Avatar Parents and Their Kid Athletes - Tim Elmore
Interesting article about parents living through their student athletes.
Interesting article about parents living through their student athletes.
Avatar Parents and Their Kid Athlete
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Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
An insightful excerpt from the article
"...A recent article from USA Lacrosse revealed that college coaches are actually looking to multi sport athletes in recruiting. Why? Because they have an upside, they are better all around athletes, they are not done developing, and they are less likely to burn out. Again, Sullivan writes, “You cannot make a kid into something she is not by forcing them into a sport at a very young age, and pursuing your goals and not your child’s goals. Things like motivation, grit, genetics and enjoyment have too much say in the matter. What you can do, though, is rob a child of the opportunity to be a child, to play freely, to explore sports of interest, to learn to love sports and become active for life. Chances are great that your children will be done with sports by high school, as only a select few play in college and beyond. Even the elite players are done at an age when they have over half their life ahead of them. It is not athletic ability, but the lessons learned from sport that need to last a lifetime....”
- Apr 25, 2010
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What about the kid who has zero interest in playing other sports? DD is a very good basketball and volleyball player but has absolutely no desire to play.
- May 17, 2012
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Force them to play multiple sports. It's the only way to be sure. (Sarcasm)
The whole premise is a straw-man.
"They burn out. They become emotionally scarred. They quit sports and they don’t get to see what a healthy, well-adjusted adult looks like. With all the intensity and pressure, it’s no wonder these kids still act like kids when they are 26 years old. Many of them never got to be children when they were young. What’s more, they never got to “own” their own life. A parent was always projecting their life upon them. Any sports psychologist will tell you that in order to pursue an achievement or activity for the long term, children need ownership, enjoyment and intrinsic motivation. Without these three things, an athlete is very likely to quit."
Do you have any stats to back that up? Who is arguing the the other side?
I do know that the well know female athletes, played multiple sports. Volleyball saved Delledon (sp) when she walked away from UConn basketball. She needed a break.
We can't force a 7th grader to go out for a different sport, but we can schedule a boating weekend, or a ski weekend or all go bicycling.
I was lucky in a way, that we didn't have women's sports when I was in HS. We had GAA and we traveled to various schools for track and v'ball and basketball.
But, yes, I agree that the college coaches all say, at our clinics, that they want multi sport athletes.
We can't force a 7th grader to go out for a different sport, but we can schedule a boating weekend, or a ski weekend or all go bicycling.
I was lucky in a way, that we didn't have women's sports when I was in HS. We had GAA and we traveled to various schools for track and v'ball and basketball.
But, yes, I agree that the college coaches all say, at our clinics, that they want multi sport athletes.
I asked my DD about how love of the game factors into her performance. She told me that it was not as big a factor as people might expect. She said she likes and probably loves the game, but what she really loves and lives for is the competition. Just happens that softball is what she is best at and gives her the opportunity to compete at a high level. No surprise her long term plan is for an MBA and a professional career that allows her to continue to fuel her competitive nature.
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It is not that they want multi-sport athletes. They want athletes that want to compete, and compete all the time. My DD got offer after offer and only played softball. When coaches asked me what she did other than softball I told them not much except that every day would play fire up the wii or PlayStation. She would look at all the high scores for various games and if she did not have the top score, she played until she did. Coaches loved that, especially in a pitcher. Does anyone really believe that a college softball coach cares if your DD can dribble a basketball?
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Yeah, that is what I would SAY if I was a college coach. But it turns out to be BS. It is like many of the user surveys we do in business - what the customer SAYS is totally different to what their actions actually turn out to be.
You know the reality on WHY they like multi-sport recruits - because most multi-sport athletes at decent high schools are the elite athletes (someone mentioned speed in particular) who don't need the number of reps someone making the most of what talent they have needs to reach a certain level of play. It has nothing to to do with mutli-sports being a good thing for them - it is just access to the elite athletic talent. Of course this same athlete needs to 100% concentrate on ONE sport in college because magically being multi-sports in college is now suddenly undesirable.
It is just like when they blame player injuries from over use in travel. And how players are 'burnt out' or injured by the time they reach college or they "don't compete like they used to". The real translation of this is "Only I should be able to ride a player like a horse and beyond and I am upset that someone got there before me but hey, I am only going to recruit from these travel ranks because figuring out how to recruit high school is hard." I saw one coach last week complaining about the amount of innings pitchers were pitching in youth leagues and travel tournaments and how it was too much - but when you looked at his team's stats his #1 pitcher had pitched close to 75% of the total innings available.
Coaches want the qualities typically found in 3 sport athletes. They want kids with athletic skills, who love to compete and are not afraid of hard work. They are not going to recruit that 3 sport athlete that was a bench queen.
- Jan 25, 2011
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My dd loves softball, but she went out for cross country last fall and loved it. As a pitcher it has helped her in endurance and that moment when she is running and wants to stop. The mental aspect of it, to keep pushing to finish, also helps with her pitching. Dd loves her archery and shooting her guns, that helps with focus on the target at hand and that again helps her pitching. Also shooting helps her to blow off some steam, just it cost me some money, doesn't take her long shoot up a magazine with her AR.
