We as adults, parents, coaches, ADs and other athletic administrators need to always remind ourselves: Competitive youth sports (from Rec through High School sports) are FOR and ABOUT the athletes, NOT the adults coaching, those running the program or those watching. The primary purpose of competitive sports is to serve young athletes and give them a positive educational and hopefully life enriching experience. It is to teach them how to be good human beings and later leaders. It’s to provide them, through the athletic classroom, critical life skills like hard work and the pursuit of excellence, rebounding from setbacks and failures, perseverance, team work, playing fair, honesty, the importance of character, being a good role model, conducting oneself as a gracious winner AND loser, etc.
When an adult’s selfishness and ego interferes with this primary educational goal, when any adult makes the sport a vehicle to prop up their own feelings of inadequacy, then this “adult” has terribly lost their way and is in desperate need of “re-education” and guidance from those around them.
This is why it is important to have the courage to speak up, to set appropriate limits when necessary and to do everything in our power to insure that we closely monitor our child’s and his/her teammates experiences so that they are positive and productive ones.
