I’m a sports nut. My friends know my passion for football (as the salute to the Bearcats on page 3 attests). But unlike politicians that tell us what we want to hear, and with apologies to Al Gore, let’s look at another “inconvenient truth.”
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Parents and grandparents travel many miles and spend many hours following child athletes in sporting events while sacrificing everything else. Games not only encroach on Wednesday nights traditionally set aside for church and family but now also on Sunday mornings. Why? Because team coaches tell us we must.
There is good in sharing sports passion. The bonds created cement relationships, including those between parent and child. Game attendance translates into saying to a youngster, “You matter to me.” There are lessons in discipline, in all manner of life, really. Sports offer a way of building self-respect. Besides, as my dad put it, a teenager too pooped out from practice has little time or energy to get into any real trouble (and too much personally invested in the team to chance doing anything stupid over the weekend).
Usually, coaches say games or practices that push family schedules into conflict are not mandatory. What goes unsaid, however, is that those players whom seldom miss practice regardless of when practices are scheduled are those who will play in games. Voluntary? …yeah, right.
How has sports elevated to such emphasis in our society?
One study on this subject reveals that nationally less than 2% of high school athletes will get college athletic scholarships — whereas as many as 70% of students in college benefit by academic scholarships. In terms of return on investment, some studies show the available dollars for academic scholarships are as much as 40 times more than those offered by athletic scholarships.
Yet, many parents spend countless hours (and travel dollars) on sports …even before grade school programs begin grooming athletes for the varsity.
Folks in rural towns across America overlook this because entertainment options are so limited. Parents in metropolitan areas are also committed to sports but for different reasons.
Once at a reunion a man described a troubling dilemma he faced as a father of a grade school son. He felt compelled to choose between soccer or football for his sixth grader because, realistically, kids there simply couldn’t do both and expect to advance onto the roster of that high school’s varsity team.
Don’t you see several things wrong with this reality?
What’s most bothersome to me is how kids don’t seem to play nearly as much backyard sports together, especially since the advent of video games. Thus, the repetition of simply playing baseball or basketball or football — and learning the value of sportsmanship and referees on your own without adult supervision — gives way to the more limited opportunities of organized sports. Some of the coaches like it that way.
There’s a system in all of this, most of it still good. But an over-emphasis on organized sports comes on so easily. Some parents even guide their youngsters to focus their efforts on only one sport all year long — no breaks.
We’re all sucked into this. Small public schools struggling with finances schedule as many sporting events as the big schools (in the advancement of equal opportunity) in the chase for athletic scholarships. There even increasing restrictions on public school games that impact how and where you can use video on your cell phone. Sports channels readily available here show high school games played in California and Texas.
For every NFL All-Pro Roger Wehrli from King City we can point to, there are countless others who may have benefited far more with a little less emphasis on sports.
If you are appalled by the palatial stadiums — many involving taxpayer dollars to benefit billionaire owners and millionaire professional athletes — while this country’s infrastructure crumbles, then consider its roots.
It’s not fun looking into the mirror.
There’s nothing wrong with sports as entertainment kept in balance with other things in life. I played, parented my children who all played, and now enjoy watching my oldest grandchildren begin to explore their potential playing sports. I root for the Royals, live and die with the Chiefs, suffer with the Tigers, and celebrate the Bearcats, and Back our Bulldogs. I continue to learn many valuable lessons about life through sports.
But if you’re a parent in that dilemma of choosing between a sporting commitment involving a son or daughter and some other important family function, consider this. A coach who knows the value of building solid, lasting relationships should not penalize you or your child. That’s the coach putting your child’s interests ahead of his or her own. And if the unfortunate opposite happens, then another parenting opportunity for you occurs.
Parenting is not easy, never was. If you worry about the rising costs of a college education, the challenge begins while your kids are young.
Consider this: Church and family first. Forget the starting lineup and the “by invitation only” travel team hoopla and somehow figure out how to help your kids hit the books. Decisions may not come easily, but family and academics first is the inconvenient truth.