This was the headline,
along with a team picture, inside our local sports page. This is an age 13 and
under youth baseball team! What is wrong with this whole picture? The coach is quoted “We practice hard all
year.” Later he says: “Everyone of our kids has always made their high school
baseball team.” I hope so, they play as much as most professionals. I am trying
to find the appropriate words to express my feeling about this and maintain a
degree of professionalism. This is totally and completely crazy, it epitomizes
what is wrong with youth sports and to some extent in sport today. Where is the development?
I would bet that if we Kelvin Giles Physical Competency Assessment with
this group that we would find huge deficiencies in their ability perform basic movements.
On another level when are they kids? What about injuries? Historically we
know that many kids who specialize this early will be more prone to
injury. It would be interesting to see how many of these players were born in the
first quarter of the year. You bet I will be following this group over the next
few years to see how they progress. Their final record was 98 wins and 19
loses, I am not real good at math but total out to be 117 games! A full minor league
schedule with much more mature players is 142 games. How many play another
sport? I wonder how many just go out and play catch and do things outside of
organized practice. That is if they had time. Folks this model does not work,
for everyone who makes it there are literally thousands who are cast by the
wayside.
3 Comments
tim
Vern your thoughts on jr/highschool athlete’s using their respective sports in place of PE class?
Robert Troch
Trouble is….its an almost impossible battle to win. The smart ones, the ones who look at the evidence objectively will understand but most? All they will ever see are all those wins and mention “movement skill” and it goes in one ear and out the other.
Lisa S.
Wow really. With all your degrees and accomplishments you didn’t take the time to find out the whole story before passing judgement on these kids and their parents? This team plays YEAR ROUND! This was our record over 12 months not just a couple of months – maybe you should get the fact before you go off. Typical. Florida Middle schools typically do not have competitive sports so the kids have to look to travel teams to get any kind of training so they CAN make their high school teams. They practice once a week and play tournaments or double headers on the weekend – how is that “Crazy”???? They have plenty of time for their school work as many of these kids are AP (advanced placement) and honor students. They also have plenty of time for the movies and other things like other kids that sit at home playing video games every night. Also, of course these kids play other sports! We have football players, basketball players and golfers. Also, these kids take weight training in school with proper supervision. These kids love what they are doing and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there. I would suggest you do your research before blasting a program you have absolutely no clue about.