A July 21st article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Kids Quit the Team for More Family Time” was a provocative counterpoint to my blog “5 Great Lesson of Team Sports.” The WSJ article conceded “Youth sports have big benefits for kids. Research links participation to better grades and self esteem, long-term improvements in education and employment and lower obesity rates.” The counterpoint was that more parents are choosing to say no to upper echelon sports because of the rising time and financial commitment becoming increasingly associated with competitive sports.
I would agree that the upper levels of competitive youth sports can be extremely expensive. With two boys in competitive youth hockey I would say I am a card carrying expert on just how expensive youth sports has become. The WSJ article made some great points related to the importance of family and spending time together. Youth sports do tend to eat into the Holidays with alarming regularity but that doesn’t mean you still can’t spend time together as family during a sports integrated Holiday. We have had some wonderful family adventures traveling for youth sports and combining it with a vacation.
My fundamental disagreement with the WSJ article isn’t in the premise that youth sports can get crazy, expensive, and time consuming. My disagreement is in the assumption that parents are buying into the youth sports frenzy because they believe they are funding “junior’s” future as a college or professional athlete. The article cites the stark statistics that only 3% to 6% of high school athletes make it as college athletes and only about 1% to 9% of college athletes make it to the pros. I completely agree that those odds are pretty sobering but that is NOT the reason kids should be playing competitive sports to begin with. I know a fair number of completely unrealistic parents that believe they are funding their child’s path to the pros but the overwhelming majority of us are doing it for two reasons that have nothing to do with our children playing at the pro or college level. Those reasons are 1) our kids are passionate about the sport and want to play at the highest level they can compete at and 2) because we want to allow our children to grow through the experience.
As I stated in the blog “5 Great Lessons of Team Sports” kids are growing through competitive sports in ways that will give them advantages in LIFE, not pro sports. Every family has to choose what is right for them but youth sports just might be the best education you will ever pay for.
As my regular readers have no doubt observed, I’ve been away on vacation for a couple of weeks but I am back now and ready to tackle some great subjects in the weeks to come. I must admit I still have one more family vacation coming up in August, it involves taking my family to Chicago for a rather expensive youth sports outing!
Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights
Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.
