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Catching the Runaway Train
By Lem Elway
January, 18 2008
“I have met the enemy and it is us.”
Kids become involved in sports for many reasons, but mostly it’s to have fun, be with friends, and get some exercise. Traditionally, they remain involved in athletics only if it continues to be fun.
But a growing number of athletes continue doing sports to get serious. They are told they are talented, gifted, or have potential in a particular sport, and their focus becomes stardom. Sometimes, of course, it’s their parents’ focus.
We’ve all seen it. The very athletic kid who is having fun catching touchdown passes, shooting three-pointers, and pitching shutouts suddenly is in the gym during fall and spring seasons working on his jump shot. The girl with amazing acceleration is too busy on several travel soccer teams to go out for the basketball and track teams this year.
If you want to be great, really great, at sport A, why also do sport B and C? Baseball coaches are telling their young talent to concentrate on their swing, swim coaches want their athletes in the pool year-round, basketball coaches push their kids toward the best travel teams.
The athletes imagine their faces on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Their parents see a full college scholarship and excellent bragging opportunities at the water cooler and the next family reunion.
As coaches, we see a star player who will bring us championships and possibly the opportunity to advance our careers. We see the athletic potential and get excited about teaching this kid.
We’ve come to call it sport specialization. A lot of innocent, well-intentioned acts that have become a runaway train no one seems to be able to stop. We like to blame it on today’s generation of hard-driving parents. But we as coaches are also to blame: I have met the enemy and it is us.
Why is sport specialization bad?
The basis for school sports is the strong philosophy that boys and girls need to be involved in extracurricular activities to develop positive traits, which will direct their decision making on challenging issues they face throughout their lives. The more extra curricular activities they are involved in, the more learning experiences they have, leading to mature adults with many social and leadership skills.
When we focus on reaching the next level of athletics, instead of the current one, those learning opportunities end up playing second fiddle. The byproduct of this specialization is athletes missing valuable educational experiences associated with being on different teams. There are many kids out there who need to develop positive self-esteem, confidence, and social skills, and it’s our privilege to help them.
Sometimes coaches spend too much time developing the “All American” and forgetting the other athletes. The marginal athlete with a good solid character or the team leader that is struggling with a decision is not nurtured. He or she then loses the chance to develop those personal skills through their experiences in the program.
Another problem I’ve seen too many times is that the star athlete ends up destroying a good, solid team. When one athlete on your team is participating with the idea of higher aspirations, the focus on teamwork—and all that goes along with it—is lost. These athletes and their parents are the ones who create most of the problems for coaches and program.
Kids are told they need to practice sports specialization to reach a personal goal that usually is very unattainable. They and their parents become single focused and at the end of the day if their goals aren’t met the “blame game” or personal and psychological problems can be a byproduct.
What is our role in stopping it?
Today, an increasing number of players attend camps or have specialized sports instructors who re-enforce the athletes’ aspirations. Many of us work at these camps and offer this type of private instruction. We tell the athletes how great they are, and what they need to work on next, so they keep coming back for more.
We provide quotes from pro athletes that say things like, “Just follow your dreams and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it.” The statistics show that less than three percent of high school athletics receive an NCAA Division I scholarship, but we don’t tell them that.
Of course, we don’t want to be dream wreckers. Everyone, and especially kids, need dreams. But we must balance dreams with reality. And we must deliver an honest message to those who most need to hear it. We have to fit kids’ abilities into realistic goals and change goals as the athletes mature and change themselves. It is dishonest to say things that provide a false sense of security for players and parents.
Often, we also forget to ask if the dream is what they really want. We need to tell them it’s okay to choose poetry over baseball or biochemistry over basketball.
We make up a lot of excuses:
• It’s better if kids are busy all the time so they don’t have free time to get into trouble.
• The kids and parents want us to do this.
• I need to encourage specialization to stay competitive.
• It’s important for the kids I coach to get a college scholarship.
These are just some of the justifications we use as coaches to make ourselves feel like we are the good guys. Or to make us feel we are forced to do it.
As coaches, we need to realize the importance of our influence and lasting impression on young people. Most of them absorb our words more than we know, so we must use our position wisely. We must encourage our athletes to “get the full meal deal” while in high school and be involved in a variety of activities and sports. We must preach:
• playing more than one sport
• concentrating on their academics over athletics
• getting involved in other extra curricular activities
• developing leadership skills and teamwork over winning.
And we must put our money where our mouth is. We should become assistant coaches in another sport instead of coaching an off-season club team. We should excuse students from practice if they have an academic need. We should ask them about how their trumpet lessons are going. We should take the time during practice to discuss life lessons.
If a player is participating in your sport for the purpose of getting a scholarship tell them to get into the library and become a great student. Money provided for students with good grades is far more than any athletic scholarship. And that’s the truth we don’t hear often enough.
As competitive coaches, we tend to do whatever is necessary to protect our turf. Sometimes this is done at the expense of what’s best for our athletes.
Lem Elway is Head Baseball Coach and Assistant Football Coach at Black Hills High School in Tumwater, Wash. He served as Head Baseball Coach at Anacortes (Wash.) High School from 1988-2003, and was inducted into the Washington State Coaches Hall of Fame in 1992. Lem has also coached girls' high school basketball and club baseball. His first book, The Coach's Administrative Handbook, was recently published by Coaches Choice. He can be reached at: elwaysports@hotmail.com
Kenneth Cheeseman
Posted Thu Apr 10 21:25:46 2008Great article and I agree we as coaches are the enemy in this area. Everyone wants to win, have the best athletes, and be known as the best coach. I think the best thing in coaching is seeing that kid grow up being a GREAT adult and then invites you to his wedding.
Bull Shyatt
Posted Tue Aug 26 08:54:10 2008What a load of bull hockey We need to make our kids play another sport if they don't want to? We need to coach a 2nd sport instead of spending time improving in our primary sport and spending time with our family.