STUDENT ESSAY
MODIFIED SPORT FOR CHILDREN: HAVE WE MISSED THE POINT?
By Michael Burke
Footscray Institute of Technology
In recent years, both Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaegar have retired from
professional women’s tennis in their early twenties. Shane Gould is one of
several Australian swimmers who retired from international swimming
before she reached the age of twenty. The premature retirements of these
athletes have been explained as psychological burnout of elite athletes who
have performed in stressful competition before they are emotionally mature.
Yet this problem of dropping out is not confined to elite athletes. In
America, it is estimated that one-third of the twenty million participants in
junior sport drop out each year. (Klint and Weiss, 1986, p. 106) Gerald Astor
a NEW YORK TIMES journalist, told the story of a thirteen year old
Westchester athlete who was alienated from his peers by a coach who
objected to the boy’s father taking him home to supper before the end of
training. The retired athlete explained that ‘the coach thinks football is the
only thing in the world.” (Underwood, 1978, p.55)
Are children being ordered to grow up too soon by misinformed coaches
and parents? It is the contention of this essay that whilst the development
of modified sports for children is a worthy task, it is far more essential to
modify sports to suit the motivations and personalities of the athletes. It will
investigate the effect of the coach’s expectations, reinforcement and powers
of communication on the continued participation of young athletes in a
sport.
Edward Devereux, a developmental psychologist, believes that when
children organise informal sporting games they display a friendship and cooperation which is rarely seen in organised sport. (Underwood, 1978, p.62)
In games of cricket, there is the ‘can’t get out first ball’ rule and it is assumed
that younger players are bowled to more gently. Batting, bowling and fielding
duties are rotated between the players. Rules are improvised and
compromises are made to permit all players to participate enjoyably and to
encourage future participation in games. Inequities are quickly overcome by
exchanging players between sides.
In contrast, Chuck Ortman, a former all-American gridiron player,
believes that ‘if kid’s football doesn’t turn boys into men, it certainly turns
men into boys.” Coaches intervene in sport with a win-at-any-cost attitude
allowing only their best players to participate in a game. (Underwood, 1978,
p.56) If winning the game is more important to the coaches than the
objectives held by the children, then winning is out of perspective. If children
value affiliation, fun or enhancement of self-esteem more than winning,
then the coach should modify his techniques to achieve these objectives.
Glynn Roberts gives an example of the different values placed on winning
by athletes and their parents. Roberts explains:-
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I was walking home with two young boys who had just finished
playing baseball. All the way home the boys had been
discussing the merits of the game, including the good hits and
catches. Just as they were reaching home, one of the boys
asked who had won. I asked if it was important to know who
had won. The boy replied Yes, because my father will ask who
won.” (Spink, 1986, p.4)
Research on Little League Baseball players has revealed that winning
made little difference to the young players but these same players revealed
that winning was important to their parents and coaches. (Smith, Small and
Curtis, 1978, cited by Spink, 1986, p.3)
Competition for children should be run in accordance with the
participants values and objectives. In order to understand these objectives,
it is necessary for adults to step back and listen to the views of the athletes.
It is a sad indictment on junior sport when a young hockey player becomes
so embarrassed by his parents that he writes:And anyhow, I thought I was playing for fun, to have a good
time, and to learn good sportsmanship. I didn’t realise that you
were going to get so upset because I couldn’t win. (Martens,
1978, p.355)
Watson (1975) and Robertson (1981) in studies of young Australian
athletes found that 70.6% of participants indicated that their primary
motivation for participation was intrinsic rewards of fun, enjoyment and
game elements. Only 1.4% were motivated by extrinsic rewards such as
praise, trophies or pleasing others. (cited by Wankel and Kreisel, 1985, p.52)
Spink and Longhurst interviewed Australian children involved in a wide
range of competitive sports and found that the five most important goals of
participation were:- to learn new skills: to be challenged: to be physically fit:
to improve skills and to compete. Winning was ranked seventeenth in
importance by the athletes. (1985, cited by Spink, 1986, p.67) A
questionnaire gave American junior footballers a choice of playing for a
losing team or sitting on the bench for winning team, and they voted almost
unanimously to play. (Underwood, 1978, p.63)
Contrary to these goals, the coaches of the athletes in Spink and
Longhurst’s study could only identify improving skills as one of the five most
important motivations of their young athletes. (Spink, 1986, p.67) Orlick,
when investigating dropouts from youth soccer competitions, found that a
majority of athletes left the competition because of the coach’s emphasis on
winning. This excessive desire to win limited the degree to which the child
could derive enjoyment from the sport’s environment. This caused an early
retirement. (1974. cited by Robinson and Carron, 1982, p.364)
It is important that the coach identifies and supports the priorities of
their young athletes. If the coach identifies these objectives, he may
structure the training sessions and games to achieve these goals. In
addition, the coach may learn of conflicting goals between players and
resolve these conflicts. Such resolution should include sympathy for all
players and not merely the best players.
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Communication is an exchange of information conveying meaning. Too
often the coach ignores the information coming from his players, and
assumes that his goal for the team is acceptable to all. In addition, the coach
may make the sport boring or threatening for his players, in trying to achieve
his goals.
Bob Cupp, a junior football coach, tells the story of another coach
obsessed by winning:The sad thing is. the really qualified guy isn’t always the best
for kids. Can’t always relate... He’d yell things at ‘em like
You’re gonna block if I have to kick your ass all afternoon.” The
kids were eight year olds. They’d just turn to jelly and walk off
crying. Another coach criticised him for not playing his lesser
players. He said, Why should I play kids who lookup at the sky
and chew grass in practice?” The other coach replied, “Maybe
if the kids played more they wouldn’t look at the sky so much.’
(Underwood, 1976, p.59)
DeCharms identified two types of people in his THEORY OF PERSONAL
CAUSATION. Origins take control over their own destiny and are selfmotivated. Pawns are motivated by external factors and perceive themselves
as inadequate for the task. During research in low income schools, De
Charms found that it was possible to turn pawns into origins by allowing
them input in choosing the level of the task they hope to perform. With this
input, the children became more motivated and performed better. (1968.
cited by Wankel and Kreisel, 1985, p.53)
Similarly, in children’s sport, the coach should allow the athletes to set
their own long term goals. This will improve the motivation of the children
and may reduce disciplinary problems. The coach may also ask the children
to construct drills incorporating certain skills. The athletes will be more
committed to the goal of their own drills. In addition, the successful
completion of the drill may enhance the self-image of the athlete,
However, the coach should not abandon all his duties. He should be
supportive of his player’s efforts, whether they succeed or fail. The coach
should focus on positive aspects of the drill to enhance the self-confidence
of the athlete. He should also try to assist under-confident athletes in
constructing drills. The support from the coach helps to establish a coachathlete relationship. (Spink 1980, p.3) He should encourage his athletes to
experiment without fear of failure. The threat of punishment or abuse for
failure is extremely stifling for some young athletes.
The coach is in a position of authority and can make or break young
athletes. There will be times when he will have to criticise the actions of the
athlete for the athlete to improve. Spink offers some suggestions about the
method of this criticism. (1986. p.8) The coach should provide information
about how to correct the mistake, not merely state the mistake, and should
realise that the player does not deliberately make an error and that the error
is damaging to self-esteem. A player in this situation does not want a coach
to be screaming incoherently at him. He also does not need a coach to
become personally insulting as these insults are humiliating from a
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respected elder and destroy the coach-athlete relationship. he coach
should recognise that his subject has understood the criticism and has
learnt from it. Often the player on making a mistake will expect criticism and
will turn off from a coach. The coach should use every means of
communication to ensure that the athlete understands that the criticism is
directed at the act and not the athlete. (Spink, 1986, p. 10)
Rosenthal and Jacobsen initiated research into the effect of expectancies
of teachers on students’ performances in class. The experimenters
randomly identified some students as intellectual bloomers. and gave the
names of these students to the teachers. Although the bloomers were not
different to the other students, they had made significant gains over them
in performance over the period of the experiment. The teachers had got what
they expected possibly because of the differential use of verbal cues such as
praise and criticism and nonverbal cues of smiles and indifferent looks. The
bloomers were given more praise, less criticism and greater opportunity to
learn new things. (1968, cited by Spink, 1986, p. 19)
The same situation may occur in junior sport. Athletes whom the coach
perceives to be high in ability may receive greater praise than ‘lesser’
athletes. Good play from the athletes whom the coach believes to be low in
ability is greeted with surprise and explained as lucky.
The implications of the expectancies of the coach are damaging to the
team and to individual athletes. The poorer players may feel neglected by the
coach and may become hostile towards the preferred group. The athletes
receiving less reinforcement may feel unworthy of the team and lose
confidence. The coach’s subtle isolation may cause other players to isolate
the poorer players, and they may respond to the lack of reinforcement either
by trying to copy their more able teammates or by accepting the enforced
limits on their performance. Low ceilings may be set for the poorer athlete.
(Spink, 1986, p.21)
The coach should believe in the potential of all his athletes and expect
them to achieve their goals. The coach should provide positive and
instructional feedback to all athletes which is contingent with their
performance and not their perceived ability. Effort should be emphasised
as a prime determinant of success as lesser athletes can perform optimally
in the pursuit of goals through effort. Alternatively, better athletes who rely
on their ability may be motivated to try harder to receive the coach’s praise.
Coaches and parents should not set minimal performance standards as this
only serves to create problems for the less skilled athletes who cannot attain
the standard and drop out. Individual goals should be set for each athlete
which are challenging but not overpowering.
When children compete in sport, they undertake a highly stressful
evaluative process about their competence at the task. In sport, success or
failure is normally attributed to the ability or effort of the performer, the
difficulty of the task or luck. Ability and task difficulty are fairly stable
characteristics of the sporting environment: luck or effort may change from
time to time (Roberts, 1980, p.42)
‘learned
Dweck identified certain children as suffering from
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helplessness.’ These children attributed success to luck, and failure to
factors beyond their control: that is, lack of ability or the difficulty of the task.
As a result, they perceived themselves as inadequate and refused to try.
(1975,p.681) Roberts believes that athletes may also perceive low
competence at a task and that this will result in reduced motivation and may
cause the athlete to drop out thereby damaging his confidence and self
concept. (1980, p.40) This phenomenon is supported by the work of
Robinson and Carron who found that drop outs attributed failure to poor
ability, and success to luck, whereas athletes attributed failure to poor
effort. The athletes had attributed failure to something internal which could
be changed. (1982, p.375)
A commitment to children’s sports means that the coach and parents
should try to retain all athletes and not just high achievers. The coach has
several mechanisms to enhance the self-confidence of this players. He may
endeavour to alter the attributional style of his players so that failure is
explained in terms of something that can be modified such as team strategy
or individual effort, while emphasising performance before outcome. Before
the age of thirteen, children attribute success to effort and will maximise this
effort so long as they are motivated. A coach who is outcome oriented may
make attributions which conflict with those of his athletes who may feel they
have tried hard and performed well in a losing side and may be satisfied with
their competence. A poor coach or parent may criticise the children based
on the result, which may cause the children to lose confidence in their coach.
The coach should also try to assess individual contributions to the games
regardless of the outcome. Once again, players on the losing side may feel
that they have performed competently regardless of the result. These
individual comments should be made after listening to the athlete’s
attributions concerning the result, in order to avoid conflict. (Spink, 1986,
p.3)
It is important that the coach uses reinforcement selectively and rewards
players’ efforts regardless of outcome. For example, a coach may reward a
goalkeeper in soccer who gets his hand to a penalty kick without stopping
it or an athlete who chases back quickly after making a mistake. In addition,
coaches should reward athletes who risk failure as this eliminates the
athletes’ fear and allows them to confidently challenge themselves. (Spink,
1986, p.42)
A coach should use feedback to reinforce and correct. Research by
Kirschenbaum and Smith has shown that young athletes thrive if they
receive a mixture of positive and negative informational reinforcement.
(1983, p.338) The coach should not be afraid to correct young athletes’
mistakes but should not use the commonly practised ‘error correction by
intimidation’ approach.
The reinforcement of the coach should be credible. If it is not contingent
with the act, the athlete may become distrustful of the source of the reward.
If coaches can not find something good to say, they should say nothing at
all. (Spink, 1986, p.46)
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It is important that the reinforcement and outcome is kept in perspective.
Bob Cupp explains:This fall the boy who’d been kingpin of the 80 pound league
tried to make the weight again. He dieted but still weighed 86.
He quit. He couldn’t face not being the star. (Underwood, 1978,
p. 59)
It is important for coaches and parents involved in junior sport to treat
children as children and not as miniature adults, and to understand the
personalities of their young athletes. Galen Fiss, an ex-Cleveland Browns
linebacker explains:The other day in Kansas City, one of his junior linemen came
out of the huddle hopping and skipping. For an instant the
coaches were horrified. Then we realised, he’s a 10 year-old
kid! That’s his way of having fun. (Underwood, 1978, p.58)
Dickie Meagle, another junior football coach, explains that a major
problem in games is boredom of uninvolved players. When a train or a plane
passes, the kids stop and watch. According to Meagle, ‘let a firetruck go by
an its Looney Tunes.” (Underwood, 1978, p.57)
Junior sport is a different game to professional sport. The objectives and
values of the players differ. So it is inappropriate for coaches to approach the
game with the Lombardi philosophy of winning-at-all-costs. The idea of
junior sport is to have fun, to learn skills and to produce a lifelong
appreciation of sport. If these values conflict with the efforts of the coach to
win, then the coach must swallow his desire for glory and accept the ‘lesser’
goals of his players.
It is important for the coach and parents to support the performance of
the athlete and find positive aspects of the performance. Often in junior
basketball, a player will make a great defensive steal and then miss a difficult
shot. A good coach will praise the steal and correct the shot. A bad coach will
ignore the steal and criticise the shot.
It should be accepted that children are in a highly stressful situation,
playing in front of significant adults in their lives. Larry Csonka, a major
league gridiron player, refuses to let his sons play in children’s leagues. He
explains: Take a little kid, put him under the pressure of a big game
before his parents and his entire world and it can be very bad
for him. Adults don’t consider what can go wrong. He may come
home soured on athletics for good. (Underwood, 1978, p.54)
Children’s sport should be approached tenderly and the coach should
treat each child individually and expect each athlete to achieve challenging
goals. The children should expect support from their coach but he should
not interfere too much in the game. Everyone involved should recognise that
children should grow up slowly and enjoy their lives without the pressures
of adulthood.
As Jim Nelson, a coach of a small Missouri college football team
explains: I yearn for the old days. Not because we did everything right,
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but because we had fun. Nobody watched us play but we still
returned every week. Now you see kids who have already
played bowl games and all-star games before high school
What’s left? (Underwood, 1978, p.54)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R.DeChaxmes, Personal Causation
C.S.Dweck, The Role of Expectations and Attributions in the Alleviation of
Learned Helplessness
D.S.Kirschenbaum and R.S.Smith, A Preliminary Study of Sequencing
Effects in Simulated Coach Feedback
K.A.Klint and M.R.Weiss, Dropping In and Dropping Out.
R.Martens, Joy and Sadness in Childrens Sports
T.D.Orlick, The Athletic Drop-Out
G.C.Roberts, Children in Competition
I.Robertson, Childrens Perceived Satisfactions and Stresses in Sport
A.V.Carran, Personal and Situational Factors
T.T.Robinson and
Associated With Dropping Out et al
R.Rosenthal and L.Jacobsen, Pygmalion in the Classroom
R.E.Small, F.L.Small and B.Curtis, Coaching Behaviours in Little League
Baseball
K.S.Spink, On Motivation, Puppets and Personal Responsibility
K.S. Spink, Coaching For Sporting Excellence
K.S.Spink and I.K.Longhurst, Participation Motivation of Australian
Children Involved in Organised Sport
J.Underwood, Taking The Fun Out of The Game
L.M.Wankel and P.S.J.Kreisel, Factors Underlying
G.Watson, The Meaning of Parental Influence and Intrinsic Reward in
Sport
(This essay was joint runner-up for the ASSH Student Prize)
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