Logo

The Fun Factor

November 14, 2014

My experience with school-age young people is that what they seek most from sports participation is fun and friends. More sophisticated research from many sources consistently has affirmed my less formal findings.

The Journal of Physical Activity & Health added a July study to the body of research. This work was conducted by George Washington University in Washington, DC, and focused on organized soccer.

What was so surprising about this study is not that winning was not at the top of the list of what makes sports enjoyable for youth, but that winning ranked 48th of 81 factors measured. Winning didn’t even make it in the top half!

The lead author of the study, Associate Professor of Sports Psychology Amanda Visek, was quoted by the Chicago Tribune to say “the fun experience is not determined by the result of a game but rather by the process of physically engaging in the game.”

Tribune writer Danielle Braff quotes this research and other expert commentary that coalesces around the consensus that it is parents, not athletes or coaches, who are most hung up on the outcome of the game, as well as the issues that create the pressure on young people that ruins the pleasure of play: position, playing time and prospects of making an elite team or earning a college scholarship.

That’s the stuff parents worry about much more than their kids. And, according to a growing body of research, some of which we've cited in this space before, that’s the stuff that causes many kids to quit organized sports. It’s not fun anymore.

A Backhanded Compliment

April 17, 2012

A year ago this month I listened to the attorney for another statewide high school athletic association pose this question:  “Why is it that people quite readily accept inflexible age limitations over a broad spectrum of American life, including sports, but presuppose it is wrong for school sports?”

This attorney was in the middle of a controversy that more recently has visited the MHSAA:  an overage student seeking relief from a universally applied maximum age rule.  The speaker was perplexed and frustrated by the double standard.

Part of the reason for the double standard rests in the reality that people value the school sports experience so much more than other parts of life, including other sports experiences.  Because they want the opportunity to play, they resort to litigation in an attempt to create the right to play.

Another part of the reason school sports is challenged on an issue on which other programs get a free pass is that school sports has a centralized authority, close to home.  State high school associations are readily accessible targets, easier both to find and to fight with than most other entities with age restrictions.

And, of course, part of the reason for the double standard is the proximity of interscholastic athletics to academics – the former extracurricular, the latter curricular – the former a privilege for most teenagers, the latter a right of all citizens to age 26.

The reasons school sports are attacked on this issue while other entities are not are reasons really complimentary to school sports:  the program is popular, accessible and connected to education.  None of these features of school sports, or its age limitation, should change.