Many parents get very angry and confrontational when their child is not chosen to be on a Select or an “All-Star” Team. Our country’s obsession with sports and the professionalization of sports has deluded coaches, parents, and players into believing such things have a much greater meaning and significance than they actually do.
Prior to trying out for a Select Team, a parent should explain to their child that an important lesson to be learned from youth sports is, many times, life is not fair. And neither is the decision of whom to include on a Select Team. At best, such decisions are one group’s opinion of a player’s value to a team at one point in time and the player may objectively need to work harder to get better.
However, at worst, such selections can be very politically motivated. The choices can be heavily influenced by which players have parents who are coaches or Board members for the league and their close friends.
Children hear how excited their parents and their parents’ friends are when they talk about the “fun” of traveling to different cities and states to play in tournaments. The truth may be that fun for the parents may not be fun for the child. A child may intensely feel the stress of the practical and financial impacts of the extra time and travel requirements placed on their family. The intense actions and reactions of the parents to the outcome of the games may even cause the child to feel their parents’ love for them or their self-worth is tied to getting a medal or trophy and the child’s relative contributions to “winning” those things.
From a purely sports perspective, the child may be deluded into thinking that being selected to these teams is an indication they are an elite player. The truth is good is never good enough and a player’s ability can never be accurately judged based on a comparison to a small sample size such as the players in one league. In some sports, the quality of players has been significantly diluted by the number of options players now have for leagues and teams to join. It may take comparison to regional and national select players to gauge a player’s true ability at that time.
I remember sitting with five college coaches watching two select high school baseball teams play. The parents probably thought their children were elite players because they had paid thousands of dollars every year to participate in the Club Ball circuit. And yet, after the game was done, all of the coaches unanimously agreed that of the 22 players who played in the game, only two had the tangibles and intangibles to play college baseball.
The best athletes have the most potential to become the best players. From a very early age, players must participate in a variety of activities that use their upper and lower bodies simultaneously and that challenge their minds as well as their bodies. Eventually, to be elite, players must compete in programs where the standards are very high, the competition is very tough, and they are consistently challenged to work very hard to improve even if they are currently better than anyone else they know or watch.
All youth practices and pre-game routines should have an athleticism training component that is developed and mandated by the league with assistance from nationally certified strength, conditioning and movement optimization trainers in that sport. The program must be diligently monitored and progressed every year to be sure every player is developing as an athlete not just a player.
The judgement of whether a player is currently elite must be made by knowledgeable and experienced coaches at the next level who have no affiliation to the player’s family, team, or league and no business self-interest compromising their objectivity.
Most importantly, a child must have a balance in their life beyond sports so they are confident they have skills, talents and life experiences that will mean their happiness and success in life will be determined by what happens off the field or court, not on it. A small group may not think that you are currently an All-Star player, but the world will know that you are an All-Star person.
Prior to trying out for a Select Team, a parent should explain to their child that an important lesson to be learned from youth sports is, many times, life is not fair. And neither is the decision of whom to include on a Select Team. At best, such decisions are one group’s opinion of a player’s value to a team at one point in time and the player may objectively need to work harder to get better.
However, at worst, such selections can be very politically motivated. The choices can be heavily influenced by which players have parents who are coaches or Board members for the league and their close friends.
Children hear how excited their parents and their parents’ friends are when they talk about the “fun” of traveling to different cities and states to play in tournaments. The truth may be that fun for the parents may not be fun for the child. A child may intensely feel the stress of the practical and financial impacts of the extra time and travel requirements placed on their family. The intense actions and reactions of the parents to the outcome of the games may even cause the child to feel their parents’ love for them or their self-worth is tied to getting a medal or trophy and the child’s relative contributions to “winning” those things.
From a purely sports perspective, the child may be deluded into thinking that being selected to these teams is an indication they are an elite player. The truth is good is never good enough and a player’s ability can never be accurately judged based on a comparison to a small sample size such as the players in one league. In some sports, the quality of players has been significantly diluted by the number of options players now have for leagues and teams to join. It may take comparison to regional and national select players to gauge a player’s true ability at that time.
I remember sitting with five college coaches watching two select high school baseball teams play. The parents probably thought their children were elite players because they had paid thousands of dollars every year to participate in the Club Ball circuit. And yet, after the game was done, all of the coaches unanimously agreed that of the 22 players who played in the game, only two had the tangibles and intangibles to play college baseball.
The best athletes have the most potential to become the best players. From a very early age, players must participate in a variety of activities that use their upper and lower bodies simultaneously and that challenge their minds as well as their bodies. Eventually, to be elite, players must compete in programs where the standards are very high, the competition is very tough, and they are consistently challenged to work very hard to improve even if they are currently better than anyone else they know or watch.
All youth practices and pre-game routines should have an athleticism training component that is developed and mandated by the league with assistance from nationally certified strength, conditioning and movement optimization trainers in that sport. The program must be diligently monitored and progressed every year to be sure every player is developing as an athlete not just a player.
The judgement of whether a player is currently elite must be made by knowledgeable and experienced coaches at the next level who have no affiliation to the player’s family, team, or league and no business self-interest compromising their objectivity.
Most importantly, a child must have a balance in their life beyond sports so they are confident they have skills, talents and life experiences that will mean their happiness and success in life will be determined by what happens off the field or court, not on it. A small group may not think that you are currently an All-Star player, but the world will know that you are an All-Star person.
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