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Cutting Kids

September 25, 2012

As an athlete, I dreaded the days.  Even when I was a returning starter, I approached with anxiety the page taped to the locker room door that would indicate who made the high school basketball team (and, by omission, who didn’t).

As a coach, I refused to do it.  I wasn’t even tempted to cut anybody from my squads.  But I was lucky.  I coached football and golf, and the outdoor practice venues gave us enough room for almost limitless opportunities.

As a parent, I’ve cried over it.  Watching my older son be cut from a non-school basketball program for junior high boys (he switched to wrestling in high school and had a fine career).  Watching my younger son be cut four times from the travel soccer team (he made it on the fifth try and started for his high school freshman and junior varsity soccer teams during the two years after that).

At no time have I been more deeply troubled and saddened than watching the world of sports, to which I devote my working life, say, “No thank you” to my sons, to whom I dedicated my entire life.

As an administrator, I grieve over the process every year.  I listen to complaints of parents.  I watch them go from allies to enemies of high school sports.

Why would we limit squad sizes for outdoor sports?

Why would we cut freshmen who haven’t even matured yet and have only a little idea what they might like or be good at?

Why would we not find room for a senior who has been on the team for three years and continues to have a good attitude and work ethic?

Why would we turn away eligible boys and girls who would rather work and sweat after school than cruise and loiter?

Why do we persist in shutting out and turning against us the parents who would be our advocates today and the students who would be our advocates in the future?

Football Follies

October 7, 2014

Notice reached the MHSAA office of a so-called “2014 Michigan Youth Football Classic” that invites youth league teams to “a great weekend of youth tackle football.” For $450 per team, youth football teams will bang bodies for two days – Nov. 8 and 9 – with each team guaranteed at least three games. Three!

No level of football but this – for the youngest players who have the most vulnerable skulls – allows the idiocy of three games in a weekend. Most limit competition to a maximum of one game in a week!

In my opinion, this isn’t a football classic. It’s child abuse.

I wish the foolishness would stop there, but even an organization called USA Football seems to have lost its head. Initially and mostly with funding from the NFL, USA Football was focused on teaching youth football coaches and players safe blocking and tackling techniques. Good.

But now this pseudo-national governing body for amateur football is planning events for various age groups that will extend tackle football practices and games throughout what used to be an off-season. Multiple competitions in tackle football are scheduled for high school age players in January, February and July of 2015.

At a time when professional, college, school and Pop Warner football are all reducing contact during practices in-season, USA Football wants to expand the contact experience out of season. It makes about as much sense as three games in a weekend.