Kids Sports – What to do??

               

I don’t know about where you live, but here in the Denver area, youth sports is extreme. 

As a father, I want to do what is best for my boys and make sure they are given every opportunity to whip someone’s butt on the field or the court.  I want to be the supportive, informative, encouraging, challenging and their biggest fan.  I think I have all of those check marks in place.  Still, I’m reaching a point with my oldest (11) where some kids are starting to peel off and become one-sport dudes.  What is that about?  Remember back in the day when we would walk right from the final football practice to the basketball gym to pick up our stuff and get up and down the court?  Then, from the gym to the diamond to get some BP in and join the baseball movement.  Are the days of three sport athletes a thing of the past?

Come on…  really?  Football teaches you pain, struggle, strategy and physical endurance.  It also teaches you that if you don’t wash your undershirt for a few weeks, when you pull it off the hook in your locker…. It doesn’t even move – stiff as a board.  Basketball gets your lungs developed.  It works the finer athletic movement.  Baseball, a game of patience and readiness that matures your hand-eye coordination.  All of these sports teaches strategy and teamwork.  So tell me, what is wrong with that?

In the Denver area, I’m learning there are “Baseball Kids”, “Lacrosse Kids”, “Hockey Kids”, etc.  I coach Pop Warner football in the fall and now I’m seeing that some kids are staying with a year round sport so they don’t fall behind.  Baseball kids are traveling all over the country, lugging around the custom Under Armor bat bag that is embroidered with their name and number.  Parents dishing out thousands of dollars a year in support of the kids’ dream…. Or is that a parents’ dream.  Are we trying to develop D1 athletes at 9, 10 and 11 years old?  Should we narrow the exposure to other sports in the name of scholarship?

I think not.

What about my son who plays lacrosse, football and baseball.  If he continues down that path, what happens when he rejoins his LAX buddies who do nothing more that LAX all year long?  Will he be behind in skill and talent?  Will he be able to compete?  From my seat – OF COURSE HE WILL!  He will lean on the drills, practices, discipline and skills developed in the other sports to offer something the one sport kiddos might miss out on.  How ya like that?  Also, what about burnout?  Will a little fella play a few seasons of nothing but baseball and then find that he is sick of it and simply can’t think about another handful of sunflower seeds?  Wishing that he would have been able to play some hoops or ski or anything else back when he had a chance to?

It is a tough question to answer and one that I keep asking myself.  I feel I have the right approach in my desire to expose my boys to anything and everything they want.  If the time comes where they have a significant passion for a sport and want to focus only on that sport… have at it.  I believe it’s the parents’ job to allow kids to be kids.  There is plenty of time for extreme competitive sports as kids mature and they only have one childhood.  But really, what do I know?

So with that, I’m guessing my kid can whoop your kid!  J  Only jokin’.