Youthful Fear and What To Do With It

Young athletes and fear often collide like freight trains racing toward each other on the same track.  All of us face it.  But for the young athlete, it is often horrific.

When our oldest daughter Rachel was five, she started track.  Practice was ok.  She liked running, the new shoes, and a uniform.  Moms and coaches were there in the shadows of an open stadium, with empty bleachers,  lots of encouragement and love.  There was nothing threatening about practice.  Not so on the day of the first track meet.  She got up, got dressed, and started crying.  Her mother and I sat for a long time with her on her bed consoling and dabbing tears.   She told us she was afraid, that she didn’t know if she could do it, that she was scared.   We encouraged her to go, to see what was going on, to give it a try.

Now it was the parents turn to be afraid.  What if she had a negative experience?  What if she never ran again?   What if she wanted to throw rocks at us?   All good questions.  We arrived at the track.  The stadium was full of parents and kids. The infield was covered with the bright uniforms of stretching athletes, high jumpers, track teams, and chatter.  The track was marked with fresh chalk.  The starter carried a pistol.  There were lots of things frightening to a child who had practiced in the shadows of a quiet stadium and did not want to run except maybe home.  So we sat on the grass, watched the runners prepare, and listened to the starter pistol pop in the early morning sunshine.  We just watched.

Her race was called.  “Try it,” I said to her.  “If you don’t like it, we’ll go home.  Give it a try.”   I think that at that moment in time I was more frightened than she.  Such a promise.  She lined up for  the 200 meter, looking at her mother, sister and I, then, at the starter with his huge black starter pistol, his raspy voice, shouting “Ready.”  The gun went off, and the race was on.  Rachel may not have started well.  That pistol was loud and the fans were cheering but she started, she ran, and to everyone’s astonishment . . . she won.   No one was more relieved than I.

At little league tryouts my youngest son, all six years of him, wasn’t sure.   In fact he was absolutely not sure.  There were lots of people.  Names were called over a megaphone for each boy and girl to come up– to throw the ball, to catch it, to swing the bat at a ball pitched and one perched on a T.  But the pitched ball was thrown by a full-grown man that in this case had played ball professionally.   There were ten men with clip boards watching.

It wasn’t the backyard, where everyone loved and adored him.   It was with a hundred parents and seemingly a thousand kids his age, watching . . . him.  His name was called.  He didn’t want to go.  He, like his sister wanted to go home.  So we watched the entire tryout.   He noted that he knew a lot of those kids, that he’d played with them, that they did ok.  He thought about the fact that it was only a ball.  The crowd began to diminish.  No one was carried away in a stretcher.  Finally he decided that he could do it, that it was no big deal.  And it was no big deal.  He’d overcome those fears, all by himself.

We all have fears.   Performance anxiety is real.   It takes time, encouragement, and as little “stress” pressure as possible for young athletes to seize their demons.   Rachel went on to become an all star in track, basketball, and soccer.  She overcame those fears, as did her brother.  Parental and coach patience, together with lots of encouragement are the keys to overcoming fear.  For all of us it is different.  Once the kids know that they “can,”  the parents can relax.  You know they “will.”

It is January–Time for Baseball Sign-ups

I love January. It’s the month before February and February in Southern California, even though it is the rainy season, is when Little League teams are drafted and the first practices of the season are held.   Regardless of calendar declarations to the contrary, that first practice is the real official first  day of Spring.  In the field strawberries are turning red and in the evenings baseball teams practice in  every park.  The rest of the nation may be moribund in winter snow but the grass is green in Ventura, California.

Baseball is a rite of Spring.  It is a rite of passage for every boy and girl. Bubblegum,  sunflower seeds and base hits are what life is all about.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a participant or a proud parent cheering from thirty year old, rusty, rickety stands.  For many those stands supported  your grandparents who long ago  cheered for your mom or dad.

Where should your son or daughter be on March 1, or April 1 if you live in the Northern States?  Baseball practice.   And afterwards?   It’s hot dogs, mustard, and relish and for dessert it’s McDonalds for those soft ice cream cups with nuts, whipped cream, and a spoon.  It is the rite of Spring.  So sign up.  If money is a problem in these recessionary times every little league has scholarship programs.  Just ask.  Baseball is what we live for and remember forever.  It’s spring.  It’s baseball and nothing could be better.

Choose Soccer for Fun

Is your child the normal sort?  Does she or he like to run about, climb on the monkey bars, swing about the merry-go-round and loves a ball.  Which team sport are you going to sign him/her up for?  I recommend soccer.  Why soccer?  In the world of soccer there is room for everyone.  Everyone plays.  That is the great attribute of youth sports.  You don’t have to be good to play.  Skill level is not a factor.  Players are rotated in and out according to specific guidelines.  Each player gets at least half a game to get a foot on the ball. And when they do?  The whole family goes to CHUCK E CHEESE.

Soccer is an easy game to learn.  The young beginner can learn it easily, both by practicing the drills, and by observation.  Most of the younger teams play a version my husband and I like to call “swarm soccer.”  We are amused and delighted by the efforts these young players give to just getting the ball down the field, all together.  There is generally little or no passing, and the strategies and skills of the older player are still a few years off.   But the team does drive the ball down the field, and everyone is part of scoring a goal.

The health benefits of soccer are these:  increased fitness due to the nearly constant motion and activity required by running up and down the field.   I have heard it called a heart-healthy game.  Increased strength, flexibility and endurance are a few other benefits of this sport.  Playing outdoors is also a big plus.  Improved coordination results.

Soccer is a good team learning experience.  Learning how to be part of a team takes practice.   Making friends, practicing passing drills, being part of a team effort, the young player learns that life is not a solitary journey.  The young player will begin to appreciate the concept of sharing the ball and receiving help as a positive aspect of winning.

Soccer requires little more than a ball and a few friends.  It can be played one’s whole life.  In time, the game becomes more complex, the skill levels more advanced.  Enrolling your child in a program that is carefully managed, with the focus on the child’s enjoyment and development will yield long-term benefits, both physically and mentally.

5 SIMPLE REASONS TO PLAY SPORTS

1. HEALTHY ACTIVITY IS A BIG PLUS. Laying the foundation for a physically active life is one of the great benefits of early participation in sports.  Young children are primed for movement.  Running, jumping, skipping, hopping, whirling in circles, standing on their heads, doing cartwheels, chasing, and wrestling, it seems they never stand or sit still.  Discovering just what they like doing best will help you determine what sports will be fun for them.  It sounds funny to me now, but I had a two-year-old who loved to stand on her head, and sit in a chair upside down, even while watching TV.  When she was 3 years old I enrolled her in a community gymnastics class that met once a week.  Ten years later she was a gymnast with a big smile, and ten years after that a professional dancer in a modern dance company.  Just last week, in a lull in our holiday activities, I watched her do a handstand in the living room.  No one paid any attention.  It’s just part of who she is.
2. PARTICIPATION IN A SPORT DEVELOPS SKILLS. Learning how to chase a ball, swing a bat, take a shot, ride a skate board, swing a racket, or walk a balance beam takes a good amount of specific skills.  The coordination alone that is developed in pursuing a sport will be a big plus.  Physical and mental skills are formed as young athletes learn drills, and strategies for their sport.
3. BEING ON A TEAM TEACHES A GROUP DYNAMIC. Learning to be part of a team requires thinking outside of oneself.  This is a very important and necessary lesson that has far reaching affects off the playing field.  The description “team player” is one that is often considered in assessing successful work attributes.  Commitment and dependability are necessary to a winning team, whether you are 10 or 35.
4. ATHLETES LEARN SELF-DISCIPLINE. Self-discipline is inherent in the “team player” concept.  It is also learned as an athlete practices his or her sport.  Accountability for that practice can be taught.  We did something that may seem very weird.  We paid our kids to practice.  Before you jump out of your skin at that thought, let me assure you that it wasn’t very much.  They each had a small notebook and they logged in the time they spent practicing their skills.  My husband grew up on a farm and had daily family chores; hard work beyond the cleaning your room and making your bed stuff.  It was outdoor physical labor.  The closest we could get to creating that kind of daily physical effort was through practicing their sport on their own each day, whether it was practicing free throws, or throwing a ball.
5. SPORTS PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUN. Let’s not forget fun!  There has to be fun involved, whether it’s the thrill of kicking a ball, or a nice hit.  Part of the fun is the family’s attendance, and cheering.  Sometimes the fun involves celebrating a double play or a goal made.  The satisfaction of winning the race or executing an excellent cartwheel is also a part of the fun.  We remember the fun a long, long time.

On The Importance Of Remembering Who You Are And What You Want

It has been my observation that a parents’ greatest strengths and greatest single weakness are in remembering who they are and what it is that they want for their youth.

In the course of thirty years I have seen some horrific instances of parental lack of foresight.  In the Montalvo Little League parents actually got into a physical confrontation–fists and elbows, and very loud, filthy talk between coaches, umpires and parents–at third base.   The police came to haul off the offenders and charged them with assault and battery.  I have seen the ramification of a mother getting romantically involved with the general manager of a baseball team, not her husband.  The experience can only be described as devastating.   I coached a set of twins in basketball.  They were beautiful girls except when they were on the court.  Then, with their  parents’ loud, vocal encouragement, their only job was to shoot and pass the ball to one another.  The other three players might as well not have been there.  They could have carried a sack lunch and sat with me on the bench.  I was accused of having a hidden agenda when I required the twins to at least acknowledge the presence of their team members.  These parents did not remember who they were nor what they wanted from their athlete’s team experience.

A story was repeatedly told ad nauseam in the soccer tournaments held in Camarillo, California.  Professionally, being a stickler for the quality of evidence, I admittedly never spoke to the participants, but the tellers of the story were so passionate in the telling that I do not doubt its authenticity.  It was the last match of the tournament for both teams and especially for one player.  He was a Downs Syndrome boy who, by reason of his age, was playing his last game.  He’d never scored a goal in all of those years but had played since he was six, loving and enjoying the companionship of his fellow teammates.  He was simply a happy kid, always on the back defensive line, as far out of the way as his coach could get him.  It was difficult for this man to give his team as much of a chance as he could to win with each player playing at least half a game.  It was truly a difficult, if not impossible, position but he managed it well.

In the last half of the match, one team up four goals to one, something happened that was significant, if nor singularly monumental in the lives of those young men who played on the field that afternoon.  By an arrangement among the players it was planned that the boy should score.  “Send Billy with the ball,”  was whispered among them, and so Billy came with the ball from the far back line, trotting through struggling forward and halfback,  past fullback, the best the league had to offer, and lastly through a diving goalie who’d allowed the fewest goals of all scored against him.   Billy buried that ball in the deepest portions of an open net.

Those young men, all twenty-two of them, on the field that afternoon, gave something worth giving, and  saw something worth remembering.  Billy scored twice.  Yes, the stronger team did win but in a larger, more profound sense they were all winners.  Billy experienced something he would always remember but so did the diving goalie and every player between who contributed something more important then winning to that game.    This was a reflection of wonderful parents who knew what they wanted for their sons.  That afternoon twenty-two athletes knew who their parents had taught them to be.

Parents and Youth Athletic Equipment

Painful as it may be, given the fact that you’ve already spent $75.00 just for your son and/or daughter to play, proper equipment is also important.  It ranks right up there with the fee to play.  Some have questioned this statement.  Let me explain.  If your youth is running track and you forgo buying her track spikes, she will most assuredly be three or four steps behind an athlete with similar talent who uses spikes.  In track, spikes make a huge difference.  Remember you are hoping and praying and wishing that your son or daughter will experience success, be the best that they can be, and have loads of fun.  For these reasons proper  equipment is very, very important.

The first rule is: Talk to the coach before you purchase.  He should know, and I would expect him to know, what equipment is required for his particular sport.

Rule number two: Don’t make do.  Here’s an example of making do.  I refereed  a soccer match.  Preliminarily, the referee checks every player’s equipment to see that it is proper and to make sure shoe laces are tied.  I insisted that the players use soccer  cleats.  This caused a stir that amazed me.  One parent insisted that his boy “make do” by wearing  baseball cleats.  The rules prohibit this.  There are several reasons, but here are three:   First, it’s against the rules.  Baseball cleats have a front cleat that hangs on the front edge of the sole.   Soccer cleats do not.  This makes the use of baseball cleats in a soccer match particularly dangerous.  Players are always falling down near the ball and the ball is always being kicked.   Baseball cleats cause gouges, cuts, bruises and injuries because the front cleat hooks and grabs flesh.   Do not even ask to use baseball cleats in a soccer game.  The second  reason for not using baseball cleats in a soccer match is based on the design of the shoe itself.   Baseball cleats are designed to run in a straightforward line. i.e., from 1st to 2nd base.   Soccer cleats are designed to run laterally as well as forward.  They are designed to run in whatever direction the ball is bouncing, which invariably isn’t a straight line.

Another example of making do: Some parents want to substitute regular tennis shoes for a particular set of cleats.  Don’t do it.  They have no grab on the base paths, no grab on a track and they slip like crazy on grass.  It leads to embarrassment and failure.  In baseball, use baseball cleats.  In track, use spikes.  In tennis, use tennis shoes.  Each particular shoe is specifically designed for the particular demands of a particular sport.  Give your youth the advantage of the right equipment for the right sport.

As an aside and a hint about a legitimate “making do.”  Generally cleats of all varieties are not comfortable and do not offer much foot support.  This is especially traumatic where your athlete has flat feet or a high instep.  A parent can buy Dr. Scholl’s or some other variation of insoles which work very well, or a parent can take the insoles out of their child’s tennis shoes and slip them into their cleats.  Suddenly the foot is well supported without a great deal of cost.

Rule 3: When purchasing equipment, get what your youth needs and what the particular sport requires.  This isn’t necessarily what looks good although looks are important.  For example, I had a young baseball player come to the first practice with a new bat.  This was an eight-year-old kid with a bat that Babe Ruth would have been comfortable with.  Instead of the nineteen-ounce bat he should have been packing he was dragging around a beautiful thirty-four ounce bat that even his father would have had difficulty using.  Rule of thumb: If the athlete can hold the bat straight out from his/her body, arm extended, without it waving like a leaf in the wind, for thirty seconds, it is probably a good bat for him/her.  Another example: I was coaching a U8 soccer team.  The parents and athlete showed up at the first practice with a size 5 soccer ball.  That’s what professionals use in the MLS.  She needed a size three.  It is what the league used.  It was what she should use.  A five is simply too big for an under eight player.   A small foot and a large ball mean no control.

In conclusion, ask the coach what is needed before you spend your money.   Only buy the equipment that success in a particular sport demands, and never cut corners or make do when the real item is required.  If you follow these simple guidelines, your child’s success in youth athletics will be enhanced.

FAQ #1

The question we asked ourselves, and were most frequently asked was, what is the best age to sign our child up for sports.

While it is true that you can sign your child up from a very young age, we always advise against it.  We started out with AYSO soccer, one of the most child-friendly organizations we know.  Anxious to begin we signed up our 5 year son and a year later our 5 year old daughter to play on soccer teams.  They were eager at first.  But generally, a 5 year old, on his own, doesn’t have the required self-discipline, social interaction skills, or the attention span to be successful in organized sports.   That means that you will have to supply these elements–often an uphill task.

We found that one practice a week might fly, provided something more interesting wasn’t claiming their attention.  But 2 and 3 practices were just too many.  Incentives needed to be provided to improve social interactions.  Lots of feedback about how to behave, or how to work together as a team is necessary.  If you have attended games with very young players, you have either been one of the parents, or have watched parents, who could barely keep themselves from running out onto the field to help their child follow, kick, or block a ball. The shouts of encouragement, though deafening, are certainly necessary.  And you still will have young athletes sitting down in the goal as they wait for action to return to their part of the field, or engaged in studying their shoes, or the gopher holes in the ground.  The best part of the games for these young athletes might just be the intermission oranges, and the after game treats.  Those are very important aspects.

Once we discovered that our goal of a positive and successful sports experience had gone awry, we reassessed our participation approach.  We learned that 7 was the magic age.  By the age of 7 the youth athlete has two very significant things going for her.  One is two years of experience in a very structured organization–school.  The other is  improved coordination.  Now he has the beginnings of appropriate social behavior and improved physical abilities.  He or she has a greater chance of success, and, with your support, will have the confidence to learn and develop their skills. Going to practices and playing the game will be activities they enjoy and can anticipate with zest.

Parents Matter The Most

Success with youth athletics, be it soccer, basketball, or track starts with parents.  Most of the time kids will have fun in spite of us.  There will always be a coach that at least tries to be fair, and tries to learn the game.  But for a youth athlete, a coach, or a parent to have success the parents must know what they want their child to receive from the experience.   That answer will determine the height of your child’s highs and lows; what he or she will take home from practice and from the games themselves, and it will solidify in their minds what’s important in their lives.  Let me give you some examples.

I was coaching a group of girls aged under ten  in Ventura, California under the auspices of AYSO, a  youth soccer organization.  I had a youth athlete of average physical abilities.  Those abilities were  certainly not something to write home about.  She was just an average nine year old girl with a big smile growing new teeth, loving to run around with her friends kicking a ball.  I say average realizing of course that no child is average.  During a game she would play to her abilities, doing the best she could.  But when her dad was there to watch– and he couldn’t be there all of the time because he was in the military–she was totally different.   She played out of her shoes, out of everyone’s shoes, all because her dad showed up.  She became a class “A” athlete because she wanted to please her father, because what he thought mattered to her.  And it mattered to me.  Upon discovering this fact, I made sure he was at every “important” game.  I did this because I knew what she’d do if her father was there and I knew what she’d do if he wasn’t.  She became an all star because Dad showed up.  Well, truthfully, he did more.  Every time there was a break in play, she’d run to her father.  He’d say, “You’re doing great, Julie.”   Then she’d run out there and do great.  Truthfully, he didn’t like soccer but his daughter did and he liked her.

The point I want to make is that what you, as a parent, think, makes all of the difference in the world.   I would have liked to have thought that it was what  I, as the coach, thought, but no, the parents won and lost more games than anything I could do or have ever done.  You matter.  What you think, what you say, matters immensely.  The attitude you bring to the event carries the event for your child.

Another example: I was photographing a wrestling match at a USA Wrestling meet in Worland, Wyoming.  The youth athlete was ten years old.  His father, a high school jock who had had some major  success at that level, was his coach.  All during the lad’s match the Dad was telling him what to do and how to do it.  In between the periods of the match he was telling his son that he was a loser if he didn’t….   Well you get the picture.  The kid was a basket case.  He left crying, followed by his father telling him he was a disgrace, a real loser.  The man actually used those words.   The boy was ten years old.  He was trying his best.  He was a winner.  If his dad had only been watching.  But he went home a loser because his dad said so.  I can’t imagine that boy liking wrestling, or his dad after that.  It must have been terrible going to practices.   The point?  His dad wanted his son to be him.  He wanted to see him perform as he had as a senior in high school.  What could that kid have possible done to match up to that?  He did what he could.  He went home crying.

If you want  a positive experience for your child , an opportunity to excel, to run, to laugh and to play and eat treats after a game, you will be successful,  especially if your son or daughter knows that’s what you want.  Here are the buzz words for success:  “Do your best;”  “Have fun;”  “After the game, we’ll go to McDonald’s;”   “Boy, you sure played hard;”   “I like the way you kicked that ball;”  and  “No I didn’t see the gopher in center field.  Was it big?”