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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (79138)	11/17/2003 1:10:22 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

ALthough I do think X can make some excellent points about the problems and negatives in organized sports, I have to go with you on this one. And I hope you will notice how NONGREY I am about it. As the mother of two sons who both were involved in organized sports from age five on and the wife of a man who is still throwing a baseball in a men's senior hardball league, I've seen the bad and the good, and am a strong proponent of organized sports and the potential value in them. The concept is right; it is in the implementation that things can go wrong. Like anything else, sports can be used or abused. But it is our basic nature to compete and to deny this is what would be silly and unnatural. I've had this discussion with X before, since she really doesn't like sports. But to me that is sort of a Bush broccoli thing. He just didn't like it, and he didn't want to eat it, no matter how you cooked it. But there are many benefits to broccoli that shouldn't be ignored just because one person doesn't like the taste or the way it's prepared. The winning and the losing-- and my sons have certainly experienced both-- were only peripheral to the core experience of training and competing and teamwork. The discipline of regular practices, the hours of preparation, the teamwork involved, the deep friendships they made, the concepts of fairness, and sometimes the lack of fairness, and the overall physical conditioning they still incorporate into their lives, was invaluable. They competed hard, but they also walked off the playing fields or gym floors shaking hands with opponents and appreciating another team's skill. They learned to win and they learned to lose, and they learned how to do both with some grace. All of life is competition and learning to work your hardest in a sport and then to deal with the results in a constructive way transfers to life in general. A good coach knows how to reinforce the best in each player. My husband was a terrific coach for young players. But he gave a speech to parents at the beginning of each season that if they only wanted to win, they needed to find another team. Still, people would call months ahead to make sure they got on his roster. And interestingly, he often did win. I believe we err in org. sports most frequently because we insist on "winning" way before kids are ready to handle not winning, and because we define winning and success all wrong. Winning should be about personal bests, pride, effort. We can't protect our children from losing, and I wouldn't want to. Better we teach them not to rely on "winning" to be the only definition of success, and to emphasize pure competition only in much later stages. Bad coaches kill, sports don't. If you have a coach who understands what the true value of sports should be, you have an activity that contributes to the overall positive development of children. If you get coaches who scream at umpires, shout insults at opposing players, make winning more important than the well-being of the kids they teach, you have disasters. (And don't get me started on pushy parents). Also, in a nation filled with obese couch potatoes, we should be focusing on anything that contributes to health, and in a nation whose young people often spend far too much time isolated and bored, in front of the tv or Gameboy, or getting into trouble with peers on the street corner, we need to use every weapon we have and sports can be a potent one. Kids will compete regardless-- it is the nature of the beast- at least let us give them the opportunity to do it well. Professional sports are just big business, imo- a different ballgame (hoho) from organized amateur sports.