Parents and coaches get poor grades on youth sports report card

Youth sports get low grades for parental misbehavior and an overemphasis on a win-at-all-cost mentality among parents and coaches, so said an alliance of the country’s most prominent amateur and professional sports organizations.

According to the inaugural National Youth Sports Report Card, youth sports need to focus more on the child’s experience and less on winning games or earning sports scholarships.

The Report Card was recently released by the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance (CTSA), a national coalition of professional and amateur sports organizations, whose members include the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, among others.

For the first time ever, CTSA convened a panel of youth sports experts from across the country to evaluate youth sports in the U. S. and articulate its successes and failures.

“CTSA is concerned that youth sports has become too focused on winning at the exclusion of the child’s well-being,” said Ron Stratten, CTSA chair and vice president of education services at the NCAA.

“. . . We are concerned that issues such as early sports specialization, poor sportsmanship and over-invested parents seeking sports scholarships are threatening to undermine the positive experience of youth sports,” said Stratten.

CTSA’s report card included two Ds, one each in the categories of “parental behavior/involvement” and “child-centered philosophy,” which focuses on the child’s perspective of the experience. The panel also issued a C for the “coaching” category, a C+ in the area of “health and safety” and a Bin “officiating.”

Dan Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, Michigan State University, released the grades issued by the national expert panel, which was composed of youth sports leaders, authors, sociologists, sports psychologists, coaches and parents.

“One of the biggest issues in youth sports today is the professionalization of children’s sports,” said Gould, noting that this occurs when adults take a professional sports model and impose it on children’s activities. “Examples of this professional model include adults pressuring kids to win at early ages, along with single-sports specialization and year-round training at an early age.”

Clark Kellogg, CBS Sports basketball studio analyst, offered a unique perspective on CTSA’s efforts. “Because sports participation can have such a positive impact on young people, it’s extremely important that parents and coaches keep the games in perspective and the interests of the participants at the very top of the priority list,” Kellogg said.

“Unfortunately, there are a growing number of examples where that is not the case. As one who has enjoyed the benefits of athletic participation, and as the father of three young athletes, that is terribly disheartening to me.”

CTSA board member Judy Young, vice president for programs poor grades on youth sports report card

of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, is focusing on the resources CTSA has developed to improve the situation.

“CTSA has developed several resources to help youth sports leaders and parents address the challenges facing youth sports. Those resources include a parent’s guide and community report cards that can be used by parents and youth sports leaders to evaluate their own youth sports program. We know that many organizations are working hard to change youth sports for the better,” she said.

For more information, visit the website at www.sportsmanship.org to download free parent’s guides and other helpful resources or go online to www.dot.ca.gov.

This story provided by StatePoint Media.