They have to live them, but they aren’t because adults are activley sheltering kids from the real value.
“Is it teaching her how to be a great teammate?
Is it teaching him to put others before himself?
To stay the course when she’s faced with adversity?
To step up when his team is in need of leadership?
To clap for others?
Encourage them when they fumble?
This stuff matters.”
-Ray Zingler on X
As adults we understand what the value was.
We (early 90’s & older) got it.
We understood what it meant to be a part of a community. To play for and take pride in your hometown team.
Hell, we knew what it meant to be a part of a team.
We learned about bonding, camaraderie, overcoming adversity, & the importance of selflessness.
We knew what “love of the game” meant and understood that value came with the “the process”. The good, bad, & ugly.
And now in our modern era, we loveeee to throw lip service at all the valuable qualities we learned as kids.
And we like to package it in cheap, predictable, airplane preflight safety meeting, style.
Adults robotically say things like, “culture, teamwork, work hard, overcome adversity, development”.
But they don’t give a shit about these things.
Not at all.
Because as soon as the trendy, hashtag, buzzword “life lessons” session is over…
They go straight to actions that are counter to everything they just said.
And words are cheap, remember?
What do you think kids are (actually) learning, when we work tirelessly to shelter them from adversity.
When the second they sit the bench we pick-up their ball and tell them to go place elsewhere?
What is transfer culture teaching them?
Do you think “show”casing every single weekend at the expense of development is going to teach them “about the process”?
Do you think playing in every AAU Tournament they can to pat their own stats is going to teach them how to be a great teammate?
And what about your actions? When they see you cuss and belittle officials, is that teaching them about respect for others?
Our youth sports are becoming more and more of a sham with each passing day and the reason the state of them isn’t improving is because adults on one side of the spectrum are after dollars while kids and parents on the other side are after what’s best for themselves.
I believe it is critical to take a step back and look at our youth sports objectively.
What’s the real objective?
We’re missing it on both ends which is causing kids to miss out on heaping volumes of “life” value.
