes try to “stretch” themselves to do everything.  There are points in which some athletes will suffer the most because of an inability to keep up with school work. This will often lead to trouble when trying to “juggle” everything they have on their plate.  A soccer coach and father of three, Roellig, touches on the topic saying, “‘What gives is the homework and the sleep... if i had to do it again as a parent, I’d definitely scale back sports’ “ (Cary, Dotinga and Comarow). Besides the break down at a personal level, the family of the athlete also feels the repercussions. A psychiatrist from New York named Alvin Rosenfeld says, “‘Structured sports time has doubled while family dinners have been cut by a third and family vacations have decreased 28%’ “ (Cary, Dotinga, and Comarow).  This just illustrates the amount of time that many athletes and their families are devoting to sports.  It also vividly represents that amount of family sacrifice many families have made for their child’s success.  There needs to be a balance between a student’s athletic and social life.  Without a balance, athletics can take over a students’ life and cause large repercussions for the athlete and his or her family. Time with the family, for sleeping and doing homework have all been substantially decreased and some students will suffer because of the sacrifices they are making for their sports via poor grades, anxiety in school and due to their poor grades not being allowed to participate within sporting events.  These negative aspects of an imbalanced career between sports and school may lead to downward spiral of dependence on only sports for child athletes.

Even so some people still believe that students should put an emphasis on child athletics. They believe that athletics will create  a strong foundation for a child’s development and that the competitiveness of sports will only toughen them up for the competitiveness of today’s society.  Collaborative researchers who worked on the Texas Educational Excellence Project have found that:

Sports in the school system are perceived to have a positive academic impact on students. A considerable body of research indicates that student participation in such extra-curricular activities as athletics minimizes delinquency (Landers and Landers 1978), mitigates dropouts (McNeal 1995) and has a positive effect on student achievement (Otto and Alwin 1977, Rehberg and Schafer 1968, Spreitzer and Pugh 1973). This positive impact has long been a justification for the expenditure of a great deal of time and public money by school districts, students, and communities (Meier, Robinson, Polinard and Wrinkle).

The life lessons that are believed to be taught by sports early on in life are thought to create individuals who are able to handle the competitive environments of today’s society such as getting into college and the work force. In an informal survey I took at Fairview High School one student agreed with the perception that sports prepare the youth for the “real world” and he said, “Most non school affiliated teams end up facilitating discipline and responsibility in students. The student athlete must have discipline to perform well in both school and their sport, otherwise they suffer both in school via grades and in their sport as they cannot focus due to the stress of school” (Athletic Pressure). So there are many that believe that emphasizing the importance of competitive sports in children's lives is something that will help to facilitate a successful life further down the road.  

But what exactly happens when students don’t acquire the discipline needed to perform well in the classroom and in a sport?  Students usually choose their sport over their education. It may be the athletes decision but new research has found that there are many outside factors that are pushing kids to choose sports over their education. Robert Willis has been a superintendent in three different states including Minnesota, South Dakota and Illinois which has allowed him to observe several different cities and role that sports plays in that community.  In some places he made the disturbing observation that, “coaches will try to influence teachers to pass kids [or] to encourage teachers to change grades of students who had failed” (Goldman).  This defies many people’s strong belief in honesty and fairness but it is really fair for a student to get his or her grades changed just because a coach wants them to be able to play? No it is not.  But coaches aren’t the only ones that are taking athletics to an extreme level when it comes to balancing academics and athletics. Charles Lamb is another superintendent for the schools in Alpine, Texas and communicated this about some of the communities in Texas, “...if you want to out the English IV, the Algebra 1 and shorthand... nobody would raise a fuss.  You cut one “C” team in Junior High, and they’d come and fire you” (Goldman).  It is behavior like this that has a very negative effect on athletes because they are no longer learning how to excel in both school and sports but instead they are struggling to meet the challenge of finding a balance between the academics and athletics.  

So when it all comes down to it, the hardest part of all of this is defining the fine line where sports become overwhelming for kids. It is essential for parents and coaches to be positive role models for young aspiring athletes, and to teach them good life lessons that will help to guide them as they grow older.  Families may discuss what their kids want out of athletics and together the family can work out a plan in which the young athlete may have time to enjoy sports, while keeping up with school work and also having time to spend with family.  I In doing this young student athletes can grow to get the most out of their athletics, academics, and social life and grow to be a well balanced and successful person.

Works Cited

Athletic Pressure. 2010 Informal Survey of Fairview High School Students.

Cary, Peter, Randy Dotinga, and Avery Comarow. “Fixing Kids’ Sports.” U.S. New & World Report. 7 Jun. 2004: 44-53. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. 4 Nov. 2010.<http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=22&hid=110&sid=da8be77f-86a9-46fd-82ba-065a74a7fb68%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=13243739>.

Engh, Fred. Why Johnny Hates Sports. Garden City Park, NY: Square One, 2002. Print.

Goldman, Jay. “Balancing School Sports and Academics.” Education Digest. Apr. 1991: 67-70. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=33&hid=9&sid=da8be77f-86a9-46fd-82ba-065a74a7fb68%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=9106101412#db=aph&AN=9106101412>

Hanson, Cynthia. "Why Kids Are So Competitive -- and How Parents Can Teach Fairness."Family Circle - Teens, Family, Food, Style and More. Web. 01 Nov. 2010. <http://www.familycircle.com/fc/printableStory.jsp?catref=fc14&storyid=/templatedata/fc/story/data/1221576812373.xml>.

Meier, Kenneth J., Scott Robinson, J. L. Polinard, and Robert D. Wrinkle. A Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance. Diss. Texas A&M University, 2000. <http://teep.tamu.edu/reports/report008.pdf>.

Wooden, John, Jack Tobin, and Bill Walton. They Call Me Coach. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.