The Weaknesses of Children's Sports, Part 1

An Overemphasis On Winning

A friend’s 6 year-old daughter was recruited to play on a softball team. At the beginning of the season, the coaches told the girls: “The pitcher is the most important player on the team.” (How foolish! Kids instinctively know who are the most important players. Why accentuate that?) Not surprisingly, my friend’s daughter began to practice pitching. But when she had an opportunity to pitch during a scrimmage, she was so nervous that she didn’t perform well. Still, the coach promised she would pitch an inning in their first game. When her inning came, she took the mound and started warming up but the coach replaced her with another girl, explaining later: “We needed to win.” Say what?! Why did you need to win? Why was winning more important than the developing self-image of a young girl? My friend explained that even though her daughter is the best base stealer and hitter on the team, she has never gotten over her pitching "failure".

In sports today we place much too much emphasis on winning. Flip Saunders coached the Detroit Pistons for three years. During his tenure he won 70% of his games, leading his team to the conference finals three straight years. His reward for such solid coaching? He got fired after the 2008 season. Management explained: "There are no sacred cows here. You lose that sacred-cow status when you lose three straight years like this." Lose? We’re losers unless we win it all?!

Winning is not all that importnat to kids. While watching a baseball game with my son—he was about six at the time—he wanted to know why the home team didn’t get to bat in the bottom of the ninth. I thought it was obvious, but explained that since the home team was ahead, they would win the game whether they batted or not. He got a funny look on his face and said, “So what?” He thought the home team would feel cheated because they didn’t get to bat as many times as the losing team. For him, playing was paramount, winning was secondary. Surveys indicate that kids would rather play on a losing team than sit on the bench on a winning team. Those surveys indicate that kids participate in sports for the following reasons (listed in the order of their importance):

1. have fun
2. improve and learn new skills
3. make and build friendships
4. become physically fit
5. win

I coached my son Jered’s select soccer team for several years. Though I know they remember some of the games they competed in, their fondest memories are about traveling, staying in hotels, cooling off in local lakes, hanging out with their friends, staying up late.