Even though I have been out of the youth baseball game for a few years now, I still find myself reading the Bulletin Board section of the Sunday paper now and then.
The Bulletin Board column is a place where youth sports leagues can list notices, free of charge, to promote upcoming news about registration, tryouts or tournaments. More and more, recently, is has become a repository for competitive travel teams to recruit prospective players.
14U Team to Hold Open Tryouts. Location: Jeff Gary Field (heh-heh). Sat. Aug. 31. 10 a.m. – noon.
or
Elite 12U travel team looking for second baseman. Plays 60 game schedule. For more information, call 555-1234.
You get the idea.
Occasionally, though, I will see something in the bulletin board that makes me Shake My Head (SMH). When I was reading the paper yesterday, I saw a notice for a competitive 7U team having tryouts.
The coach didn’t use the word travel, but let’s be honest for a minute. A newbie coach of a recreational seven-year-old team – where snack time is more valued than practice time – isn’t posting a listing to recruit additional rec players.
I don’t know about you but I wasn’t very competitive at seven years old. The most competition I felt at that age was when the little girl across the street scheduled her birthday party on the same day as mine.
The notion of a competitive 7U team = SMH.
I understand the mindset these coaches and parents have even if I don’t agree with it. They feel that more competition, more practices and yes, more games at an early age will help Little Janey or Little Johnny reach their ultimate destiny to become ‘the next big thing.’ The idea is counter-intuitive, however.
Youngsters don’t want to be cloistered in an ultra competitive environment all summer long. They want to spend time with friends. They want to go on vacation. They want to go to the pool or to the lake or to visit grandma and grandpa.
Most likely, all these games and all this pressure won’t lead to superstardom. It will lead to burnout (or injuries).
Mike Matheny, the current manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, has a great blog on this topic that I recently discovered. He has a number of postings on this general topic including some guest bloggers including MLB managers such as Joe Girardi and Jim Leyland.
Matheny writes that only about one percent of all players in youth sports will make it to play high school sports – that is nothing to say, of course, those who would advance on to play at the collegiate or pro levels.
This jibes with the answer I gave one mother who was asking my opinion about what she should do to ensure that Little Jimmy would ‘make it.’ I asked her what her definition of ‘make it’ meant to her. And then I quoted similar statistics (that she didn’t want to hear).
Cal Ripken Jr., another definitive expert on the topic, writes (with his brother BIlly) in his book “Coaching Youth Baseball the Ripken Way,” that travel teams for kids as young as seven or eight has some positive aspects – such as helping the players to develop their skill sets at a younger age – but can ultimately lead to burnout.
I remember a dad came up to me years after his son had stopped playing for an elite travel team. The dad knew that Paul was on the Choppers and that I coached the team.
We never passed our team off as an elite team and that’s not what we were shooting for. Our goal on the Choppers was to fit a niche – in between a recreational and a travel team. We’d play about 30-35 games during the spring season. Then, we’d take a month off over the summer, play a less rigorous 12 game schedule in the fall months and congratulate our players and our opponents on another successful season.
The dad told me that, in retrospect, he wished he had gotten his son on a team like that. The grueling 60 game seasons led to his kid quitting baseball at age 12. He was just tired of it. He wanted to be a kid.
So, I think of what that dad told me…and what Cal writes…and what Mike Matheny writes…and countless other experts on the topic. That’s why I SMH when I hear about a 7U Travel Team.
I wish them well and hope they have fun. If the coaches and parents remember the ‘fun’ part, they have a fighting chance.
JG
Originally posted 8/26/2013
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