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The Daily Post-Athenian, Friday, June 16, 2017 – Page C5
Encouraging young players more important than wins
Jim and Susan were very purposeful in their decision to let their sixyear-old son play baseball. Jonathan
seemed to enjoy the game and actually played well enough that he was
invited to play on an All-Star team.
“The regular season ended on a
Saturday and All-Star practice began
on Mother’s Day,” says Jim. “They
practiced every day that week with
their first game on Friday. Between
Friday and Tuesday, the team played
nine games. The general atmosphere
was ‘win at all costs.’ The coach spent
a lot of time yelling at the kids if they
missed a play. There was very little
positive encouragement when players did something right.”
After witnessing this, Jim and
Susan began questioning their decision to let their son play.
“I knew things were not good
when we showed up to a game and
our son said his stomach hurt,”
Jim says. “I figured it was probably
nerves. When we got home, Jonathan
went outside and played baseball
outside for a couple of hours. That
was when we really knew we had a
are tired of being yelled at, there’s
decision to make.”
too much emphasis on winning, and
Ultimately, Jim and Susan made
they are afraid to make mistakes.
the joint decision to pull their son off
When a parent or coach is more conthe team. When they told him about
cerned about winning than anything,
their decision, he actually seemed
it can totally take the joy out of playrelieved.
ing.
Forty million kids play
“The single most fundayouth sports. According to
mental thing we teach is
a poll from the National
something I learned from
Alliance for Youth Sports,
Coach Bruce Brown,” says
more than 70 percent of kids
O’Sullivan. “You can do
who begin a sport before
your part by starting with
age eight will not play that
five simple words: I love
sport in middle school.
watching you play.”
John O’Sullivan,
Heath Eslinger,
founder and CEO of the
wrestling coach at the
Changing the Game
University of Tennessee
project, says kids are
at Chattanooga, encourFirst Things First ages parents to focus
not becoming better at
sports, they are becomJulie Baumgardner on what is important in
ing bitter. Michigan State
the big picture, not just
University asked 30,000 kids why they what is important now.
play sports, and they said because it’s
“Improvement in sports happens
fun. And while they value winning, it
through repetition,” says Eslinger.
isn’t why they show up to play.
“If I play a baseball game, I may
O’Sullivan also notes that kids say
never touch a baseball. If that is the
they quit playing sports because they case, there is no way I can improve.
Repetition comes from play, and that
is so much more beneficial.”
Eslinger believes parents need
to let their children walk through
organic struggles versus placing them
in supplemental struggles, which are
all the extracurricular opportunities.
Organic struggle centers around two
things: Relationships and responsibility. How you treat people and
how you take care of responsibilities. These two things will always be
around.
Many positives and life lessons can
come from playing sports. Before you
get too involved, though, it’s probably
a good idea to examine exactly what
you want kids to learn from playing
the game. Whether you are a coach
or a parent, you get to decide what is
more important – winning and performance, or making better people of
character.
Julie Baumgardner is President and
CEO of Chattanooga-based First
Things First. She can be reached at
[email protected]