Can we talk about youth sports today? Because seriously. What….the…hell. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but your kid is not going pro. In fact, there’s a good chance they won’t play collegiate sports, and if they do probably won’t be offered scholarship money for their efforts. Do you know what percentage of high school student athletes receive money to play in college? Roughly 2%. Yet many people seem to suffer from the delusion that their child could be the exception to this statistic, and probably pour more money into club and travel sports over the years than any scholarship earned would be, so it’s kind of a wash. If your kid did or does actually play professional anything, that’s great! I will happily eat my words when Junior is in the big leagues, should anyone actually reading these things see those dreams come to fruition.
It’s not that I’m against travel and club sports, quite the opposite in fact. If the kid truly loves the game and wants to make a year round commitment to a single sport by third grade, then more power to them. I played on multiple travel and club teams in my youth, so I totally get it. Team sports teach sportsmanship and showing up for others, as well as how to work with others to reach a common goal. I have always believed that all kids should play at least one team sport in their lives, because they teach many life lessons. It is supposed to be fun. It just seems like today everything is… more. More money. More intensity. More time commitments. More training. More fancy equipment and merchandise to buy. More crazy parents who may or may not be reliving their glory days through their child and take games waaaay too seriously.
My husband and I sometimes ponder how long team sports will be in the cards for the Ninja, as he fails to grasp any rules, fundamental skills, or boundaries. He seems to enjoy the game very much and likes goofing off with teammates, so for the time being we are encouraging him to stay with that outlet as much as we can. It helps that he plays for a club in the next county with kids he doesn’t go to school with. His father and myself were both pretty competitive athletes growing up, and we always just kind of assumed that any child we had would be athletic. Like every single other aspect of having a PDAer, this chapter of parenthood has been far from what we imagined. He follows rules in sports the same way he follows rules in the rest of life. As in, he doesn’t. If you tell him there is no contact he goes out and tackles kids. If you tell him to line up for a drill he runs or skates away and hits balls or pucks in the opposite direction. If you show him a physical boundary of a field he flat out ignores it and goes where he wants.
I had been warned by my husband that hockey parents could be among the worst in terms of intensity and aggression. This became glaringly obvious in one of Ninjas last games of the season, when the opposing teams coach was apparently unaware of the fact that these were 6-8 year olds. Nobody told him he his kid plays on a Mites rec team, I guess. Look, I am very well aware of my kids pension for misplaced aggression, hence putting him in a sport where they wear head to toe protection. True to form, the Ninja straight up bear-hug tackled a player on the other team and took him down to the ice. He simply cannot compute in his brain that there is no hitting at the 8U level. He watches his NHL heroes on TV and understandably gets confused because they hit all the time, and it is the same sport, after all. The parents around me on the bleachers were incensed at this and started chirping, even though his Dad (coach) sent him off the ice immediately. Sure enough, next shift he tackled another kid. To be clear, this is ice hockey, the kids are wearing head to toe padding, and nobody was getting hurt. This is where the other coach lost. His. Shit. He started screaming at the coaches who were ‘refereeing’ out on the ice, screaming at our teams bench, screaming directly at Ninja himself to get off the ice. Seriously, who screams at someone else’s kid? Yell at me all you want, but scream at my kid? No. Fuck right on off. Sorry Karen, I asked him to turn down his ’tism today, but wouldn’t you know it he just didn’t listen. If you are going to lose your mind every time your player gets touched, put him in swimming or tennis or something else.
My husband was one of the coaches out on the ice at the time, and handled it so much better than I ever would have. He calmly told opposing coach to stay on his side of the bench before telling him that the child he just screamed at is Autistic and they have been working with him to grasp the rules of the game, but he’s still just not getting it. Unsurprisingly, that coach probably felt like a giant twat waffle didn’t make any noise the rest of the game; I excused myself to another part of the bleachers that was away from opposing teams parents. I just don’t possess the restraint necessary to calmly Momma Bear that shit. I know that as long as Ninja is in sports he is going to come across idiots and I am going to have to develop a thicker skin.
If I’m being brutally honest, I love him playing hockey because it’s the only time of the week I feel like a “normal” parent. It is such a time commitment and long season that you get to know the other parents, and having conversations with other adults outside of the school building is so needed and restorative for me. As stressful as sports are for us, with his disregard for rules, wandering away from sidelines and benches, and aggressive play with other kids, I admit I’ll be so very sad if he ever decides he is done playing. And I promise to only ever yell at my own kid (encouragingly), and no one else’s.
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