Youth sports issues that irk me

There is a little flat box in the corner of my office, which from time to time I stand on as I type. It’s my soap box.
Younger folks won’t understand the reference, but us more seasoned citizens have heard the phrase “to get on the soap box.” Even a few of you may remember when soap came in boxes strong enough for politicians, speech-makers and town criers to stand on as they delivered their messages to the masses.
These days, getting on your soap box refers to someone passionately espousing a position which they feel very deeply. And I have been accused of getting on my soap box on a few occasions.
One issue that regularly brings me to the Ivory platform is youth sports. I have written stories about them, watched them, taken pictures of them and traveled many miles as I reported their endeavors.
And I have been consistent over these many years in saying that in general, youth sports are great — as long as the adults involved know their roles and perform them well.
But the one thing that has ground my gears is the ever-pressing need by national youth sports organizations to put these kids at a higher and higher level at a younger and younger age.
Babe Ruth baseball is one group in particular that seems to push all-star competition for kids as young as eight years old.
For the uninitiated, after the local Babe Ruth season, the district holds an all-star tournament for a variety of age groups. The district winners move on to competition at state level, then regional level, and the few survivors play in a Babe Ruth World Series at a selected location of the United States.
Wilson has hosted this national championship tournament in the past. I remember covering a Wayne County team at a Babe Ruth World Series in Tallahassee, Florida.
Time was that all-star selections were badly mishandled by the local authorities, who would blatantly “stack” their own local team and picked only their neighborhood players for post-season competition. Fortunately, this does not happen as much as it used to.
But all-star baseball is not all it is cracked up to be. There is a bunch of travel, and the further you advance, the more time it takes up. Parents have to foot huge bills for hotels and meals, often paying higher motel rates because reservations can only be made a few days in advance. Vacation time and family time is lost, and sometimes a child can be playing baseball until school starts again.
But the most troublesome thing about it to me is the social stigma applied to the kids. If you all remember being that age, there is an “I’m better than you” mentality that comes to the surface, even with the best-behaved children, when a socially favorable recognition is awarded to some children and not to others.
This gets even more marked as the age groups get younger. By the time the eight-year olds get back to school, there is the beginning of a “jock clic” in the school, and someone is ostracized.
In the past, I have seen kids as young as seven years old playing all-stars. Think of the mentality that sets in his mind. “I’m great,” he thinks. “Better than the others.”
The child is simply not old enough at that age to possess the maturity to understand that athletic prowess is just one part of a person. It’s in his head that he is better than the others, and it applies to a lot of other parts of life in his mind.
Yes, that is a challenge to parents, but why even expose a child that young to something like that?
The other day we ran a photo of some five-and six-year old players in the Fremont paper. Good for them for doing so well in the county tournament they played in. Good for their coaches for giving the extra time and volunteering.
But the organization that thinks this age group needs to determine a county champion has lost sight of the overall goals of their group.
This age group does not need to have a champion. The kids just need to enjoy playing — all of them. That’s hard to do when only one team can feel good about itself when the season is over.
I have been saying this for 13 years. I have no doubt that the guiltiest ones out there – the ones vicariously living though their children — have no idea what I am talking about, and are calling me names and saying I hate kids. Well, believe what you want. I hope that just one of you gets what I am saying.
This trend needs to be reversed before we see fastest-crawling-baby competitions and Babe Ruth tournaments for four-year olds, complete with plastic bats and outfield time-out boxes for kids that throw tantrums after missing the cut-off man.