We sucked the fun out of it for misguided reasons.
“Building sketchy bike/skateboard ramps out of plywood and cinder blocks is more fun and will teach kids more about life than begrudgingly showing up to the 7th tournament of the summer all in an effort to keep up with the Joneses.
I promise.
Real fun is a lost art.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
What’s the objective?
No seriously, what is the objective?
I’m not a pessimist, but I am a realist.
We know the likelihood of playing Professional Athletics hovers around 1%.
We also know that the chances of becoming a successful Professional Athlete hover around a number that starts out like this: .000.
What this data tells me is that there is a 99.99+% chance that you won’t become a successful professional athlete who is able to make a living playing sports.
I want to see kids shoot for the stars, but as a realist it is my duty to provide data.
If we know that the overwhelming majority of athletes aren’t going to be playing professionally then why do we devote unhealthy amounts of their time to often toxic, politicized sporting environments?
“Because it’s fun.”
Are you sure?
Are you sure they are having extravagant amounts of fun forgoing any resemblance of a normal childhood, having 5-hour practices on Sundays during the “off-season”?
“To get a scholarship.”
Let’s say Jimmy or Sarah plays ‘travel’ ball from 10-18.
Let’s error on the (laughably) low end and assume between the team dues, tournament fees, uniforms, private lessons, travel, gas/flights, hotels, food, hidden expenses, and mind you the biggest expense of them all — opportunity cost (remember when you say yes to one thing, you are saying NO to everything else.) ‘Sports’ cost $10,000/year.
Over an 8-year period, and those who are actually in this know the number is drastically higher than this, we spend $80,000 on Sports in an 8-year period.
If the goal is to get a scholarship, outside of P5 Football & Basketball, scholarship should be renamed to “heavily partial discount” as most scholarships are under 50%.
We’re looking at having been able to pay for multiple degrees, multiple times over, with the funds that would have been saved from that “7th do or die tournament”.
Does this mean we shouldn’t play sports?
Of course not.
Youth sports have the potential to be one of the greatest concepts in our kids lives IF we leverage them correctly.
Let’s adjust course and recognize the ‘value’ of running them into the ground with year-round ball just simply isn’t there regardless of how you chop it up.
Let kid’s be kid’s.
We’ll see a lot more growth and a lot less problems.
