However, adults have “progressed” so much, we’ve managed to bake a lot of the good out of them.
“Youth sports used to be the greatest teacher of life lessons the world ever knew.
Teamwork, problem solving, overcoming adversity, it was all there.
We’ve ‘progressed’ so much that we’ve managed to bake a lot of the organic good out of them.
Not all ‘progress’ is progress.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Youth sports used to be a better teacher of life than anything else the world ever knew.
The education and life lessons our kids used to be able to get on the ball field, far surpassed any schooling they could ever receive in the school hall.
Teamwork, problem solving, camaraderie, continuity, fellowship, overcoming adversity, oh yeah, pure fun.. It was all there.
But now, for whatever reason, we’ve “progressed” to the point where we’ve taken the natural education & lessons youth sports provided and baked it out of them.
How you ask?
Teamwork? You mean work together for that team you’re playing on today but won’t be on tomorrow. Either because the grass appears to be greener on the other side or because the team you’re currently on isn’t actually a team, but a group of individuals?
Camaraderie and fellowship? This isn’t about camaraderie and fellowship anymore. This is about manipulating ones environment for selfish reasons to ensure your ‘recruiting profile’ looks the best by whatever means necessary. Afterall, your “teammates” are competing for those same college roster spots as you are. It’s all fist bumps on the field, but trash talk on the way home.
Overcoming adversity? Do people even understand what that means anymore? In a day an age where if you’re slightly unhappy for even a minimal amount of time, we teach (enable) our kids to pick-up their ball and go play elsewhere, and if we can’t find elsewhere, we create a “new team” for them?
Oh yeah, to wrap this up, remember this whole thing is about ‘fun’, Sarah!
(Just ignore the toxicity, politics, and the part where a grown man was cursing out a little league umpire in the parking lot.)
Now obviously these are some rather brash examples and there is still a LOT of good to be found in sports (even more if we work at shifting the narrative), but unfortunately the aforementioned examples are all too common in the world of youth sports. They are the norm.
And the fact that we as adults tolerate this nonsense in the purest, yet most impressionable years of our kids’ lives is a disservice to their development.
We must get back to the old ways as not all “progress” is good progress.
