Let Them Be Kids!

This is an article from
yesterdays New York Times sports page. As soon as I read it I ran the gamut of
emotions starting with astonishment and ending with anger. What are we trying
to do here? Isn’t this just exploiting kids? Why don’t we just let them be
kids? I have a long time interest in Long Term Athlete Development, youth
sports and physical education, this concept and many of the things being done
with the proliferation of travel teams and national championships down to the
under six age group are sad developments, they have no bases on sound pedagogy. Who is this for, it not for the kids,
they are being used. The culmination of all of this is IOC Youth Olympics, an
event that will only encourage more exploitation of youth. We are taking their
childhood away from them and giving a distorted view of sport at the most
impressionable age. We need to wake up and do something about this, it is wrong
and exploitative, it is far from educational and I would venture to say in many
cases it is both physiologically and physically harmful. Despite what many people think the Soviet Union and The East Germans did not do it this way, their sports programs were based on participatation and physical education not early identification and competition.

This Friday I am
speaking at the NSCA Sport Specific Conference in Nashville on this topic. This
gives me more ammunition for my arguments and the position that I will present,
essentially a plea for sanity based on sound pedagogy and principles of growth
and development.

Barely Teenagers, Already Groomed for Stardom

By THAYER EVANS and PETE THAMEL

SAN ANTONIO — At age 13, the
6-foot-3, 280-pound Reeve Koehler is so big that he has never been allowed to
play organized football. Despite that, he already has a full scholarship offer
from the University
of Hawaii.

Wes Medeiros, 13, is a YouTube
sensation who kicked a 45-yard field goal at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp. He wants to
attend a high school with a turf field so he will have more consistent kicking
conditions.

Chris Laviano, 14, can throw a
football 50 yards. He has been compared to Peyton
Manning and Troy Aikman,
and has been courted by a top high school football power.

Koehler, Medeiros and Laviano are
among 143 players here for Sunday’s inaugural Football University Youth
All-American Bowl, a series of three games at the Alamodome that will feature
the nation’s top seventh and eighth graders. The event will be broadcast online
at footballuniversity.org.

“Imagine if you could have saw
Reggie Bush when he was in eighth grade or seventh grade and see how he
develops,” said John Gallagher, the director of the Football University Youth
All-American Bowl.

Organizers are billing the bowl as
an event similar to the Little League World Series, but coaches and others say
it opens a path toward professionalism already traveled by other sports, like
basketball, golf and tennis. It is another example of America’s seemingly
endless search for the next great star.

“It’s a slippery slope, and I’m a
little bit queasy about it,” University of Cincinnati Coach Brian Kelly said.

The Football University Youth
All-American Bowl is the brainchild of SportsLink Inc., a sports-marketing
company based in Wharton, N.J., that operates the U.S.
Army All-American Bowl, an annual all-star game for the nation’s top
high school seniors.

The new event was the idea of Rich
McGuinness, the president of SportsLink, who said he had grown tired of having
players in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl who were physically gifted, but
technique deficient. So he created Football University, invitation-only
instructional football camps across the country from February to July at a cost
of $40 an hour for campers.

The sons of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis,
the former N.F.L. wide receiver Ed McCaffrey and the former N.B.A. star Karl Malone
are among the participants in the Football University Youth All-American Bowl.
The event is meant to showcase the nation’s top seventh and eighth graders, as
well as emphasize leadership, teamwork, and speed and strength, McGuinness
said. Even with players paying for their travel and lodging, the event is
expected to lose $30,000.

“In major sports, they start
identifying their best players in seventh and eighth grade,” McGuinness said.
“That’s what happens in the world. It never happened in football because the
N.F.L. is the only player.”

What worries many college coaches
about all-star games proliferating to this level is that high school football
coaches could become less influential in the recruiting process.

Wake Forest Coach Jim Grobe said he
was concerned that sponsors of all-star games could influence players to
consider universities with which they have financial arrangements.

“I think it could develop into a
concern if those companies also outfit college teams and have a vested interest
in them,” Grobe said.

Exposing players to corporate
sponsors at such a young age could invite the type of outside influences that
have become so prominent in basketball that Myles Brand,
the N.C.A.A. president, called them one of his
organization’s most difficult problems.

Kelly said: “When you have these
kinds of events, you open up the door for third parties. Is the guy an A.A.U.
coach? Is he a personal trainer? Is he a street agent?”

To play in the Football University
Youth All-American Bowl, a nomination form and highlight tape must be submitted
for a player. The event relied heavily on Football University’s network of
youth scouts, directors, commissioners and coaches for selections, Gallagher
said.

Thousands of children were scouted
and 2,000 nominations, from Hawaii to New York, were received. They were
evaluated by a selection committee and Gallagher, who until June had been a
Nasdaq institutional trader.

A youth football league president in
New Jersey, Gallagher selected players based on performance, competition level
and long-term potential. Size and speed were major factors. By seventh grade,
Gallagher said, it is “mostly clear” as to which players have football talent.

“It’s not an exact science,”
Gallagher said. “You try to do the best you can with what they present you.”

Malone said he was honored that his
13-year-old son, K. J., who is 6 feet and 208 pounds, was selected for the
event, but cautioned that he and the parents of other youth players must keep
their children grounded.

“Let our young kids be kids,” Malone
said. “They’re going to have plenty of time when it’s serious and for real.”

Lewis added: “I wouldn’t say it
worries me. You try to keep them as kids, let them play as kids, instead of
being so serious.”

Malone said that he was not sure how
talented his son was as a football player, which the Football University Youth
All-American Bowl spokesman Kristian Dyer clarified.

“If his name was K. J. Smith and you
saw that video, you’d still walk away just as impressed,” Dyer said.

Dan Gould, the director of the
Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan
State, said the first question he has about such events was why they
were necessary. Dr. Robert Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery and director of
sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., said the health risks
for football at this age were “hard to come down on,” but the question lingers
about why these games are played.

“What we’re worried about here is
too much, too soon,” Gould said. “My flags go up at a seventh- and eighth-grade
national all-star game. What does it do for the kid? Probably not that much.”

Koehler said he received his verbal
scholarship offer from Hawaii this past summer while attending one of its
football camps. Official written scholarship offers are prohibited by the
N.C.A.A. until Sept. 1 of a player’s junior year in high school.

Koehler said he expected to play on
the offensive and the defensive lines once he could finally compete in high
school football next fall.

“It’s frustrating,” Koehler said of
not being allowed to play in Hawaiian youth football leagues. “I want to get
out there and play on the field, but I’m just too heavy.”

Medeiros is used to the spotlight
because of his friendship with the Steelers’ kicker, Jeff Reed. The video of
Medeiros making field goals at the Steelers’ training camp last year has been
viewed nearly 12,000 times on YouTube.

Medeiros, who uses a two-inch block
on his field-goal attempts instead of kicking off the field, is considering
three private high schools in Charlotte, N.C., for ninth grade next season. His
father, Paul, said his son’s being able to kick for a school with a turf field
would be a significant factor in his decision.

“It’s just a lot more consistent
kicking,” Paul Medeiros said.

Four days before the festivities
began for the Football University Youth All-American Bowl, Laviano arrived from
Brookville, N.Y., and prepared. Laviano, a 5-11, 165-pound eighth grader,
participated in three-a-day workouts at a local university under the watch of
his father, Tom.

Laviano said he had been approached
about playing next season for the football power DeMatha Catholic High School
in Hyattsville, Md., but his father did not want him to move in with a coach.
His youth coaches have told him that he is comparable to Manning, a three-time
N.F.L. most valuable player and a Super Bowl
winner.

“There’s a little pressure,” Laviano
said.

Gallagher mentioned Laviano in the
same breath as Aikman, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who is a member of
the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“He’s definitely a great player,”
Gallagher said of Laviano. “I think he can play in high-level college.”

But college is seemingly the last
thing on Laviano’s mind these days.

“College?” Laviano said. “I don’t
even know where I want to go to high school.”

Thayer Evans reported from San
Antonio and Pete Thamel from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.