The June 7, 2004 issue of US News and World Report contains an article entitled "Fixing Kid's Sports - Rescuing children from crazed coaches and parents" by Peter Cary. This is a must read for recreation and youth wrestling coaches. It refers to two organizations that advocate a more sensible approach to kids sports:

• Positive Coaching Alliance
• National Alliance for Youth Sports

It refers to two excellent books for both parents and coaches:

• Why Johnny Hates Sports by Fred Engh
• Positive Coaching by Jim Thompson

Below is a rather poor summary of the article, but for coaches with little time, it might provide them with the essence of the article. We urge you to go here for the actual article.

Problems in Organized Youth Sports

1. Examples: Father telling his kid, "You little bastard, you could never get anything right." ... The beefy guy, captured on video, telling his young baseball player, "I'm gonna get you tonight because you let me down, buddy."... The kid pitching in a local recreation league, who, after every pitch, grabbed his elbow and winced. When the umpire stopped the game, the boy's father and coach came out to the mound. "What's wrong?" he asked the boy. "It's my arm; it hurts," said the child, crying. "Son," said the coach, "this is a man's game. Now stay in there and pitch." This was nothing more than "legalized child abuse.".... Coaches will, in the younger leagues, tell players not to swing the bat because of the likelihood that the pitcher will throw more balls than strikes. Soon the bases are loaded. They break the pitchers down emotionally, and that's how they win.
   
2. Violent parental behavior toward children, coaches, or officials at kids' sports events. Youngsters have been called names, yelled at, or insulted while playing. They have been pressured to play while injured, and some said they had been hit, kicked, or slapped while participating.
   
3. Travel teams also known as elite, select, or club teams can be intense. They may practice twice a week and play twice more. They can travel one, two, three hours each way for games, chewing up entire Saturdays or weekends. It becomes a way of life. It winds up being what you do on weekends. You don't go away; you don't go on vacation; you do baseball. Is playing all of these matches the best way to develop players? The answer is, "No."
   
4. Some say if your kid wants to make a high school team, he has to play club ball as well.
   
5. Youth sports are too competitive

Results

1. The dropout rate of all children from organized sports is said to be 70 percent. Some of the most talented athletes drop out by their teens.
   
2. Children are starting in sports younger, specializing in one sport earlier, and may play the same sport year-round. Pushing kids to play sports too early and too often can result in pain and worse.
   
3. Stress injuries among kids are way up. There is an increase in overuse injuries like stress fractures and tendinitis
   
4. For many parents the demands of toting kids to practice, travel games, and tournaments are taking a big toll on what used to be called family life. Structured sports time has doubled while family dinners have been cut by a third and family vacations have decreased 28 percent. What also gives is the homework and the sleep.
   
5. Parents saying that their child had dropped out of a sport because it made him or her unhappy.
   
6. Parents get down on the coach because the team isn't winning, and coaches sometimes take it out on the kids. Or some kids simply ride the bench.
   
7. Burnout. Many kids, so pushed, tire of sports by the time they reach high school.
   
8. All the emphasis on winning, perversely, can make for inferior skills.
   
9. There's been a huge growth in youth sports. The question nobody's asking is, is this a good thing?

Solutions

1. Make team sports less pressurized, safer, and more child friendly.
   
2. Every kid should play at least half of every game and teams should be balanced in talent to ensure fairness.
   
3. Workshops for parents where they watch a video on how to be a good sports parent, pick up a handbook on same, and sign a sportsmanship pledge--or their children can not play.
   
4. Workshops for coaches that stress honoring the game, mastering sports skills, and shrugging off mistakes. The win-at-all-costs mentality is the root of all evil in youth sports. Coaches should be less focused on winning. Most kids would prefer to play a lot on a team that loses than sit on the bench of a team that wins.
   
5. Athletes perform best when they feel good about themselves. The way to keep them confident is with positive comments. Athletes so motivated will be confident, try hardest, take chances, and play "over their heads." And when that happens, the team wins.
   
6. It's not yet proven that year-round play, travel teams, and specialization make better athletes. In fact those who participate in a variety of sports and specialize only after reaching the age of puberty tend to be more consistent performers, have fewer injuries, and adhere to sports play longer than those who specialize early.
   
7. It is in practice, not games, that young athletes develop their skills.