Youth sports not about cutting out the competition

Richard Brunette

Regarding Steve Smith’s “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose”

article in Saturday’s Daily Pilot, in which he relates his youth

baseball coaching experiences and refers to Lolita Harper’s last

“Thinking Allowed” article from May 21, and her comment that

“ ... competitive sports are good for children,” I absolutely

agree with Smith and Harper’s belief that competition in youth sports

is good for children.

You get no argument from me. But Harper and Smith and many parents

of youth sports participants still seem to be missing the main point

of why many youth sports organizations are attempting to de-emphasize

winning, losing and competition.

Smith and many others seem to be locked into the belief that youth

sports organizations are trying to eliminate competition altogether.

No one is trying to eliminate competition. In sports, as in life,

that is impossible. It’s not that competition is bad. Competition can

be healthy and is a part of every game or sport we play. Competition

is a very important part of life, and helps us to improve and be

better at whatever it is we’re doing. But many children are often

taught the exaggerated importance of competition, which is to “be the

best” and to “win at all cost.” Being the best and winning becomes

more important than doing your best, playing fair and having fun. The

focus of youth sports, particularly for children, should be on having

fun while learning the basic skills and rules of the game amid an

environment of healthy competition.

In his articles on youth sports, including this one, Smith also

often states that youth sports programs are handing out awards to too

many kids because they are afraid of hurting someone’s feelings,

inferring that this somehow dilutes the meaning of the awards, making

them no good to anyone.

I fail to make the connection Smith and many others do that this

practice somehow makes these awards any less meaningful. Giving

participation awards is simply a way of acknowledging a good job for

trying, for coming out to play, and that everyone’s input on a team

is meaningful, important and necessary. It also reinforces, in a

small way, that there is no “I” in team.

Too often we recognize only the talented, the most skilled

players, the ones everyone wants on their teams solely because of

their athletic prowess. And we end up with athletes who are spoiled

rotten, thinking they can get away with anything, and that they

deserve everything.

We often forget to reinforce to the average and below-average

athletes that playing and participation, that their attempts and

efforts, do account for something. It is in the trying, in the

effort, and not the winning, that some of life’s most meaningful

lessons are learned.

I’ll take the kid with the heart, the drive and the will to

succeed over the most talented kid every time. Often, it is that kid

who will amount to something, both on the field of athletic

competition as well as in life. This is the reason all the kids are

being congratulated for playing, not because organizations don’t want

to “hurt someone’s feelings.”

Now, for something I absolutely disagree with and cannot believe

Smith truly meant in his article.

In one of his final paragraphs, Smith made the statement, “trying

to make everything ‘fair’ is no good either.”

Shame on you. Are you trying to say that cheating should be

taught or allowed? That fair play and honesty shouldn’t be a major

component of youth sports? That trying to make things fair isn’t

exactly one of the major values that youth sports programs should be

attempting to do and to instill in our children?

I don’t think you were trying to say that. I think many parents

and supporters of youth sports sometimes cannot see the forest for

the trees in their approach to youth sports. Their “competitive

spirit” (some would say “overly-competitive spirit”) blinds them to

the reasons behind why some things are done the way they are done.

Yes, life isn’t fair, and kids will learn this fact all too

quickly. But wouldn’t it be great if life was fair? Wouldn’t it be

amazing if as kids learned that life isn’t fair they also learned

that it is always the right thing to do to try to make things as fair

and honest as possible whenever they had the power to do so,

regardless of the outcome? That yes, maybe playing fair might make

them lose the game, but that by not being fair, or by cheating or by

taking advantage of someone unfairly by not following the rules or

the spirit of honest competition, that winning in the short term

equates to losing in the long run?

I believe, as I’m sure you do, that kids learn invaluable lessons

through participation in youth sports that can translate into their

adult lives. Yes, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but isn’t

one of the most valuable lessons kids should be learning in youth

sports a sense of fair play? Maybe the world would have a few less

Enron scandals, Wall Street insider trading convictions, or illegal

corporate manipulations to increase company profits if the folks

responsible for these transgressions were taught the rules of fair

play in childhood, and had incorporated them into their adult lives

and business practices.

Call me naive, call me stupid and say that the world will never

work this way, but I’d like to think that whenever we have the power

to try to make the world a fairer place, that we will choose to do

so, and that maybe, just maybe, this will have an effect on the

children who we have an opportunity to influence and affect through

youth sports.

* RICHARD BRUNETTE is a Costa Mesa resident.