Minor Sports and Child Development

The other evening during a Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony taking place in my community I had the opportunity to meet with several baseball players that I had coached when they were young boys in their teens. It was over 15 years ago that I had last seen most of them and it was great to talk with them and see how they had fared over the past decade. Quite a few were married and had children, others were on the verge of tying the knot and all of them had jobs and were doing quite well in their private lives. As far as I could determine not one of them had ended up in a gang or spent time in jail for serious crimes. Many of them were coaching their own kids in minor sports and one of them was still playing competitive baseball these many years later. I firmly believe that their participation in sports as a child was a key factor in the way they developed through their formative years and has helped them in their life achievements whether they believe it or not. Because as a coach I was fairly knowledgeable about their backgrounds I knew that some of them had less than optimum family lives i.e. divorce, step children etc but the one thing they had in common is that they remained together as teammates for up to ten years in some cases. When I hear of these gang bangers and their explanations for the crimes they commit such as a poor family upbringing and nothing to do but break the law to keep busy I wonder what would have happened if they had become involved in sports at an early age. The social needs like being a part of a group would have been met by joining a team of other young athletes and the self esteem they were looking for could have been found by hitting home runs or scoring goals. The aggression that is inherent in most young adults could have been expended on the field of competition rather than in the alleys during gun fights. They certainly wouldn’t have made the money they do buy selling drugs or stealing other peoples coin but the enjoyment of things like winning the playoff’s would have brought them far more joy than the expensive toys they could buy with their ill-gotten gains. They would have been exposed to sets of rules that had to be obeyed or face the inevitable consequences that followed. Even schools today don’t teach the rules of accountability as kids always pass their school year and move forward regardless of their marks or intelligence. Winning or being the best is not a staple of the liberal education system that contends that everyone is the same and getting better marks than your classmate is seen as hurting their feelings and mustn’t be allowed. The do-gooders have even begun to change the rules of sports in the younger ages to set up games that have no winners or losers and everyone gets a trophy. It doesn’t really affect kids at an early age like 5 or 6 because the kids don’t care about those things anyway but when they try to push it up into the older ages hopefully someone will stop them in their tracks, This is not the way life happens to be, so why not leave them to learn about reality and the way to lose and win within the rules. In this way they will be prepared for what lays ahead of them and not for some utopia that is non-existent. The first problem however,is that volunteers are needed because that is who runs these minor sports organizations. These people are generally the parents and I can sympathize with parents that can’t afford some of the high cost sports like hockey. But baseball and soccer for two, are reasonably priced and in some cases local communities are sympathetic to families that need financial help. It seems to me that if the government bureaucrats who like to spend our money would funnel some in the direction of minor sports organizations we as a society would be far better off. Do ya think?