Scott Gill's Blog - Posts Tagged "burnout"
Parenting Sports Burnout
My junior year in high school I nearly quit baseball. Those that knew me then would say, impossible. The diamond was my life, fielding extra grounders at PE, batting in a nearby cage all week (A family friend was the local Jr. college coach and he gave me a gym key). With Ted Williams’ The Science of Hitting as my bible, I nightly studied my swing, watching the angle of my bat, my hands, envisioning the strike zone.
And I burned out.
The national pastime became my daily grind and fun was no longer welcome. I had a goal, an obsession, and I made myself miserable in the pursuit. I did this in a day when sports still had seasons, when the temperature changes and leaf color swept your mind to court, diamond, or field.
But that day nears extinction. For instance, baseball’s played all year with a fall, spring, and summer season. Football, too, has a spring season to go with its summer two-a-days that lead up to the fall. Basketball, which once entertained us when it was too cold has now become the sport we play when it’s too hot. I haven’t even touched soccer, volleyball, or lacrosse, each boasting multiple seasons.
And I wonder how kids keep up.
Different from me, where I finished football and went to basketball, then baseball, kids today play multiple sports all at the same time. It is not unusual to practice spring football during an athletic period, leave to go to baseball, or play a game late that evening on an AAU basketball team.
If you’re not exhausted yet, try multiple teams in the same sport during the same season. When I coached 7th grade football, players left practice sweaty, exhausted (darn Texas heat), only to strap on their own equipment and head back up to the field for their “Select Team” practice. In case you missed it; that was two football practices back to back in the Texas sun. Outside a short designated pre-season time, that activity is illegal for high school teams. But middle school parents sanction it by having “Junior” on a school team and a select team, and they often do these quasi “two-a-days” all season.
I’m not trying to be critical, but I can’t see where that is healthy. Where does the kid have time and energy for schoolwork? When does the family gather for dinner? Is there any time to just enjoy each other, to go fishing, hunting, camping, or a movie? Are we out of control, making youth sports professional?
Parental pressure is enormous. I’ve been there, I know. People brag about their kid going to this certain camp or playing on that travel team and how colleges watch those teams and you don’t want your kid left out, left behind. So you bite, spending outrageous money paying a coach, hoping he’s truthful about your kid’s future. Before you know it, you’ve crammed the family schedule with so much activity that there’s no time for family. But what those teams and coaches have not explained is the infinitesimal chance that any kid plays college sports (much less receives scholarship money), especially in baseball, football, and basketball (I think I read that 94% of high school baseball players will not play beyond high school). I’ve been there, and I’m afraid it’s a gamble not worth the payoff.
What I fear is in my pursuit of my kid’s greatness they’ll hate the game they once loved, or measure my love based on their performance. I fear our mind-numbing journey from practice to practice and game to game will only get in the way of our relationships, that we will only connect when they are “out there” and I’m on the sidelines cheering.
But it’s a hard choice and, barring a few hiccups, we’ve stuck to our guns. We limit our kids to one sport a season and we take the summers off (I know, we are radicals). It frustrates coaches and earns strange looks from parents, but it’s worked for us, kept us close. We still camp and fish together, have family movie nights, and our boys work, either around the house or at a job. It’s not perfect and sometimes we’re still spread way too thin, but we’re together, and in this topsy-turvey culture, that’s become a rarity.
And I burned out.
The national pastime became my daily grind and fun was no longer welcome. I had a goal, an obsession, and I made myself miserable in the pursuit. I did this in a day when sports still had seasons, when the temperature changes and leaf color swept your mind to court, diamond, or field.
But that day nears extinction. For instance, baseball’s played all year with a fall, spring, and summer season. Football, too, has a spring season to go with its summer two-a-days that lead up to the fall. Basketball, which once entertained us when it was too cold has now become the sport we play when it’s too hot. I haven’t even touched soccer, volleyball, or lacrosse, each boasting multiple seasons.
And I wonder how kids keep up.
Different from me, where I finished football and went to basketball, then baseball, kids today play multiple sports all at the same time. It is not unusual to practice spring football during an athletic period, leave to go to baseball, or play a game late that evening on an AAU basketball team.
If you’re not exhausted yet, try multiple teams in the same sport during the same season. When I coached 7th grade football, players left practice sweaty, exhausted (darn Texas heat), only to strap on their own equipment and head back up to the field for their “Select Team” practice. In case you missed it; that was two football practices back to back in the Texas sun. Outside a short designated pre-season time, that activity is illegal for high school teams. But middle school parents sanction it by having “Junior” on a school team and a select team, and they often do these quasi “two-a-days” all season.
I’m not trying to be critical, but I can’t see where that is healthy. Where does the kid have time and energy for schoolwork? When does the family gather for dinner? Is there any time to just enjoy each other, to go fishing, hunting, camping, or a movie? Are we out of control, making youth sports professional?
Parental pressure is enormous. I’ve been there, I know. People brag about their kid going to this certain camp or playing on that travel team and how colleges watch those teams and you don’t want your kid left out, left behind. So you bite, spending outrageous money paying a coach, hoping he’s truthful about your kid’s future. Before you know it, you’ve crammed the family schedule with so much activity that there’s no time for family. But what those teams and coaches have not explained is the infinitesimal chance that any kid plays college sports (much less receives scholarship money), especially in baseball, football, and basketball (I think I read that 94% of high school baseball players will not play beyond high school). I’ve been there, and I’m afraid it’s a gamble not worth the payoff.
What I fear is in my pursuit of my kid’s greatness they’ll hate the game they once loved, or measure my love based on their performance. I fear our mind-numbing journey from practice to practice and game to game will only get in the way of our relationships, that we will only connect when they are “out there” and I’m on the sidelines cheering.
But it’s a hard choice and, barring a few hiccups, we’ve stuck to our guns. We limit our kids to one sport a season and we take the summers off (I know, we are radicals). It frustrates coaches and earns strange looks from parents, but it’s worked for us, kept us close. We still camp and fish together, have family movie nights, and our boys work, either around the house or at a job. It’s not perfect and sometimes we’re still spread way too thin, but we’re together, and in this topsy-turvey culture, that’s become a rarity.
