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Teaching Kids To Play

By stern on October 25, 2009

There’s a disturbing trend of parents pushing their kids into sports thinking far too long term. Elementary schoolers toting half-sized golf bags around the driving range are the next Tiger Woods. Pop Warner football players are Heisman material as soon as the other 8-year olds have trouble catching them on long runs. Little Leaguers who can hit the ball out of the infield are given $200 bats and $3,000 in batting lessons in preparation for that call from Brian Cashman of the Yankees. The problem with all of these postures is that they teach kids that sports are a business rather than a pleasure.

Teaching kids to play means infusing them with a love of the game, whatever game it may be. Don’t think too far out; enjoy every season, every game, every at bat or shift or putt that successfully clears the windmill on the 8th hole. Youth sports should be a preface to adult sports, and adult sports are primarily about life skills and lifetime enjoyment. Very, very few youth players are going to play or participate in professional sports, but kids who learn to love a sport will become fans, play in adult leagues, or teach their own kids the love of the game and create familial traditions that are far more valuable than any dreams of a professional contract.

Put another way: my love of the NJ Devils and meanderings at late night Friday skates has helped me land or influence business through taking customers to games and “talking shop” with my peers. My love of hockey has become a family sport as well, as was gloriously demonstrated this weekend: Bubba and I skated together for the first time, on the same team, not playing shinny but playing with the “big boys.” On the way home, he remarked that we almost had a Stern-to-Stern scoring play, as he fed me the puck at the half boards. There’s no way to put monetary value on that kind of fun. When we pick our sports heroes, I look for that same balance of loving the game and the family around the game. I became an even bigger Mike Cammalleri fan after a post-game hallway scene at the Rock last season – Cammalleri had picked up two assists in a game the Flames lost, and had a gaggle of fans waiting for autographs, pictures and handshakes. His first action, though, was to hug his father and greet one of his father’s friends. Nothing was said about the game, because father-son relationships trump all other commentary. His dad clearly taught him how to play the right way.

So what’s a parent to do?

  • Teach kids to respect the game and its players. You don’t swing on a 3-0 count. You pass the ball or puck to the open guy. One of my favorite Friday night hockey moments was a game in which the center consistently passed me the puck. He didn’t do it because I was that good; he did it because he was that good, and insisted on moving the puck around. I converted on maybe two shots of the half-dozen chances he gave me, but it was worth it to him to watch me pepper the goalie (his brother!) with shots. This is but one reason I refuse to watch the NBA: it’s devolved into three guys mostly standing around, a horrendous derivative of the Princeton offense that relies on motion, intelligence and passing.

  • Practice is supposed to be fun. There’s nothing worse for kids than standing in lines to do drills. If you can’t keep everybody running, involved and interested, then you’re running a bad practice. And if you don’t have the manpower to keep four or six stations filled with coaches, see the next point. My favorite golf practice is a game the Bubba has taught me called “two over/two under.” We pick a spot on the putting green and attempt to 2-putt a designated hole. We keep going until one of us is 2 strokes over or under “par;” and we’ll play two out of three. It’s fun, and I’m 3-putting fewer holes.

  • Invest more time than money. Instead of $3,000 in batting lessons, take your kids to a professional baseball game. Buy a bucket of baseballs and spend an hour doing soft toss as soon as the school ball field dries out from the winter. Volunteer to coach, manage, organize a gathering for players, parents and siblings, or help the league or on game day. I’m continually blown away by the number of people who will scream at hockey referees but yet never consider getting their own ref certificate. The defining moment of my last season in youth hockey management came in a game when our opponent had three players in the penalty box, and one of the parents began wailing for her kid to get on the ice when the first penalty expired (for the less hockey conscious, with three players in the box, the third penalty “stacks” and begins when the first expires. However, since the team is still down two men, the first player cannot leave the penalty box until there’s a stop in play, otherwise the penalized team would have too many men on the ice). There’s no reasoning with people who cannot take the time to understand the rules of their kids’ games, and worse yet abuse the officials with their own misunderstanding.

    Your kids and their teammates will usually appreciate understanding over screaming, time over money, and in the musical phrasing of Dire Straits, love over gold in all interpretations.

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