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Early specialization has gotten a lot of attention recently. Young
players are pressured into choosing one sport. They end up playing
it year round. They don’t experience the full range of options.
And many times they end up unhappy and dropping out. Several of
the items that follow relate to this issue. Take a look at the ACSM
position statement and the related article from Physician &
Sportsmedicine. These tell us a lot about what overzealous coaches
and pushy parents are doing to kids. Think about these the next
time you see someone is running a "national championship" for 8-year
olds. So check out the featured articles below for some support
as you try to deal with this.
Mike
Clark
Coaching & Sports Section Editor
Intensive
Training and Sports Specialization in Young Athletes is the latest
position statement from the American
Academy of Pediatrics. The background reviews the possible
risks faced by young athletes who specialize in a single sport. The
conclusion is that they "…may be denied the benefits of varied activity
while facing additional physical, physiological, and psychological
demands from intense training and competition." The idea is that young
people should be encourages to become active in a variety of activities
so that they can develop a range of skills. In addition, this would
lessen the risks youth face in highly competitive sports.
It
seems everyone is talking about the effects of heading soccer balls
on one's brain. This article (and it's links) does a great
job of unraveling the mystery of this popular topic.
This
is reinforced by an article in Physician
and Sportsmedicine. It suggests that adults—parents and
coaches alike—need to make sure that activities for youth are "…right
for their age, size, and physical development." For example, "highly
competitive distance
running may be great for a high schooler but too stressful—and not
much fun—for an 8-year-old." Also, "contact sports can pose unnecessary
dangers for smaller kids."
The
reason for everybody to be concerned about this phenomenon is simple.
Far too many athletes drop out of sports at an early age. Part of
the reason may well be the pressure on kids to compete and specialize.
This leads to injury, over-training, burn out—and drop out. Coaches
and parents need to remember why they became involved in sport and
why they want children to play.
Youth
Sports.com
is the front door to a wide variety of information for parents and
coaches. Some of it is instructional, with help in coaching t-ball,
soccer, basketball or whatever. Other resources relate to communication
skills, sportsmanship and the like. A chat room is also available.
Visitors can sign up for a hard-copy newsletter, too.
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Coaches Make the Difference
I'm the son of a coach.
I was a coach. Every boy I've ever had was a coach. I owe almost
everything I am to coaches--the overlooked, underpaid, high school
and junior high coach.
But more importantly,
coaches have made athletics the most cost-efficient and educationally
accountable aspect of secondary school. Nowhere in education do
you find it as often as you do in school athletics that teachers
are teaching what they want to teach, to students who are learning
what they want to learn, and both are willing to work hour after
hour on their own time, after school, to make certain that everything
that can be taught is taught and everything that can be learned
is learned.
Coaches may not be the
reason students come out for sports, but they're usually the reason
students stay out for sports. Coaches don't give students
ability, but they discover or develop it. Coaches make both the
quantitative and qualitative difference.
Coaches are the reason
some schools win more than others. Coaches are the reason some schools
have better sportsmanship than others. Coaches are the reason some
schools have a more educationally based program than others. Coaches
make the difference between a program of excesses and a program
of education.
Coaches are the critical
link in the educational process of athletics, they are the critical
link in the sportsmanship at contests, and they are the critical
link in the traditions of success which some schools enjoy. It has
always been so, and it always will be so.
No one higher up or lower
down the organizational chart has more impact on athletes than do
coaches. Coaches are the delivery system of educational athletics,
and they deliver well.
Coaches, nothing that
is done in high school athletics in this state is more important
than what you do with your athletes day-in and day-out during the
season. . .You make the difference.
Coach,
this is educational athletics. It is more important that you see
yourself as the teacher of students more than the coach of a sport.
Your support of coaches of other sports and your encouragement that
"your athletes" participate in other sports and school
activities will help those students receive a complete educational
experience that will serve them better than any on-dimensional experience.
Jack
Roberts
Executive
Director
Michigan
High School Athletic Association
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If
you have ideas, comments, letters to share, or questions about a particular
topics, please email one of the following Section Editors:
Help
to support quality physical education and health education by contributing
to this site.
Well
actually we think everyone would enjoy seeing a reduction in unnecessary
email. How can we do this? Easy! Start posting questions to the PE-Forum
and use email to invite comments ON THE FORUM rather than to everyone
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time registration. Check
it out!
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Another
in the growing number of sites that offer instruction in coaching, the
North
American Youth Sports Institute offers a course on-line. This
is an introductory course in basic coaching skills. Information deals
with a variety of topics that every coach faces and is not specific to
any sport. The ideas can be of help to the first-year coach or anyone
else who needs a better idea of the way things work.
The
Gatorade Sports Science Institute
site presents a series of reports dealing with nutrition, coaching, training,
and injury prevention. Each of the topics is broken into a series of one-page
reports. Experts in the various areas summarize essential facts. And "any
of these articles can be reproduced for educational purposes to distribute
to athletes, students or parents..." The site requires registration but
there is no fee. You can also sign up for hard copies of articles.
And
just when you thought there was nothing else for a coach to worry
about comes this. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked
at illnesses resulting from playing football. 65 players and coaches
fell ill—some during the game—from a virus. Specifically, it was a
virus associated with food poisoning. But it can be transmitted through
"…contact with a contaminated person’s saliva or mucus." And this
can happen during play!
At
any rate, Karen Becker, an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, made the following recommendation: "These
players (ones suffering gastrointestinal symptoms) should be excluded
from playing. Not only are you putting your personal health at risk,
but you’re also exposing other people."
This
is worth mentioning, because I write this as the Mississippi/Mississippi
State football game is on in the background. Much was at the start
of the game that the MSU quarterback was suffering a full-blown
case of the flu. But "fluids and Tylenol" had gotten him into the
game. Well, he lasted only one series, and who knows how many teammates
and opponents were infected.
The
point is simple! Coaches need to consider the health of the athletes,
not just the injuries. Remember, coaches always have the final word
on whether someone should play. Weigh all the risks before you make
the decision.
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It may not be the right weather in much of the country, but it is never
too early to start thinking about next season. So if you coach track and
field or cross-country, check out California
Track and Running News—Coaches Education. This site not only
touches on the various events, it also deals with the "intangibles." Sections
headed "Psychology" and "Training Theory" contain useful information.
(In fact some of these apply to other sports as well.)
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