Expensive World Series

Crazy Sports Parents get even crazier as the stakes get raised. Parents in Auburn, Washington (near my hometown) are forking over cash by the bucketloads to see their kids play in the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania.

From the outside, this looks a little nuts to spend this kind of cash on youth sports, but when it's your kid and their possible once-in-a-lifetime shot at something this big, it not only becomes reasonable, it becomes hard to not spend the money. American youth sports makes its participants and their parents a little nuts.

Tryouts, Ins and Outs

Cutting kids because the parents are crazy?! Because the mom is hot?! Jeff Seidel at Detroit Free Press shines a light on the sleazy underbelly of youth sports tryouts.

The Biggest CSP of Them All

I believe Kim Jung Il is of the Great Father ilk of mad dictator, so his punishment of the North Korean soccer team and its coach qualifies as our all-time craziest Crazy Soccer Parent moment.

Hello, FIFA. Don't you disband national FAs for crap like this?!

Soccer Parent Newbies, So Cute!

I spent some time Friday afternoon volunteering on the sidelines for the local soccer club at a rec soccer tournament. I had two U11-U12 games and the soccer parents were just hilarious. Each game I saw was as important as the World Cup final itself! Each play a referendum on whether the girls wanted the victory enough and a statement on their inherent worth (or their parents).

The parents shouted out instructions as if the kids were interested, let alone could react in real-time to the Shoot-Pass-Win the Ball shouts.

Another veteran soccer dad sat near me and we had some fun listening to the parents. By the time you get to our level of experience, hundreds of games, thousands of road and air miles, tournaments and league games in every podunk town and suburb in a 3 thousand mile radius of home, you realize that it's best to just chill out and enjoy the game. Or talk to your friends and ignore the game.

Some day these parents will understand (or their kids will burn out before they do).

What Are We Doing to our Kids?

The CSPs are still in hibernation, with tryouts just getting over and teams starting to practice, so I present instead a jarring article from the NYT Magazine about the high rate of injuries - particularly ALC injuries, but also concussions - in girls' sports.

Rich and Maria Pierson never had to push Janelle into soccer or to
reach for higher-level teams, and they certainly never berated her
after bad games. These types do exist, stereotypical “Little League
parents,” but it is far more difficult than some imagine to push a
reluctant child into sports, especially at a level that demands great
commitment. Children may acquiesce for a while, but all but the most
passive or abused will eventually rebel and shut down.

I found a different syndrome: parents of highly motivated, athletic
children who are supportive of their kids’ sports but bewildered by the
culture. The children, often as not, are the ones leading the way, and
the whole family gets pulled along in ways it never anticipated. “We
had no idea what we were getting into,” Rich Pierson said. “You just
feel your way as you go. She started playing with a local team, just
once or twice a week, then began with the travel team, and after that
it just builds on up.”

At what age should a young athlete begin traveling to out-of-town
tournaments? How many days a week should she be playing? When should
she give up her other sports? The professional coach is usually not
equipped to know what’s best, but he wields tremendous influence all
the same, sometimes by threat. He makes the schedules and sets the
rules, and a child who does not go along risks losing her place on the
team.

“Parents’ hearts are usually in the right place,” says Colleen Hacker, a sports-psychology
consultant who has worked with athletes from the preadolescent up
through the college, Olympic and professional ranks. “I don’t think
anybody’s saying, ‘Honey, how do we screw them up tomorrow?’ But the
attention, judgment and objectivity that parents bring to their work
lives and other spheres of importance, they don’t bring to their kids’
sports.”

The club structure is the driving force behind the trend toward
early specialization in one sport — and, by extension, a primary cause
of injuries. To play multiple sports is, in the best sense, childlike.
It’s fun. You move on from one good thing to the next. But to
specialize conveys a seriousness of purpose. It seems to be leading
somewhere — even if, in fact, the real destination is burnout or injury.