DECONSTRUCTING YOUTH SPORTS. . . Putting the "Play" Back Onto The Playing Field
By Eryck Avila

Youth sports in the U.S. has grown tremendously, in large part because of the number of volunteer and paid coaches who more than ever are skilled and qualified to lead youth development. Many of these coaches are parents who give of themselves day in and day out. Thanks to them, the answer to the question “Is youth sports worth the time and effort?” is still a resounding “Yes”.

However, it is time to examine organized youth sports as an institution to help safeguard the great work so many dedicated coaches are carrying out. There is increasing evidence that participation in youth sports as we know it today may come at a high price.

Regrettably, we may be coaching the greatness out of our children. At a young age, many children are put in an environment where almost all decisions are made for them by referees, coaches, and parents. This has major ramifications that may be causing a sociological crisis in youth sport.

For example, the epidemic of anterior crucial ligament (ACL) injuries in female athletes has been blamed on several things; estrogen, which causes laxity in the tendons and ligaments (to help girls later during childbirth), severe hip-to-knee angles/ratios, and a host of other causes.

Researchers are baffled, while coaches and trainers approach the task of injury-free training with a host of prevention techniques. That is because they are searching for what appears to be a developmental deficiency, when in fact ACL injuries may have a sociological genesis.

Consider, for instance, that kids no longer “play”. You need only visit a soccer practice to observe this phenomenon. Children are told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it by adults who, in many cases, may be inexperienced in working with children.

Children are no longer climbing trees, exploring meadows, catching fireflies or building tree houses. Children’s play is regimented, uniform (and in uniform), on lined fields (no thinking outside of the box), boring and with no shortage of supervisors to watch over them. The sad reality is that the natural wonderment and genius in every child to evolve his athletic prowess is undergoing a troubling arrested development.

Another cause of the ACL injury epidemic is that kids are not learning how to decelerate their bodies in the way that nature intended – there are cones and whistles for that.

We tell them how to zig and zag with special technical names for each move. This precision drilling, which forces children to conform to a sport ethic, is in fact part of the problem. Play and the many intangibles that contribute to it, such as chaos and improvisation, may in fact be the missing link to solving the ACL epidemic. Unfortunately, nature’s own mechanisms are not activated, so children are left vulnerable at the knees – the center of gravity of the leg.

The crisis of adult controlled youth sports participation has more than just physical manifestations. Sports are mechanisms of socialization for youth, and therefore, the way sports are rendered affects who and what our children become.

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