Youth Travel Sports Culture

     Youth Travel Sports Culture is Broken was the title of the article which caught my eye.  It was authored by a disenchanted, though highly successful coach, who spent seventeen years involved with youth sports. The crux of the ex-coach's disatisfaction, "We have organizations and private coaches that are making a profit filling parents’ heads full of false information and dreams of scholarships rather than focusing on the development of the athletes, regardless of their skill levels."

     I admit the first time I heard a co-worker say his eleven year old daughter might qualify for a softball athletic scholarship I was taken aback. It seemed my colleague believed this phantom scholarship would take the responsibility off of his shoulders for sending her to college. All I could think to myself was not every child can be a college scholarship athlete. I still wonder if he had a plan B in case no scholarship was forthcoming.
   

     The term "Youth Travel Sports" is meaningless if you grew up before soccer,  hockey, baseball, and basketball teams, boys and girls, took to the road. The travel teams are the brainchildren of enterprising coaches who establish their own leagues as an alternative to those domiciled in towns and counties. These new leagues sometimes claim to supplement existing leagues but often compete for children's time and adults' dollars.

     All I know is we loved athletics as kids growing up. Though we also played made up games like Flashlight Tag on summer evenings when bedtimes were extended. Neither the athletic contests or the non-competitive activities were regarded as a sure fire means for gaining entrance to college.

     Fortunately, as the coach relates, "We weren’t burned out from constantly competing for meaningless trophies at a young age. Our parents weren’t trying to force us into everything to keep up with the neighbors; they just wanted us out of the house."