VALVANO: Don't let kids make the rules

BY BOB VALVANO
sports@newsandtribune.com

January 17, 2007 09:40 pm

— Read this excerpt from an ABC News story running recently:
“At a high school in McKinney, Texas, officials say a group of five cheerleaders recently got out of control. Dubbed the “Fab Five,” they acted like they could get away with almost anything and refused to bend to authority. They repeatedly skipped class, insulted their instructors, and terrorized their coach, their fourth coach in just one year. The Fab Five even posted sexually suggestive pictures of themselves on MySpace, but that still wasn’t enough for the school to take their pompoms away. In an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America,” Michaela Ward, the coach that the Fab Five drove out, said the girls were beyond discipline.”
If you remember, I started these columns by referencing much of what I think is wrong about sports today. I gave some examples and got much feedback from you, yet I didn’t feel like I completely expressed my main objection to what we are doing in youth sports.
The story above triggered some further reading and led me to a book called “Queen Bees and Wanna-Be’s” by Rosalind Wiseman, an educator on teens and parenting. One of her main premises neatly sums up my objection to much of youth sports.
She sees the Texas cheerleading debacle as a wider problem involving kids and power. “This is about kids having more power than adults, and them getting away with things no matter how old they are,” says Wiseman.
That’s it.
Remember, I am not talking about the coaches and parents who are abusive, use profanity at officials during games, and even get into fistfights with other parents and coaches. We all know they are nuts. We are talking about people who consider themselves mainstream, and who are perceived as such by their peers.
It is my belief they often don’t know that their well-intentioned efforts are undermining the very sport they say they love and their children’s involvement within that sport.
It is all about parents giving power to their kids through their activities and not just sports. But sports has became so enormous in our society it is most frequently the way these unhealthy balances of power take place.
Wiseman has some strong thoughts on this subject.
“Some parents feel as if their number one priority is to protect their child and it is not,” she says. “Their No. 1 job is to raise an ethical child, and part of that means holding them accountable for bad behavior.”
This is my main argument against parents’ involvement in sports. Slowly, but most surely, the games have become extensions of the parents and the adults, and much that sports was supposed to help teach is lost in the iron-grip of the grown-ups in charge.
Well meaning? Perhaps, but failing the kids involved.
Parents need to teach their kids to be comfortable speaking to people in positions of power, a useful life skill. “If your child learns to speak to people in a position of power about something they feel is not right and to articulate how they feel about it, you are teaching your child a very powerful life lesson,” Wiseman said.
Beyond all that, this is relevant to the parents who say, ‘well my child is really gifted and I am trying to give them every chance to succeed in their sport.’ I contend, even by this rather narrow definition, the over- management and overlooked transgressions still fail the young athlete. Let’s hope youth sports serve as more than a farm system for the professional ranks — given the odds against any given child making it, we surely are wasting our time and resources if that is all it is. But even if that is the goal, this “power transfer” to the kids is not helping them prepare for the highest levels of competition.
Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino recently confided in me that he thinks today’s players are very different from when he first started coaching.
It is not a pining for the good old days. In fact, he says kids today are generally nicer, don’t get into as much serious trouble, and are more concerned with the academic side of things. But, they have no idea how to deal with challenges or adversity because their ability has enabled them to escape close scrutiny of their actions. They had the power at a very young age.
Worse, well-meaning adults “ran” everything in these kids lives, so the young athletes don’t understand how to deal with their frustration at finally being “coached” and held accountable. They always had people to pick up the pieces and make their cases for them. They don’t know how to interact with people in authority since no one has held them accountable.
Again, they had the power.
What to do? Simple, says Wiseman. “Parents should only get involved if their child is being humiliated or ridiculed. But if it’s a content issue, meaning a grade or a performance in sports or something else, you need to work with your child to articulate what the problem is and to speak to the coach or the teacher themselves,” she said. “You should not do the talking for your child. Let your kid work it out when it comes to grades and playing time.”
Good advice in my book.

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