<p>“I understand all that. I just recall when I was a kid part (OK, a big part) of the fun was winning - and that required knowing the score. I understand all the philosophy about non-competition etc. But are these kids so detached from the game that they aren’t even secretly aware of who’s winning? I’m amazed at that.”
I agree with your post except for one crucial factor.</p>
<p>THEY WERE <em>7</em> YEARS OLD.</p>
<p>Give 'em a few years to learn how to play the game before they compete.</p>
<p>"Mini and Weenie, i think you’re nostalgic for a world I sure never experienced. "</p>
<p>Nostalgic for Little League? Not on your life. As I said, we thought it was for sissies. As to what it is now, I have no particular urge to find out. </p>
<p>I AM nostalgic for stickball:</p>
<p>I grew up playing stickball on a New York City street. Played with a sawed-off broom handle and a pink rubber ball (either a Spaldeen or a Pennsy Pinkie.) That was all the equipment required, which certainly didn’t endear stickball to the sporting goods manufacturers.</p>
<p>We all played, from age 7, until the time any of us moved away, be it at 17 or 20, we all played. The seven-year-olds, if they weren’t allowed in the street yet, became automatic first basemen for both teams (first base being a fire hydrant), until they were old enough to be let off the curb. Uncles who had moved out of the neighborhood might play when visiting. Dads, too, for that matter, though rarely did we see fathers come down to the corner to do anything but call us in for dinner or homework. No girls, though, and it never struck me at the time that girls would even consider playing stickball! Times have changed. (My wife, though, who grew up in Washington, DC, recounts similar experiences to these, playing street soccer.)</p>
<p>Four sewers was a homer. To translate: a ball hit the distance of four manhole covers on a fly (“personhole” covers hadn’t been invented yet) was an automatic homerun. We made up our own ground rules. Any ball hit into Mrs. O’Brien’s yard was an out – it was commonly believed as part of our neighborhood lore that Mrs. O’Brien was an ogre and didn’t appreciate us or our stickball games, though I can’t remember any personal experience confirming this. Mr. Federman’s automobile was in foul territory - we all liked him and didn’t want to hit his new car. He liked us, too, and took to parking around the corner. Other cars were in fair territory - a fly ball that bounced off a car roof and was caught was an out.</p>
<p>We could play with any number of kids from 5 to 18 players, without pitchers if fewer than eight, and each team would supply their own catcher if fewer than ten. We chose up sides every afternoon or evening, depending on who was available. Everyone always got to play - no exceptions. </p>
<p>We didn’t have any problems with bullies. Of course we had them. But the thing was that Sheldon, (one of the bullies, who dropped out of high school, drove a cab, and ended up, last I heard, pursuing a Ph.D. in history at Columbia University), knew that the kid he was doing a number on from the opposing team might be on his own team tomorrow, so he learned to moderate his behavior or no one would want to play with him. </p>
<p>There were no umpires. We had our disputes, and we handled them by a boisterous consensus. If one person insisted loudly enough that he was safe at second base, but the majority thought otherwise, we would more times than not let the individual get his way, as it wasn’t worth fighting over.</p>
<p>There was rarely a set number of innings. We played until it was too dark to play, or too many players had to go in. There was, however, a twenty-minute timeout around 5:15, when the “Sperries” came. For years, when I was really young, I imagined dark, shadow-like figures, spectres of death or destruction, passing by on 82nd Avenue. I soon learned that we were avoiding the rush-hour traffic coming out of the nearby Sperry Gyroscope plant, which would stop play too often.</p>
<p>We all - even the little ones - imagined ourselves as Willie Mayses (definitively known to be a four-sewer guy), Duke Sniders, Mickey Mantles, or even Ed Kranepools (a member of the 1969 ‘Miracle Mets’ and a New Yorker like ourselves, who also grew up playing stickball.) We’d practice, too, endlessly. Two of us were enough. We’d go to the local concrete handball wall by the school (actually, any unwindowed wall would do), chalk in a strike zone (until the Parks Department painted one on for us), and play a Yankee-Dodger World Series, complete with announcers, lineups, and batting averages, all memorized and then liberally embellished. We were Sandy Koufax (a Dodger from Brooklyn), Joe Pepitone (a Yankee, also from Brooklyn), and Mel Allen (the “Voice of the Yankees”, from Alabama?), all rolled into one.</p>
<p>Frankly, we pitied the Little Leaguers. Some of us, uncharitably, thought of them as sissies. They never got to play with kids older than themselves. If they weren’t good enough, they rode the bench and barely got to play at all. Parents watched every move, and argued loudly, embarrassingly, over calls at first base. Coaches played favorites; umpires, too, or so it seemed. Losers felt like losers, and they might be losers for an entire season; and those left out, well, they were left out. Managers did whatever it took to win; that’s what the parents wanted, and everybody knew it.</p>
<p>Now, I don’t want to over-romanticize. Many of my friends’ families couldn’t have afforded Little League even if the kids had wanted to play there. Our equipment was what it was and what there was of it, our coaching non-existent, and, (Ed Kranepool and Joe Pepitone being the exceptions that proved the rule), the chance that stickball would lead to something greater virtually nil. (Joe Pepitone, it is worth noting, later went on to become a petty criminal.) Today, I love watching children participating in gymnastics or karate (pacifist though I am), individual sports where, while organized in teams, the kids actually compete against themselves, and learn that mastery, and self-mastery, only come with the necessary time, energy, and requisite effort and focus, and are always constantly exposed to other participants - potential mentors – who are both older and more adept than themselves. What I don’t like is the amount of emotional energy, expended by adults but picked up by the kids, that goes into testing, measuring, and comparing, rather than celebrating our children for simply being who they are.</p>
<p>There is no stickball in my neighborhood today, nor anything resembling. After school, the schoolyards and parks are virtually empty, except for an occasional two-on-two basketball game. The latchkey kids are instructed to stay inside until mom gets home from work. The government enters the house uninvited at the same time in the form of homework. Of course, some kids, having not been sufficiently obedient or passive during the school day, are punished with more of the same, either in the form of detention or extra homework. (A true oxymoron: here is revealed in a flash how educators really perceive education - as an acute form of punishment. School is punishment, homework is punishment, and extra school and extra homework is simply a larger dose.) The other kids go to “afterschool” activities, planned by adults, closely monitored, rigidly controlled, or to competitive sports, with more of same. Parents who feel safe letting children come out into the front yard simply to mess around seem to be a vanishing breed, and certainly not on the street! But, to be fair, most of the parents just aren’t home.</p>
<p>So what brought us back to stickball, day after day, month after month, year after year? Well, what it certainly wasn’t, for any of us as far as I could tell, was fear- or anxiety-producing. There was no chance of public humiliation. We could simply be ourselves, and grow into the game. In our own sweet time, we would find ourselves in the flow. And we did.</p>
<p>Meanwhile we learned a series of lessons, without benefit of adults - managers, coaches, referees, organizers, parents, or teachers. Kind of a reverse Lord of the Flies. We profited greatly from benign neglect. Indeed, looking back on it, I think adults would have just mucked it up. I’m convinced I would have learned these lessons much less well if I thought that adults were teaching them!</p>
<p>We learned to accept people - players all - of differing ages, religions, national origins, and natural abilities, and make use of whatever skills each of us possessed. In doing so, and in knowing that there would always be someone better than we were but understanding our own contribution to the game, we learned to value ourselves and our own progress. We learned skills from each other, mostly by watching those older and more proficient. We learned to respect the property of others without, however, making a fetish of it. We learned to respect the feelings of our neighbors. We learned to make decisions informally, democratically, and consensually. We learned to set our own rules and boundaries, and abide by them. We learned to improvise, and make effective use of available space, people, and resources. Above all, we learned to play fair and to be fair and to understand that when we did not do so, we harmed ourselves in the process. And, over time, we learned to value friendship above winning.</p>
<p>What’s more, it was fun - or we wouldn’t have done it. We were, after school, above all, free.</p>
<p>Ah, freedom. That’s the place where learning happens…</p>
<p>(P.S. To learn even more about stickball, peruse photos, read stickball poetry, or visit the Stickball Hall of Fame, go to <a href=“http://www.streetplay.com/stickball[/url]”>www.streetplay.com/stickball</a>)</p>
<p>Yes, I get that you were not nostalgic for LL. That’s why I said you and Weenie each had a different “better world” you were picturing. Which is why i said that one didn’t exist in my world, either.</p>
<p>My parents’ world, maybe. They were both New Yorkers; I dn’t need to go on line to learn about stickball.</p>
<p>Well geez, I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying organized sports are for wimps…
There’s a place for everything. My kids played plenty of neighborhood pick up games with their freinds, but they learned the game from good Little League, AAU, and high school coaches. They learned how to hit and pitch effectively and without risk of injury from good instructors.</p>
<p>Garland: If only your husband’s attitude regarding coaching and favoritism was the prevailing one, but I sincerely doubt that it is in most leagues. All I can comment on is how it worked in the league where my sons’ played and the choosing of the All-Star teams was so favorably weighted toward sons of coachs we used to refer to at as “coach’s son syndrome” for why some kid who was clearly athletically inferior was selected over another kid whose father was not the coach or league commissioner. </p>
<p>As for PTA volunteers and how teachers might reward certain moms with accolades for the kids, I’m sure that does happen but it’s more the teacher’s decision and involvement that makes the favoritism occur. It’s not the moms themselves voting on who gets what in the classroom awards because they did the volunteering. It’s my experience that most moms did not go into the classroom to volunteer with the goal of being able to influence or earn special recognition for their own kids. Honestly, my observation of youth league volunteering was just the opposite.</p>
<p>I couldn’t resist posting my own LL horror stories. My H was an umpire and scorekeeper. We got the phone calls at 10 PM after games with coaches screaming about his calls.<br>
During games when he kept score, you’d have the helicopter parents who would hover around when their son was at bat, making sure his base on error was counted as a hit. And making sure there was never an error called against their kid even when the ball rolled between his legs. One dad claimed that it’s never an error if the glove doesn’t touch the ball. Hmmmm.
When choosing whether or not to join a team, our family had one very important criteria- the coaches’ sons had to be, hands down, the best players on the team. That eliminated two or three good players getting displaced.</p>
<p>I’ve had two kids go through the youth sport process (played LL myself back in ancient times) and one of my kids survived well enough from the experience to play HS and college baseball.</p>
<p>Youth sport organizations are now BIG business and orientated to the adult, the adults concerns, the adults point of view. These organizations provide for the “processed” childhood experience and to such an extent that kids have no idea how to have “pick up” games, how to set rules, pick teams, settle their differences. Unless a dozen parents are involved, with “real” uniforms, a regulation field, thousands of dollars of equipment, kids today are lost as to how to simply play sports. Outside of these organized events they really don’t play any longer.</p>
<p>Little League, AYSO (fill in any other youth sport group) now stand for Parent reliving their own youth. Perhaps worse yet, far too many parents treat these youth sports as the first rung to the major leagues or the college scholarship.</p>
<p>These organizations further don’t allow kids to be kids. The safety precautions are overboard, the rules draconian.</p>
<p>Most kids stop youth sports at around 12, the dedicated few continue on to club and high school and a miniscule number may go on to college and beyond.
Typically they quit because of oppressive coaches, pressure from parents and that the whole thing just ain’t any fun. Kids typically just focus on the fun. Parents focus on who won.</p>
<p>Mini - my own youth experience was a California version of yours - in my case, we played “fenceball” - a cousin to today’s “over the line” which required a minimum of three players. Being suburbanites, though, we played on grass, hitting a ball towards a high fence at the end of the park. Had gloves (usually) and a real bat, too, although it was likely as not a broken one glued and nailed (!) back together. If enough kids showed up at the park we’d play “workups” - where three kids are batting and the rest distributed throughout the defense. If a batter got out he went to right field, the pitcher moved into the batting lineup, and every other player moved up one position on the agreed hierarchy from right field to pitcher and ultimately to bat (hence “workups”.) If a fly ball was caught the player who caught it traded places with the batter and got to hit. If all three batters reached base, the guy on third went to the plate to bat and was replaced by an imaginary “ghost runner”. All in all you could get a decent game together with about 10 kids. Never an adult in sight. They had a Little League when I grew up, but I never played in it. (Back then you either made the team or were cut. I tried out once when I was nine and didn’t make the team, and they didn’t have “minor leagues” like they do now to ensure that every kid who signed up played somewhere.)</p>
<p>Jazzymom, I started out with the impression you had, but over the years I changed my mind. Some of the most selfless parents I ever met were dads of non-all-star kids who came out year after year to coach and help out with the minor league and other non-“prestige” teams. And much of the worst scheming and conniving was performed by moms - moms of all-star or would be all-star players. When I joined the league board I plotted to increase the number of moms and decrease the number of coaches on the board; in retrospect I decided I was simply wrong. The one really nasty anonymous letter incident we had was hatched by two moms who were Good People (and no, I’m not being sarcastic, ironic, or cynical, they really are good people. Most of the time.) For whatever reason the kids who were chosen for the all star team in our league actually were the best players (not that attempts to rig the process weren’t made) although I’ve heard of the “coach’s son” phenomenon often enough to believe it happens in some places.</p>
<p>Bullwinkle, I can’t really argue with anything you wrote. The funny thing is that kids (my kids, anyway) start organizing their own games late in high school and in college - flag football, pickup basketball, volleyball, you name it.</p>
<p>Hmmm…baseball…always a subject I enjoy (listening to a game on the radio as I write)! Kluge, those are perceptive, and brave, points to make. Usually the people you are talking about are extremely manipulative and intelligent, and they do indeed exist at every level of kids’ sports. They can begin to dominate the boards sometimes with really really unfair results for individual players.</p>
<p>But, I’ll just put in a word for the truly Good People. For some reason, we were fortunate enough with ALL 3 of our kids to run into abundant numbers of those. In both baseball and softball, our kids were selected and coached by parents of other players on the team, who were not only generous with their time, but who were TRULY dedicated to each child on the team. I honestly never felt favoritism but instead a real dedication to the joy of sports. There were some horrible political manoeverings that I observed during those years; fortunately for us, our kids were never the victims although some of their friends were. </p>
<p>I just want to make the point that sports are not necessarily dominated by the parents-with-agendas and that I don’t want to paint youth sports with too broad a brush. One of mine is now a Division 1 player and still completely adores his sport; the other two stopped playing softball in middle school (got tired of being run into by kids 3 times their size!). But I have the fondest memories of the parents who gave so much of their time to bring the joy of these games to our kids.</p>
<p>kluge, mustn’t your inner Nietzsche now take the next step and question our concept of ‘good’? Maybe there is a base reason behind the designation of good,… it’s all along been about certain consequences and advantages rather than the superficial helpfulness and kindness.,… actually kindness, with its root of kind, as in your own kind, gives a big clue as to what ugly truth lurks behind the smiling face. And explains why I try to have as little to do with other humans as I can manage. By the way, newbie little leaguers should be told that ‘taking a pitch’ means not taking the pitch, not swinging. I remember the coach’s fury when I swung after his signal to take the pitch.</p>
<p>"I always thought the Little Leaguers were a bunch of sissies. They could only play with kids their own age, and rarely had role models of kids older than themselves. They needed adults to settle their disputes for them (hmmm). They institutionalized the scapegoating and stereotyping of the less capable, and provided fewer opportunities to them. They watched a bunch of adults make fools of themselves, and turn winning into everything.</p>
<p>They could have learned a lot more (and most would have been a lot happier) with stickball."</p>
<p>mini - it amazes me how often I can completely agree with you on the facts and yet come to a totally opposite conclusion. What etter preparation for real life than to learn that life is not fair, those in charge are often petty, and that hard work and effort often bring less than stellar results but are still worth it.</p>
<p>One fact I think I disagree on though is the needing adults to settle their differences. Fact is from my experience the kids do a etter job of it than the parents. </p>
<p>My son loves sports, any sport. The first word out of his mouth was ball. Unfirtunately he was blessed with more ardor than skill which didn’t seem to dampen the former in the least. He learned that his best effort wasn’t always enough, that luck and circumstances play a big role in success and that some days you will be a hero and other days a goat. Hopefully when he walks down the street as an adult which he is now and sees somebody less well off he won’t be as judgemental. There but for the Grace of God or the luck of the draw go I. Baseball is a sport where if you fail to get a hit 2/3’s of the time you are a world beater.</p>
<p>mini - loved your stickball stories. When I wads a kid I never played any organized sports (probably a good thing because I would have needed catchers gear in right field to keep the liaility insurance reasonable). I was however the chief organizer and instigator of every game real or imaginable. Lived out on the edge of town where the neighborhoods ended and the fields began and being a boomer every street had a couple score of kids per block. Field preparation for baseball required a little arson followed by a lot of mowing and the backstop was a liberated billboard.</p>
<p>But what made those sports special and in some ways peculiarly American is that it required the 'citizens" to organize themselves, to provide for their own needs, to exploit everyones special skills to the utmost, and to settle their own differences amicably or occassionally otherwise. In the case of the otherwise you learned a valuable negotiating lessson. Always ask yourself if this is the hill on which you choose to die before making a rash demand. That lesson has been useful as a parent too.</p>
<p>One problem I see with our kids over-organized lives is that they don’t learn those civic virtues anymore because there is always an adult about to make and enforce the rules. Learn early that half a loaf beats a bloddy nose or social ostracism and you will be a better citizen.</p>
<p>“mini - it amazes me how often I can completely agree with you on the facts and yet come to a totally opposite conclusion. What etter preparation for real life than to learn that life is not fair, those in charge are often petty, and that hard work and effort often bring less than stellar results but are still worth it.”</p>
<p>Oh, the kids learn that all the time - that’s what school (and dodgeball) are for. :eek: (I’ve got another story, called “Simon Sez” on that subject - if you want, I’ll email it to you.</p>
<p>
This just applies to almost ever situation where adults get involved with kids. You can substitute ballet (totally brutal politics!), music, drama and college admissions, and the sentence remains true. </p>
<p>Organized sports can be wonderful, and I admire all those who spend time making it work. But what I think we’re missing these days are the neighborhood pick-up games, whatever the sport. As a kid in Southern California, it seemed like there was some game or another in the street all summer long. Whoever could come out would play, and the games lasted until it was too late to see anything. We all had to work out our problems ourselves – if anyone complained to a parent, there went the game, and no one wanted that. I think this is what kids today miss.</p>
<p>My h coached tball then baseball for years - 2 teams for our s’s age group. The other team definitely had the better players and an ultra-competitive dad/coach, but H’s team definitely had more fun. No one ever spent more than 2 innings on the bench (the other team had several kids who played 2 innings per 4 games), and H encouraged the kids to try out new positions if they wanted to (hence our s, primarily a RF, eventually became a pitcher in HS, one kid a shortstop, another a LF, and another kid become an awesome HS catcher). Of the kids from the other team, not one went on to play in HS. My s and another kid from our team and the other coach’s s were later recruited for league teams which had their own coach/dad issues. My H was glad to be on the sidelines, but there was much teeth-grinding in private.</p>
<p>My s learned many things from Little League:
Fun and fair coaches get the most from their players.
Anger management is not a good coaching style.
It’s good to apologize to the other player when you accidently drilled him with a fastball.
Closing your eyes won’t make the ball hurt any less.
If you can’t catch the ball, at least block it so it won’t go any further.
And, most importantly, never catch the ball with your cheek. Prying your cheek out of your braces hurts just a little. (Although, he was never afraid of the ball after that and became a back-up catcher!)</p>
<p>Am I the only one who questions why 7-year-olds are playing a game that they can’t understand?</p>
<p>Baseball and related sports (softball, stickball, etc.) are not intuitive. The rules are quite sophisticated, and the goal of the game is not obvious. Even the fact that you take turns when you’re on the batting side but you don’t take turns when you’re on the fielding side is a source of endless confusion to young children.</p>
<p>Seven-year-olds can understand the basic principles of some other games – such as soccer (don’t use your hands, kick the ball toward the goal at the other end of the field) and basketball (bounce the ball rather than carrying it, try to get it in the basket at the other end of the gym), but baseball is beyond them. So why are they playing it? Wouldn’t it be better for them to start with games that they can comprehend and not be introduced to baseballish games until they are older?</p>
<p>Marian, plenty of 7 year olds can, and do, follow the game. Usually they have dads who are huge fans, watch the MLB, and work with the kids after school. I did not have one of those sons or husbands! Imagine how frustrating it is for those “accelerated” young ball players when they can’t relate to the kids who are catching on slower. Kind of like the CTY kids having to suffer through the kid who can’t grasp fractions.</p>
<p>Marian, The point of Little League instructional levels (tball, coachpitch, kidpitch/coachpitch, minor league, major league) is to simplify the game through the various levels so that the kids learn in increments. Sort of like simplifying chess somewhat for 7 or 8 year olds but becoming increasing adept at using sophisticated strategies as they get older. Or starting out on violin playing “mississippi hotdog” and learning more and more advanced techniques as one gets older. Even by 6th grade (majors level), they still play on a much smaller field.</p>
<p>I have to admit that baseball is not an easy sport to begin playing later in elementary school, but not because the game is too complicated (kids learn how games are played such as baseball and football on TV even when they don’t play themselves). It’s difficult to start playing later on because the kids are further behind in basic skills like fielding and hitting. It usually takes years to become a consistent hitter.</p>
<p>And this reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Kenny Rogers-</p>
<p>Little boy, in a baseball hat,
Stands in a field, with his ball and bat,
says “I am the greatest, player of them all”
puts his bat on his shoulder, and tosses up his ball.</p>
<p>And the ball goes up, and the ball comes down,
he swings his bat all the way around,
and the worlds so still you can hear the sound
as the baseball falls, to the ground.</p>
<p>Now the little boy, doesn’t say a word,
picks up his ball, he is undeterred,
Says “I am the greatest, there has ever been,”
and he grits his teeth, and tries it again.</p>
<p>And the ball goes up, and the ball comes down,
he swings his bat all the way around,
and the worlds so still you can hear the sound
as the baseball falls, to the ground.</p>
<p>He makes no excuses, He shows no fear,
He just closes his eyes, and listens to the cheers.</p>
<p>Little boy, he adjusts his hat
picks up his ball, stares at his bat,
says “I am the greatest, the game is on the line,”
and he gives his all, one last time.</p>
<p>And the ball goes up, like the moon so bright,
Swings his bat, with all his might,
and the worlds as still, as still as can be,
and the baseball falls, and that’s strike three.</p>
<p>Now its supper time, and his Mama calls,
little boy starts home, with his bat and ball,
says “I am the greatest, that is a fact,
but even I didn’t know, I could pitch like that.”</p>
<p>Says, “I am the greatest, that is understood,
but even I didn’t know, I could pitch that good.”</p>
<p>Skills for some sports such as basketball can be learned in the driveway, at home, in one’s own time. A kid doesn’t necessarily need to have played organized basketball to be successful later on. But hitting a ball with a bat either requires playing on a team, or putting in lots of hours at the batting cages.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with the culture of competitive youth sports lately, largely due to the comments of parents of young, young children on a specific sport message board, a sport that I know a lot about since I actually stayed in it until senior year, unlike 90% of people…</p>
<p>But anyway, I think the problem is right now, and this has been even fairly recent, it was fringe starting when I was younger but not like today, is that super-competitiveness in organized sports has been getting younger and younger. There’s nothing wrong with high level athletics, for older kids. I firmly believe that a lot of what we’re seeing is wrong for the age of kids it’s being imposed on. And I say this knowing what’s happening, and knowing the dynamics of a supercompetitive sport, and basically knowing the truth.</p>
<p>I see parents whining that their three year old hasn’t learned this skill yet (spare me - I wasn’t even in the sport at three), or that they might as well quit now because their six year old hasn’t been put on team yet and their whole point of putting her in early was so she’d have an advantage. My story is the same for all these people: I started competing when I was 11. Around a certain age everyone mainly stalls out. I was caught up by that point. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. Most kids, whatever age they started at, leave this sport before they even get out of the lower levels (sounds a little like the “introductory” little league) and into the real optional levels. And their parents obsessiveness in some cases is only accelerating the departure.</p>
<p>But what do we expect? These people are, in essence, shooting in the dark. Although I like to roll my eyes about how clueless they seem, it isn’t completely fair, because, they don’t really have the information. The idea of this, as you mention, is somewhat foreign, and although it seems like the thing to do today, it isn’t something they experienced. Besides the fact that this is a sport most longtime parents don’t even pretend to understand…it’s a very insider culture and fairly difficult to explain to people because they can’t get a full grasp on it usually. So these people have their work cut out for them. They think they’re acting in their child’s best interest. A lot of them basically really aren’t, but that’s the fault of a lack of transparency. I see organized sports going one of two ways: either this generation will rebel, figuring that it wasn’t a good experience, or it will get worse, because they will think this is normal and want to live out the failed dreams that were pushed so hard on them through their own children. It is with great regret that I admit today I would have place bets on the latter, because I already see it in my teammates who will say “my kids won’t have a choice, they’re doing this”. My great fear is that the sport, which doesn’t have many options at the recreational level due to logistics, will cater so much to these obsessive parents that I wouldn’t be able to, in good faith, put my child in it even if they wanted to. Or maybe, that I would do it anyway.</p>
<p>Also: people are being expected to invest way too much in beginner levels of sports. No wonder people act insane, the whole situation is insane IMO. When I first started, we competed three times locally. By now, the beginner level (a level that is optional because it isn’t mean to even be a REAL competitive level) did every meet the upper levels did included fly to Florida. WTH? I have to say I’d really resent being expected to commit that much to something that to me, is an introductory thing, a trial period, if you will. I would know that likely my kid wouldn’t be good enough to make it through the next few levels…so yeah, I’d really resent having to make that commitment.</p>
<p>But I think the commitment sort of fools people into thinking they’re on a bigger stage than they actually are. They’re being asked to spend too much money and too much time, and rearrange their family’s schedules completely. So how are they going to justify it to everyone watching? You have to fool yourself - and everyone else - into thinking you’re just investing into some sort of Olympic dream (or my favorite - “so she’ll get a scholarship” - and maybe someday I’ll go to the moon, but on either count, saving the money they’re funneling into the sport and investing it would be a much surer bet of educational financial security). Things have really gotten out of control in some cases.</p>