There have been so many changes in the field of youth sport that not only would it be hard to list them it seems impossible to determine the long range effects of these changes. But the short range effects do not look to good.
Today the youth of our nation is so over-coached and directed by adults one has to wonder how our children can think at all.
Gone are the playgrounds and parks where kids worked out their differences between themselves. Gone are the pick-up games where children refereed their own games and decided if a ball was fair or foul and made their own lineups. Can you imagine?
Given the current state of youth-directed sport I cannot imagine how we ever chose up sides and played so many sports and games without adult assistance or direction
What is perplexing about the whole thing is that for the most part it is the baby-boomer generation who played so freely and creatively who ushered in the "youth sport adult directed syndrome" we have today.
How did we get here? The exodus to the suburbs surely had something to do with it. I think the economic affluence of this generation also had something to do with it. Children of today have so many more things than the baby-boomer generation. Perhaps it can be blamed on technology. Let's face it you do not have to go to far today to be connected to another human being. If you are reading this then you are connected, or at least have the capacity to be connected.
How does the mindset of a free thinking generation create a generation that appears to be less active, less productive in creating new and different games to play? I am not sure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An All Time Record
Unfortunately this is not sport. You have to wonder how we got this way, and what is wrong? Whatever we are doing to prevent crime is not working--ya think?
People ask me all the time why sports fans are so fanatical. There are many reasons why people start reading the newspaper from the backpage, get so wrapped up in their teams or scores, or do not know who their senator is. This is certainly one of them.
For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America 's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Clemens Reluctant Media Star
When you read the quotes below you have to wonder what planet Roger Clemens is living on. You take a job and with that job goes intense media scrutiny and then you want to carve out the pieces that only you want to do. I see this all the time in all professions. People take jobs and are told the job description, in Clemens' case they literally see the job description, and then they choose the parts they like to do. In theory sounds good. In reality--another planet. No one is saying that a professional athlete has to like the media scrutiny and all that goes with it---but it is part of their jobs. Simple as that.
Funny, Clemens decided to press the issue with the public and Congress. It was his choice--now he wants all the eyes that are on him to go away? I certainly can understand that, who wants it? He brought a good deal of it on himself.
No wonder people think some athletes are pampered and spoiled. Nah they are just human.
From Newsday--Ken Davidoff
Roger Clemens ignored reporters when asked Wednesday afternoon about the news that Congress had asked the Justice Department to investigate him on perjury changes.
"Guys, the big team is up that way," he said, pointing to where the major league team was working out.
Clemens arrived at Astros camp at 10:45 Wednesday morning, smiling, ready to resume his "personal-services" work for the Astros.
There's a big-league team to the right, I think," he said. "I'm not sure."
"Wow," Clemens contined, "you guys need to get a life."
Asked if he would take questions after throwing batting practice to minor leaguers, Clemens said, "Nope. I did all I'm gonna do (Monday)."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
College Athletics Is Professional Sports From The New York Times--William C. Rhoden
In the bizarre, Alice-in-Wonderland world of the N.C.A.A., where up is often down, athletes are told that they are "regular students" but are treated as anything but. They are commodities who facilitate a semiprofessional on-campus entertainment industry. Through lucrative television contracts and sponsor partnerships, football and basketball finance the N.C.A.A. headquarters and an enforcement staff that polices overzealous coaches and keeps players in their place.
Nothing that we do not know---just something that we do not want to acknowledge. Both football and basketball do not have minor leagues systems like baseball. Their (football and basketball) minor league system is college. And right behind it high school.
|
