Youth Sports

A Lament

If you want to ruffle a lot of small town feathers, diss youth sports.

There’s a reason I began my Substack career with an ode to youth sports, an article I affectionately named Friday Night Lights: A Love Song. I meant every word I wrote and then some: my kids’ athletic experiences comprise some of the best memories of our lives. I’ll be forever grateful to the coaches, teammates, parents, and fans in the stands for the years of inestimable growth and learning that athletics bestowed on us all. In many ways, we are who we are because of youth sports.

But to pretend it’s all sunshine and high fives would be anemic at best, a bald-faced lie at worst. There’s much to discuss when it comes to the broken world of youth sports, and small towns provide a pretty great Petri dish for observation—and maybe even ways to experiment with possible solutions.

This is a much harder column to write.

It’s no secret that there are many benefits when kids participate in sports. They form friendships, learn sportsmanship, develop skills including problem-solving and communication, have higher rates of self-confidence, lower rates of depression, and engage in crucially important physical exercise on a regular basis, just to name a few. My husband and I joke that we love it that our kids are athletic because it keeps them out of trouble—ain’t nobody got time for nonsense when they have a busy practice-lifting-game schedule.

But the flip side is also notable. Kids who participate in youth sports (and particularly those who specialize from a young age) are more susceptible to injury (according to the National Institute of Health, sports-related injuries account for 2.6 million emergency room visits a year for kids and young adults between the ages of 5 and 24), burnout, psychological problems, peer and parental pressure, stress, anxiety, and isolation. Never mind the sometimes prohibitive financial expense of participating in a sport at higher levels. Some programs cost thousands of dollars a year, effectively preventing certain socioeconomic groups from engaging at all. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Two things are true.

I love youth sports with a devotion that borders on poetic.

I think youth sports are very broken.

I could pick any one of the aforementioned drawbacks and write an entire series of columns highlighting each one. But I’m not going to do that. To me, the most insidious problem with youth sports is that it can feel like an elite clique where the cool families (those whose kids dominate the most respected teams—often synonymous with those who have the time and money to pay for specialized coaches, camps, off-season travel teams, expensive gear and equipment, etc.) are “in” and those who get cut (or who bench-warm or don’t play at all) are “out.” At an age and stage where belonging is everything, this hierarchy (sometimes perpetuated by parents as much as kids) can be devastating. It can shape a teen’s entire high school experience.

Photos by Sara Geers

My family of origin is not a “legacy family.” There are no trophies or plaques on the wall of the local high school with our names engraved on them. And my husband is an out-of-towner—a Canadian, in fact, suited for coaching hockey (a lesser sport in the local pecking order).

My kids are neither superstars nor benchwarmers, but solid, hardworking players who experience their fair share of both shining moments and quiet disappointments. We have celebratory dinners after a spectacular hat trick, and subdued nights at home when it feels like everything that could go wrong, did.

For my part, I don't have an athletic bone in my body (I sincerely wish I did). I’m simply a hockey/football/basketball/track mom who loves her kids fiercely. Their successes thrill me, and I’m wrecked when they’re sad. I love watching them play—win or lose—but like most parents of athletes, my (very selfish, human) wish is that the scale would tip more toward winning than not.

In my 16-year experience of being a sports-mom, I’ve put thousands of miles on my car, sat on bleachers in pouring rain and driving snow, cheered myself hoarse, and cried in the car on the way home. The cut-to-the-bone truth?

Youth sports can be a lot of politics and pageantry, a drama played out by adults sometimes using their children as pawns.

I’m not pointing fingers here, or if I am, the accusation is leveled directly at me. I get caught up in it, too. I perform my part in whispered conversations and private takedowns of decisions made (or not made), players bafflingly elevated (or dismissed), and soap operas that unravel on the field and in the stands. My heart breaks for my kids, over and over, and if I could make a blood oath to ensure their safety and success, I probably would do it in an instant.

How shortsighted of me.

I can—and must—do better.

We all should.

It just feels like it matters so much. And maybe it does. It’s cold outside, there’s little to do, our small town positively lights up when a game (big or small) is on. And that’s all so good and fun, maybe even wholesome… Except when it’s not. I believe we all know, deep down, when we cross that line—and then rationalize our irrationality away.

True, sometimes (rarely) scholarships are at stake or playoffs or a much-anticipated and hard-fought win. But I believe something even more powerful is often on the line: the ability of youth sports to confer momentary glory. To allow an athlete to be briefly gorgeous. Beloved. On our most prized possessions (our star athletes) we confer a sort of sonship. Who doesn’t want that? To be seen and esteemed by an entire community? Who doesn’t want that for their child?

Look at my kid. Look how precious and valuable and good. Isn’t he amazing? Doesn’t she just take your breath away? Tell me you see him—really see him—and know that he is everything good in this world. Tell me you love her, even a little, as I do.

Maybe the root of the root is (and always has been) love.

Gosh, these kids. They’re everything, aren’t they? And if instead of always pushing the same few forward, crowning them homecoming king and queen (metaphorically and literally) after a triumphant win on the basketball court/football field/ice rink, we could be more intentional about celebrating them all (the band kid, the behind-the-scenes theater sound designer, the sweet sixteen who simply shows up at school every day, just trying to get by), things would get better. This broken culture of push-push-push, win-win-win, do-do-do would start to slowly abate. We’d stop equating worth with athletic success and live out the truth that all our kids—no matter what they do or don’t do—matter. Even the kid who fumbles the ball, misses the buzzer-beater shot, lets in the game-winning goal. Even the kid who eschews sports altogether. Maybe this would also help level the playing field (pardon the pun) and take some of the intense pressure off our superstar athletes and let these kids just be kids. Let’s be honest: that’s what they are. And the chances of any of them playing professionally are about as good as mine are of making a livable wage off my writing (spoiler alert: they’re not great odds).

If I had a challenge for us all, it would be this: go to the orchestra concert and cheer for those musicians as if it was the state tournament. Leave a note of encouragement on the Instagram account of the kid who’s learning photography. Smile at a teenager who looks like they could use a kind adult in their life; learn their name and use it. Realize that cookie-cutter worth is boring and reductive and wrong. Celebrate them wherever they’re at, whatever they do (or don’t do).

They need us, and when we get too caught up following the bright, shining arc of our athletes, we can forget that they’re still all our kids. They need us to see them and adore them, to remind them that they are not the sum of their winning (or losing or non-existent) record, but valuable simply because they are. We’re so very lucky to have them.

Thanks for reading. xo - Nicole