Strong High School Education Important

A2: Criticisms of Sports

Sports can be informed and improved, we don’t have to abandon them

Jenni Spies, 3006, Jenni Spies is a third-year law student graduating in May 2006 from Marquette University Law School. In addition to a J.D., the author will earn a Certificate in Sports Law from the National Sports Law Institute upon graduation. She received her Bachelor of Science in Sport Management from Ithaca College in 2002, Sports Lawyers Journal, Spring 2006, "Only Orphans Should Be Allowed To Play Little League": How Parents Are Ruining Organized Youth Sports for Their Children and What Can Be Done About It, p. 287

First, in order to keep the games child-oriented, parents and coaches must realize the limits of children. Children are not miniature adults, and they cannot be expected to act like them. Games and skills should be targeted to the appropriate age group; for example, ten-year-olds should not be asked to play basketball with regulation size basketballs because their hands are not big enough for them, and six-year-olds should not be expected to hit baseballs pitched to them because their hand-eye coordination is not fully developed. Some parents and coaches may feel that forcing children to "play up" to higher levels than expected will push children to improve, but in reality, setting physically impossible goals will just frustrate and discourage children from continuing sports. Thus by teaching age-appropriate skills and setting age-appropriate goals, parents and coaches will be encouraging youth sports participation and confidence in these children.

Second, parents should not enroll their children in, nor should leagues offer, traveling or elite teams for children under the age of fourteen. Early specialization is not only physically unhealthy for young children because of overuse injuries, but it can also be mentally unhealthy for children as illustrated by the mental burnout of athletes like Jennifer Capriati. In addition to eliminating specialization until an age where children can make a conscious choice to pick a "favorite" sport, leagues should limit the current athletic participation by taking the initiative to limit the number and length of practices at each separate age level. These limits should be created after consultation with parents, child psychologists, and sports medicine doctors.

Third, when structuring leagues, it is important to remember that winning is an adult creation thrust upon children. In fact, children usually do not define winning as a motivating factor for joining teams, and furthermore, many children define success as "trying one's best, improving since the last performance and enjoying the activity." Moreover, when comparing games run informally by children and those run formally by adults, the children in the former group rarely place any importance on winning. The children playing informal games emphasize "personal involvement, keeping the game close, and the reaffirming of friendships."

Lastly, society should hold parents and coaches responsible when they do not adhere to these standards. This can be done by creating and enforcing laws that keep abusive parents away from the playing field and by encouraging leagues to adopt parental codes of conduct. First, the state legislatures or local county boards must take a stance to show that their communities will not tolerate this kind of behavior from parents directed at children or anybody else. State legislatures can pass statutes similar to those created by the New Jersey legislature in 2002 that not only encouraged school boards and youth sport organizations to create "athletic codes of conduct," but also gave these same entities the power to hinge athletic participation of the child on the parent's agreement to abide by the code. Furthermore, school boards and youth sport organizations have the power to ban those parents, coaches, students, or officials who violate the athletic code of conduct from any of the organization's sporting events until the offending person proves that he has received anger management counseling.

Another alternative would be to create laws similar to those created by the Nassau County legislature in New York. These laws, called "Good Sportsmanship Laws," require all child athletes who want to play organized sports in the county to sign a pledge to be good sports, and all parents of these children to sign pledges agreeing to teach their children that winning is not the only thing and that an honest effort is more important than winning.

In addition to passing these laws, school boards must be given the right to enforce them by the courts. One case that has dealt with this issue, Nichols v. Western Local Board of Education, held that parents do not have a constitutional liberty to attend their child's school sporting events and the school boards could exclude parents of student athletes from school property, and thus sporting events, without a due process hearing. Furthermore, it should be noted that in this case, the school district did not have any formal rules banning problem individuals from sporting events, and yet the court still held that these problem individuals could be banned.

Some leagues have already taken the initiative to create parental codes of conduct and educate the parents about the proper way to act at youth sporting events. For example, in Jupiter, Florida, a youth sports league requires all parents to attend a seminar before allowing their children to enroll in the league. According to the president of Jupiter's Athletic Association, the program has led to a decrease in problems and fighting on the field. Other organizations are using a nationwide program called Parents Association for Youth Sports (PAYS). This program provides a nineteen-minute video that educates parents on the proper etiquette for youth sporting events. Furthermore, Little League Baseball International has taken a worldwide initiative by creating a "Parent's Pledge" to be used within its organization. According to this pledge, parents promise to "teach all children to play fair ... positively support all managers, coaches, and players ... [and] respect all decisions of the umpires."