Where Have All the Volunteers Gone?

It's been a minute since I've written anything on this blog. But my wife keeps encouraging me to start back up again. And she really wants me to write about youth sports. My best guess as to why she wants me to write about it is because she's sick of listening to me complain. She'll deny this and say, "You're so good at coaching," or "You want to reach more kids/families/etc., and you're a good writer, so shut up and use your voice. Irony intended." So here I am. 

How did she come to be sick of listening to me complain? Well, about a year ago I made the switch from long-time "House" league parent and coach, and travel assistant coach, to travel head coach. And when I made that switch, I started getting very frustrated with a lot of the narratives around travel baseball and softball. My frustrations are not sport-specific. And probably the straw that broke my wife's back was when we were on Spring Break taking a hike through Smoky Mountain National Park, and my kids were asking me why I don't like travel sports.

"Just shut up!" she told me.* "Can we not talk about this right now?" 

I eventually relented, and we enjoyed a damp walk along the Two Mile Branch of the Pigeon River. But the feelings remain to this day. 

Before I go further, I have to pre-empt my complaints with some admissions, lest I be accused of hypocrisy:

1. I am still a head coach of a 10U travel softball team. The team is attached to and an extension of a community program. No one is making money off the team. The past season cost about $800 per family, and the money all went to gear, balls, umpires, and tournament fees. My coaching is very similar to my involvement in bands over the past 30 years: I spend a lot of time, money, and effort on it. It's not really transactional, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was getting something out of it.
2. Both of my children play travel baseball and softball. My soon to be 13 year old has played travel since he was 10. He mostly practices year round. My soon to be 10 year old has played travel softball since she was 8. She also practices pretty much all year.
3. All of the parent coaches who have coached my kids on their travel teams over the years have been amazing. They have similarly given a ton of time, effort, money, etc., probably in exchange for joy/something to do.

Okay, so what's so my complaint? There's really too many to do them all justice in a single write up. So maybe I'll revisit these if I can sustain some regular writing here. But let's start with the amount of pressure being put on kids. Be it parents or coaches criticizing kids for their performance, discipline, effort, or results, I find it kind of gross. It's also going to ruin a lot of these kids, or at least their interest and love of sports. When I hear a parent or coach yelling at a 10 year old for missing a ground ball (or a jump shot, or a save), I often think, "What is the goal here? What are you trying to communicate to that child?" 20 years of corporate work and too much reading about motivation have taught me that even adults do not benefit from being yelled at or criticized. If you want to motivate someone, you don't do that by telling them what they're doing wrong.

Then there's the competitiveness. Sometimes there are kids who are intensely competitive and nasty to teammates or competitors. More often than not, it's parents and coaches. Sometimes it's yelling at a referee or umpire for missing a call. (Sidenote: 90% of the time when parents/coaches are yelling at a ref or ump the parent/coach is wrong, and flat out doesn't understand the rules.) Sometimes it's yelling at a coach for not making the "right" call on the field. "Why didn't you send that runner?" "Why are we so bad at baserunning?" "These kids aren't learning anything!" The worst, though, is when it's a parent or coach yelling at or teasing a kid. "If you caught that ball, we win the game!" "Strike this kid out. He's not a hitter!" When I hear these types of things, I wonder, "Who is this for? You or the kid? What lesson are you trying to teach?" Generally, I think a lot of the problem here is that people aren't trying to teach a lesson; they're trying to win games. Don't get me wrong, winning is fun. But this is not the World Cup, the World Series, or even the Little League World Series. It's often one of a dozen league games that would not be memorable to any of the kids on the field except for the fact that their parents and coaches are scarring them with embarrassment.

Closely related to both of above grievances, there's the pressure to do more. This is really a parent driven exercise, but with parent coaches, I've heard the same things from youth coaches. The thinking I witness is something like:

1. "I want my kid to be successful at this sport." Right off the bat, does the kid want to be successful? Or do you? Who is this about?
2. "For my kid to be successful, s/he needs to do more. Play more games. Play games against better competition. Practice more. Workout more. Focus harder." Again, why? Who is this for?
3. "If my kid doesn't do more/isn't successful, s/he won't be able to play in high school." If you make your kid play a sport all year from 8 or 9 years old, they're going to quit anyway.
4. "If my kid isn't good enough to play in high school, they'll never play in college or the pros." Your kid probably isn't going to play in college or the pros. They're just not. I've known a ton of great athletes who have been really good at a sport all their lives. Several of them have had D1 scholarship opportunities. And by the time they got to college, most of them had had enough.

Beyond the misguided notions about pushing kids into doing more, more, more, the pressure it creates, and the childhood it takes away, this plan of attack is not healthy. It can be emotionally unhealthy, creating undue stress, anxiety, and depression in kids. But it can also be physically unhealthy. Go ask one of these stupid AI bots about the effects of early specialization in youth sports and the incidence of overuse injuries. You're going to get some results.

There's the money, too. One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies is from The Sandlot. Nine boys who play pickup baseball all summer long in whatever clothes, hats, and gloves they've got get challenged by a uniformed team. The other team rolls up to the neighborhood sandlot on their bikes, with their clean uniforms and letterman jackets, and begins insulting the Sandlot boys. And when they get play, the Sandlot boys win. 

For profit travel programs in and around the Chicago area often charge $3,500-$5,000 per player per season. The promise is the best coaching. The promise is that your kid will get to play in high school. The coaches and organizers who are making money off of the exercise tout their relationships with high schools and high school coaches. Their players have fancy uniforms, matching helmets, and matching bags. And then the neighborhood travel teams go, "Let's get practice jerseys." "Let's go buy more gear so we look good." "Let's raise money so we can get nicer stuff." None of that helps anyone get better. 

The first time I owned a non-essential piece of uniform was in high school. My wrestling team had t-shirts. My football team had practice jerseys. My high school baseball team did not have mandatory practice clothing. Every boy on my sophomore baseball team wore sweatpants and a t-shirt to practice every day. That was a team that finished second in the state (without me on it, full disclosure) in my senior year. There's so much money spent in travel sports today, and almost all of it serves no purpose.

Now we need fancy facilities, embroidered gear bags, everyone has their own helmet and catcher's gear. But the game remains the same. We can spend money to make 9 year olds look good, but if they don't know how to swing a bat, they're just the Tigers. And Ham Porter is still laughing them off the field.

The last grievance I'll touch on today, though, is maybe my biggest one. And it's why I keep putting quotation marks around the word, "House." When I was a kid, there was no such thing as "House." There was just baseball season. I grew up in Oak Park, which was a bit of a baseball/softball factory at the time. But there was no travel ball. There weren't clubs. There was just a season of baseball and softball. It worked like a machine. There were volunteer coaches at every level. We played a game or two every week from April until July 4. We held a practice once a week where we were taught the game. Everyone played in the community league. No one bailed on their community because they could afford "better." We all grew up and played and participated together.

At the end of the season, there were "travel teams." A tryout would be held. Teams would be composed of some kids from the season, and they would go play some tournaments. But no one pulled their kids out of the neighborhood programs in pursuit of "better." No one looked down on "House" games or leagues. Everything was "daddy ball." And "daddy ball" was good. Because the dads (and moms) were involved. They played catch with their kids. They coached. They taught. Many of them taught "wrong" things. I will argue that "wrong" things are still good. 

When I hear parents (or kids or coaches) say "House" league is terrible, that no one is learning anything, that the competition isn't good enough for their kid, etc. When I look at travel sports and clubs today. When I think about the forces that have turned our kids and their childhoods into a $40 billion industry. I cringe. I cringe because we did this to ourselves. 

My generation. The one that grew up with cheap, neighborhood access to youth sports. The group of people who had access to volunteer parents who put time and effort into teaching kids and creating positive environments and healthy competition. The generation that had the same number of Olympians, College athletes, and professional athletes as the current generation of kids. We created this ecosystem.

We create and reinforce this ecosystem when we pull our kids out of recreational or community programs and leagues. When we complain about taxes or criticize public subsidies for youth programming and facilities, we ensure that our kids become a product in someone else's industry. When we critique volunteer coaches and referees rather than getting involved ourselves, we guarantee that the only way our kids can end up on the high school team is by spending $30,000 per kid on club sports and private coaching leading up to high school.

On the flipside, when we get involved? When we participate? When we cheer and coach and encourage? That's when everyone wins.

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*Editor's Note: She did not, in fact, say "Shut up." She tells me this is a mean thing, and I can't attribute it to her. But I told her, "It's more dramatic if I exaggerate your words."