Why Youth Sports Are Too Intense and How to Change it

Everyone has seen parents yelling in the stands at players, officials and even coaches during grade school or high school sporting events. In fact, I’m sure you’re already thinking about the “crazy” parent that gets on your nerves. The parent who yells, “Catch the ball!” then throws their hands up as if someone just insulted their mother. While I certainly understand the underlying frustration, these fans are the reason youth sports are too intense.

Fans are why youth sports are too intense

First of all, let’s clarify the term “fan”. We like to think it is an endearing term that implies dedication, enjoyment, emotion and commitment to a player, team or cause. All very positive and supportive qualities. In fact, marketing is intended to create and convert people into fans to build loyalty. Therefore, we want fans for our kids, right? If fact, if we want to be good parents, we should be their biggest fans! I agree 100 %! Yet, how did the most enthusiastic fan become the “crazy” parent? Now its easier to see how youth sports are too intense.

Remember, that “fan” is really short for fanatic. If you lookup the definition of fanatic, you will find something like “excessive or unreasonable devotion or enthusiasm”. This gives me pause to reflect… Do I really want to be a fanatic for my kids? Will that serve them best?

Supporters

Parents focus on being supportive and encouraging. Especially when it comes to kids experiencing sports. Kids play sports because it’s fun, social, active and humans inherently love competition. Parents and coaches need to foster and support kids because it is a learning experience. Parents realize mistakes are going to happen as part of the learning process. Why would they expect anything different of kids in sports? Kids need to learn how to react to mistakes while having fun. They need support and coaching, not disappointed fanatics.

Kids need support and coaching, not disappointed fanatics.

Fans in Education

Lets compare the learning process in sports to the traditional academic learning process. Imagine a scenario where parents were allowed in school, as fans, to observe their child during class instruction. During the lesson, kids try to answer questions posed by the teacher. Would it be acceptable for parents to yell out the answer or directions? A  well informed fan would be quick to offer guidance out loud. Moreover, what would happen if a kid made a mistake or didn’t even answer an ‘easy question’? A fan might yell “awe come on! that was easy!” The most egregious offense happens when another kid is misbehaving or breaking a rule and the teacher didn’t address it? Again a fan would yell, “WOW! Are you blind?”

Although, this is not a perfect analogy, we hope you see it highlights why commonly accepted fan behavior is not appropriate in youth sports.  Just as the fan behavior is not appropriate in any other educational setting.

Proposed Causes

There may be better suited experts and research data which may explain the development of fan behavior in sports, but we suggest the following factors have impacted the parental fan based approach to youth sports:

• Competitive Sports Fallacy – The fallacy assumes that if competition is good, then kids need to play the best competition to be considered successful.
• Media Coverage of Amateur Sports – TV and radio have glorified amateur sports as entertainment, including the ranking of teams, ranking of players, arm chair analysis and side games of chance. Parents associate success in youth sports as a path into the college and pro sports covered by the media and the implicit success.
• Entertainment Marketing – brands for professional and college organizations, originally marketed as entertainment, has morphed passion in sports that inappropriately transfers to youth sports only because they are the same game.

Next Steps

Most parents would admit to falling into this fan trap. However, now that you can see why youth sports are too intense, you can help change the spirit of youth sports. You can make help by changing the behavior of fans to behave more like supporters instead of fanatics.

The change starts with your reaction as a coach. Mistakes and errors by players, officials and follow coaches need to be addressed like a professional, not a fanatic. This shift it will help the kids on your team know what success looks like. They will enjoy and grow in a healthy youth sports environment. Be the change.

Secondly, share this message with the parents on your team. Start at the beginning of the season and repeat as needed.

Finally, it is critical that you share this message with other adults involved in youth sports.

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