11/21/24
April 01, 2010
Are Athletes Becoming More Entitled?: "A big part of this current culture of athletic entitlement has been stoked and enforced from very early ages. We all know of the stage parents and the culture of youth sports, which is affecting and infecting these kids at a much younger age than it used to. Now it's all about club sports and making the traveling team and parents wanting to get their children into position to secure a college scholarship earlier." -- David Carter of the University of Southern California Sports Business Institute
Here in my area, the select baseball teams are tryout based, however that doesn's change much. The parents just shop around a bit more to ensure that they find a team for little Johnny to play on.
I coached through the 14 year level, and then backed away for several reasons, but by that time I had seen it all. Parents screaming at me because their precious little boy was riding the pines one inning longer than some other kid. Or, I had him 6th in the line up and I should have him leading off (never mind that he didn't have a great on base average, he batted lead off on his last team). It went on and on. By the time a kid got through all the leagues, he had better get a scholarship because he parents had spent at least one year's worth of college expenses on baseball. $2,500 a year would have been on the low end of expenses, most were several thousand more. Do that for several years and it begins to not make sense quickly.
So, the little Johnny that does make it through has indeed been quite pampered and feels entitled. I'd hate to have to some of these kids as their egos surely get in the way.
posted by dviking at 06:55 PM on April 01, 2010
You're right on, dviking. I quit at 14U as well. We started as a Rec team back in Tball, and wound up playing Comp level after a few years.....that's when it gets ugly.......and expensive.
After not coaching since July, I started to get a little ansy, though. So I began coaching my 13 yr old daughter's team (previous coach left). It's a Rec team, few practices, little money involved, weeknight schedule with no weekend tournaments (I can go fishing again). Ahhhhhh, just like the good old days. We started this week and I'd forgotten what it was like to coach a Rec team. Everybody plays, everybody's happy, and nobody is very good or they'd be in a Comp league. Fun environment, just like it was meant to be.
posted by kcfan4life at 07:41 AM on April 02, 2010
This is spot on. With my female soccer players, the parents start rostering them on club teams when they are at the U-10 level, and the kids sometimes end up being double or triple rostered from season to season.
This includes some kids on C and D teams who will likely not ever play competitive soccer on tryout-based teams in our regional leagues.
The kids like the flashy unis and the fact that their coach may be a charismatic young chap from Manchester or Liverpool.
The parents like spending the big bucks for the club experience and the travel, etc. It's largely a consumerist approach to youth sports.
By the time the kids are into their second season of club team soccer, they are physically and mentally exhausted and many step away from the game once they've had the enjoyment sucked out of it for them (because the parents make a big time serious thing out of it once they start paying the club fees).
As an area youth sports coach, I love being told by the parents of double rostered kids that I need to understand that their family's primary time and effort commitment has to be with the club team because of the effort and expense involved in getting their kid on that roster. Gives me that warm feeling all over.
I wish the club teams were tryout based - it would bring many of those families back to reality. But that will never happen because those teams are strictly for-profit and they are handily coining money without regard to whether an given kid should be on their roster or not. In fact, they have been known to overload their rosters until the parents get mad because their kids aren't getting enough touches and PT.
With all this, in our area in the last six years or so, with all the terrific female players that have developed in youth soccer and come through the high school programs, many have gone on to collegiate careers at smaller non-scholarship colleges, but I think just one female player has gotten a significant scholarship to a Div. 1 school in a top level competitive league.