What if playing sports had absolutely no influence on college acceptance? What if playing for THE elite travel team meant only that our children were playing more games at a higher level with no free time for weekend relaxation? Would playing youth sports hold the same importance it does in present day culture?
I think not. Families across the nation would be relieved. They could have their weekends back to go to church or synagogue, have a barbeque in the neighborhood, spend time together as a family, save money on gas, and limit the number of hours in the minivan. Everyone would sleep more. Parents might actually have time to do something for themselves. Downtime might return as a realistic option.
The more I speak on this topic to parent groups and schools, the more I come to understand that the number one driving force behind the youth sport frenzy is the hope that athletics will help our children get a scholarship or at least give them a competitive advantage over another child with equal or better academic standing.
The chances our children will play college sports are slim. Less than 5% in most cases as estimated by the NCAA and the National Alliance of Youth Sports. Do the math. Most of our children aren't going to play college sports. It's unlikely they will get a "leg up" in the college application process through sport activities. And scholarships are even more remote. As Bill Pennington wrote in the New York Times a few weeks back, full scholarships are rarely given. In fact, most scholarships fail to match the years of annual youth sport bills that include membership fees and extensive travel bills. Is it really worth our time, energy and dollars to invest in such an unlikely outcome?
Early sport training, early sport specialization, and travel teams do not guarantee success. In fact, there is no solid research evidence that early specialization helps performance. But there is plenty of evidence about the risk of burnout, over-use injury and stress from early specialization and over-training. Ask any pediatrician or sports medicine doctor, and they will tell you that their practices are inundated with child over-use-in-sport injuries.
So why play sports? Why are we enrolling our kids in Little League baseball or encouraging them to try out for the high school team? There are countless reasons why children should play sports. Studies reveal that the benefits range from increased cardiovascular health and reduced risk of obesity to improved social skills and overall mental health, just to name a few. Sports are an opportunity to cultivate character in our young people so that they may be versatile adults capable of independent thought and leadership. Physical activity helps them become more comfortable and confident in their own bodies.
When it comes down to it, I am going to take a leap that these are the reasons most parents want their children engaged in sports. The powerful current of our win-at-all-cost culture plays off of our fears. We worry that our children will miss out and fail to reach their full potential if we don't push them hard enough.
If this were the stock market, would we continue to devote hard-earned dollars to a long-shot of athletic scholarship? And it is not only our pockets that are at risk. Some children pushed to the extremes in sports either become injured, burned out, or even worse, turned off from sports entirely. The safest investment is in our children's overall health which entails a balance in their sport, and academic and artistic activities. There is nothing wrong with encouraging excellence in athletics, but sports are more likely a vehicle to build life skills applicable to life after college as opposed to a ticket to college.
