Team sports

[Awf Hand]

I’m really starting to hate ‘team’ sports for kids.  Football, baseball, soccer, hockey and even basketball at the school-age level have never had much appeal to me, but lately, damn….
We have some good friends who are convinced that we are stunting our children by not partaking in every offering that our local parks and rec department puts out there.  They are busy 4-6 days a week with baseball practices and games for their oldest boy -age 7.  On days that they don’t have baseball practice (and on many that they do) their middle child (girl age 5) has gymnastics, so they end up running separately about half the time and trying to entertain their 3yr old on the sidelines, but I digress…

I’m not sure I see the value in team sports, other than generating a culture of interdependence.  Kids in baseball or football cannot seem to self-entertain.  They always need someone to throw or catch the ball for them.  At least with basketball they can shoot hoops by themselves.  Parents generally sit as spectators and don’t participate in the games or practice.  I don’t see the benefit as a “family” activity.  I also don’t see people who are older participating in “team” sports.  In the meantime, I’m seeing the number of participants in our competitive target shooting events dwindle as parents are “busy with kids’ stuff” i.e. soccer or baseball practice.  The number of new kids getting into hunting in my area has fallen precipitously and I suspect it’s the same parents overdriven into football practices.  I’m seeing kids (1^st graders!) that go from school to practice to bed most weekdays and then travel to away games on weekends, with ‘parenting’ occurring at McDonalds in one-hour stints.

-My questions: What affect do you think this might have on our culture long-term?  Are we fostering independence and freedom or just creating a culture where we’re all part of ‘one big team’?

I’ve gotten my kids into bicycling (we just took a 100+ mile bicycling/camping weekend with my kids’ –ages 5 and 7- church/school group) and we do lots of MTB riding together.  In the winter I’m an XC-skiing coach and marksmanship coach for a 4-H program…  I’m trying hard to foster activities that kids can do on their own and for a lifetime (every see a 60yr old playing soccer?), but have seen the 4-H shooting sports enrollment go from over a hundred to around thirty in the last 15 years.

Maybe I’m just getting crusty and tired of hearing about the ‘hectic’ schedules of overbooked bleacher-parents…

[BUGEYE]

I like sports, but they should take a back seat to academics.  Asian countries are graduating engineers, we graduate sports addicts.

[flatlander]

I see the biggest problem where the parents are living through the kids. They have to compete at everything, at younger and younger ages. You see young kids outfitted with very expensive equipment and have to play and compete at the highest level that they can. The same parents are often complete jerks at the games. I actually had my youngest invited to play on a travelling competitive T-ball team when he was in kindergarten. I just laughed at them. If my kids want to play, they can because they want to and not because I am living under the illusion that if I would have been a pro if my folks had just pushed me harder. And it is happening in all sports from baseball to football to basketball to soccer and even cheerleading    and anything else you can think of. It's win at all costs and mom and dad are spending as much as they can.
The end effect, IMO, is that you are going to see more kids burn out from all of this crap, and walk away from sports at a younger age. I seem to remember a girl from back east who got a full ride to a university a year or 2 ago that walked off of the team as soon as she got away from home and was able to make her own decisions. I've seen a lot of that starting as young as junior high. My kids have played some city leagues, but some of the parents are so obnoxious that we have found other types of sports to get involved in. It just isn't fun like it used to be when we were younger.
 
I agree with bugeye. We'd be better off focusing on academics half as much as sports are currently.

[SHOOTALL]

well an engineer will make thousands a ball player millions .......................

[blind ear]

well an engineer will make thousands a ball player millions .......................

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Because of the idiots that watch TV sports and swallow the advertiseing and other brain washing that they put out.
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All the problems that plague our society, freedoms, business, taxes, welfare, fraud, theft, junk banking system and anything else that you can think of comes from people sitting in front of a tube watching mindless junk rather than thinking and doing for themselves. ear