THE CREATIVE ATHLETE

Issue 16--More What We Know About Youth Sports

(Factors to Consider When Starting a Child in Sports--continuing from Issue 15)

Avoid major sacrifices in the beginning.

Sacrifices, especially financial ones, made too early in a child's sports training tend to cloud decision-making. Once families invest so much of themselves in sports, it becomes harder for the children to quit if they want to. Examples:

• "I couldn't wait for the '72 Olympics to be over. You cannot imagine the pressure. My family had made many sacrifices for me. I had a coach who had dedicated so much time and effort to me, almost neglecting his own family," said Cathy Rigby remembering what it was like to be America's top gymnast. (1)
  
  
• "Often parents don't realize what they're getting themselves into when their children take up a sport," advised Peter Vidmar, who won two gold medals in gymnastics at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. "I began serious training at age 11. Aside from the substantial cost of my lessons, my parents made many other sacrifices that involved time and effort. Once-a-week classes soon became six-days-a-week workouts, with my parents driving to the gym and back twice each day. Family meals had to be scheduled around my workouts, if we had them at all. During my entire career, I went on only a couple of family vacations and, even then, we had to make sure my workout needs were met." (2)
  
  
• Brandan Greczkowski, who at 18 was an alternate to the 1996 Olympic judo team, said that his parents also didn't anticipate how sports would change everyone's life. "[When I was in third grade] they paid $20 for the [eight-week] judo program, not realizing it was going to cost them thousands and thousands of dollars later on. My instructor looked at my parents and said, 'When do you want your son to become a national champion?' My folks were like, 'Yeah, right.' Then the following year, I was." (3)
  
  
• Olympic champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi's father, Jim, gave the parents' perspective: "You have to understand that nobody in skating realizes, starting out, just how expensive it is going to get. It sort of creeps up on you, because as Kristi got better, she began to have more needs, so we got in deeper and deeper If I had known, back when she was 7, just what was involved, we probably wouldn't have done it." (4)

If you are a parent of a child just starting out in sports, ask yourself if you are honestly prepared to make the sacrifices common in many sports families. Examples:

• Tennis player Mary Bruno started playing tennis and quickly earned a number two ranking in Tennessee. Needing to train with better players, in 1989 Mary and her mother relocated to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. Expenses for living, training, and school ran the family almost $54,000 a year. (5)
  
  
• In 1994, when figure skater Shelby Lyons was 12 and living in New York with her parents, she was recruited by Brian Wells to be his pairs partner. They decided to continue working with his coaches who were located in Colorado. To keep the family together, Shelby's parents quit their jobs and everyone moved. Both parents found jobs, but ones that paid about one-third of what they earned previously. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment, using a walk-in closet as a bedroom for Shelby. To come up with $50,000 a year for skating expenses, they found Shelby a sponsor, but Debbie Lyons was still forced to work a second job. "No matter how much money you make, it's never enough in figure skating." (6)

Shelby and Brian finished third at the 1996 United States Figure Skating Championships (earning them a trip to the World Championships) and Shelby won the junior ladies' title that year (and represented the United States at the World Junior Championships). In 1997 Shelby and Brian finished fourth at the National Championships.

• Michelle Kwan was the 1996 World Ladies Figure Skating Champion. Her sister Karen is also a top figure skater, ranked fifth in the United States in 1996. In order to support their training costs in the years before Michelle was paid for performing in ice shows, her father Danny was forced to sell the family's $355,000 home. (7)

Some parents wisely limit the amount of money and time they are prepared to invest. Examples:

• In 1990, when Chanda Rubin was 14, she became the youngest player selected for the United States Tennis Association national team and the only one to receive a wild card draw to play in the U.S. Open without having won an 18-and-under national championship. Yet she managed to accomplish this without the heavy investment in training that most young tennis players make. Her tennis instruction was limited to group lessons three times a week at a club near her home. Not until three weeks before the U.S. Open did she switch to more expensive private lessons. She turned pro at 15 and at 20 was ranked sixth in the world. "If I had been at this point years ago, when I was really young, it would've overwhelmed me." (8)

Noteworthy is that in 1993 Rubin chose to attend her senior prom and high school graduation rather than to play in the French Open. "My parents are very concerned about every aspect of my life. They insist that I'm balanced, that I'd be able to play tennis and have a life off the court. For that, I'm grateful." (8)

• When Ania Bleszynski was a top junior tennis player, her mother, a physicist, decided that although her daughter needed someone to travel with her to tournaments, she would not quit her job to do so. " even if I make a resolution never to bring it up with Ania, and if I try not to put pressure on, I am sorry, the pressure is there anyway. I decided that the child should not feel the pressure that would come if I gave up my job to travel with her tennis." (9)

Ania is currently an All-American playing for Stanford (and a physics major with a 3.6 grade point average) and before that was the top American 18-and-under singles player.

Athletes who start late may progress much faster than younger ones.

Older athletes are often more focused and more emotionally and physically mature, which allows them to maximize practice time. Examples:

• Cherokee Parks (who was a high school All-American, a star player at Duke, and was the 12th pick in the 1995 NBA draft) didn't start playing basketball until eighth grade.
  
  
• Dikembe Mutombo (who was the 1994-95 NBA Defensive Player of the Year) didn't start playing basketball until he was 18.
  
  
• Jose Canseco (voted Rookie of the Year in 1986) didn't start playing baseball until he was 13.
  
  
• Brian Henninger, who joined the PGA Tour in 1993 and earned a total of $573,618 in prize money during his first three years, didn't take up golf until his senior year in high school (he had been a top prep tennis player). He played golf at the University of Southern California as a walk-on.
  
  
• Mark Lenzi, who won the springboard diving gold medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and a bronze in Atlanta in 1996, didn't start diving until 1984 when he was 17 (though he had been a top high school wrestler).
  
  
• Dexter Rogers has been a member of the U.S. men's volleyball team since 1994 (and was an alternate for the 1996 Olympic team). Before he had been invited to join the team, he had never played college, high school, or club volleyball. He was first exposed to the sport at 15 when he watched the girls' team at his high school in St. Petersburg, Florida. He became their manager since there was no boys' team.

Rogers earned a basketball scholarship to Westmar University in Lemars, Iowa (he was an NAIA All-American). Again there was no men's volleyball team so he helped to coach the women's team. After graduation in 1991, his sports training was limited to playing pickup basketball and volleyball at a local recreation center in Del Mar, California, where he had a job selling fitness equipment. A former U.S. volleyball team member spotted him, saw potential, invited him to a practice where Rogers met the team coach. Six months later he was called back and then, a few months later, was put on the full-time training roster.

It is important to note that all of the above athletes had participated in other sports as children. Occasionally athletes with little childhood sports experience also reach the top levels of their sports. Examples:

• Swimmer Nelson Diebel, who at age 21 won two gold medals and set an Olympic record at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, didn't start swimming seriously until 1986. He had done some swimming as a child, but by age 12 was rebellious, inactive, and in trouble at school. Not until he began working with a prep school coach did he aggressively pursue sports.
  
  
• Dawn Sowell, who set collegiate records for the 100 and 200 meters in 1989, didn't start running until she was 16. "I was not particularly interested in sports or track. One day, I was in gym class. I hated it. But I had to race against boys, the length of the high school gym, and I beat them. So I was escorted to the girls' track team, and two weeks later I own my first race." (10)

Even adults can start sports careers late in their lives and be competitive. Examples:

• George Blair didn't start water-skiing until he was 40. From 1984 to 1991 he held the world record for barefoot jumping. Now in his eighties, George continues to perform in shows, exhibitions, and competitions.
  
  
• Helen Klein didn't start running until the age of 55. By the time she was 73, she had run 101 ultramarathons and 49 marathons, and set an age group record for a 100-mile race. (11)

Junior high is a major turning point for most children.

Sports participation drops off dramatically during adolescence. According to a 1988 national study of 26,300 children aged 10 to 18 conducted by the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (at Michigan State University), half of children in sports programs will drop out by age twelve, three-fourths by age fifteen. (12)

"By the time you get a kid in ninth grade, their commitments are someplace else. They're out getting a job or doing something else," according to Butch Thorpe, a high school girls basketball coach in Colorado, explaining why he felt a strong middle school sports program was important. (13)

Tara Scanlan, a professor of sport psychology at UCLA who has studied why children play sports, noted that "Just at the time when youth is entering the age when social peer relationships are most important, that's the time when we reduce the number of kids who can play and put all the emphasis on performance." (14)

To guarantee that as many children as possible play sports, some middle and junior high schools are insuring that every student has a chance to participate. All students who want to be on the team are on the team. No student will be cut for lack of ability. Said Jerry Goldsberry, principal of Plainfield Community Middle School in Plainfield, Indiana, a school that initiated a no-cut policy. "We felt, 'How is a student going to know what his strengths or weaknesses, likes and dislikes are, unless he tries.'"(15)

Almost as soon as the no-cut policy was instituted at Plainfield, over half the 800 students were involved in school sports. And the policy didn't hurt the competitiveness of the teams, either. The first year the school tried the program, it won local championships in eight sports and county-wide championships in three.

It's hard for any athlete, at any level, to stay on top for long.

Athletes who begin winning at an early age may lose their edge later on. According to Mark Russell, a PGA Tour official talking about young golfers, "The toughest thing to do is maintain. So many guys find the game so easy in high school, but sometimes the kids that start the earliest burn out." (16)

James E. Loehr, noted sports psychologist, said that "I've found that the faster you get to the top, the more trouble you have adjusting to it.

"The people who get to the top more slowly have a feeling of 'I belong,' whereas the others get an impostor complex where they don't really believe what's happening." (17)

An example of a young athlete who was unable to maintain at the same level continuously:

• In 1988 archer Denise Parker was 14 and the youngest American competitor at the Seoul Olympics. She won a bronze medal in the team event. She also went to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. As of June 1995 she held seven national outdoor records, six national indoor records, and the world indoor mark at 18 meters. But later that year she failed to qualify for the training team preparing for the 1996 Olympics.

 

1 Parade Magazine, May 26, 1991.

2 Parade Magazine, November 9, 1986.

3 Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, January 11, 1996.

4 San Jose Mercury News, February 9, 1992.

5 USA Today, September 12, 1990.

6 "CBS Sports Show," December 2, 1995.

7 The New York Times, February 10, 1995.

8 USA Today, April 8, 1996.

9 Eliot Berry, Topspin, (New York: Henry Holt, 1996.).

10 The New York Times, May 12, 1989.

11 Outside Online, 1996.

12 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 30, 1994.

13 Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, July 28, 1991.

14 The Boston Globe, March 23, 1992.

15 Parade Magazine, March 15, 1992.

16 USA Today, February 27, 1992.

17 USA Today, August 26, 1991.

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