Soccer - "The Un- American Activity"

The saddest thing about this youth sports discussion--in soccer or otherwise--is that 99% of these kids are completely being set up for failure.

For years, the entire family revolves around Josh's schedule, practices, games, travel....the parents' identity is defined by the kid's level of achievement. 'Oh we have six travel games this weekend...' 'I know, we're all flying to (fill in far away city) for a tournament...'

Then Josh gets to high school, where you can't just 'try out' for some private league that takes everyone willing to fork over a grand or so for the 'fees,' and Josh isn't making it, and the parents have had their fill and move on to the next kid to obsess about.

And Josh is left wondering, what happened here?

 

There should be a congressional investigation into the proliferation of soccer. It's a nice sport for an 8-year-old kid but beyond that it teaches a lot of the worst values. Stand in a row and cover your jubblies on a penalty kick instead of laying them on the line, take a dive like a wussified European midfielder, cry about the weather and the fans.

 

I would say that it has become THE American youth sport in white-suburban areas somewhat for the reasons mentioned. It just doesn't apply to other areas.

I know what you are saying about structured, but this only applies to these lilly-white areas. Pick-up games still exist in my area. They are just at the soccer fields.

 

Kids work too hard in tackle football not to have a scoreboard. There are ways to control game so it does not get out of hand.

Youth Football in well run leagues with good coaching is one best sports a kid can play and learn from.

 

21, that's taking a black-and-white view of a very grey issue.

Let's say my kid does all that for, say, basketball. She plays from fourth grade on. And she never gets above seventh man on the high school varsity, and never plays college sports. Who is to say that the experience of traveling to these tournaments, to playing on these teams, wasn't a worthwhile experience in itself?

If we make Josh FEEL as if he's a failure, well, then that's another problem. But there's every possibility he LIKED the route there, regardless of the final result.

 

In my day ( the heyday of the soviet union) we always felt it was a communist plot to soften the youth of america. Now I think the franchise was bought out by Al Queda.

Toobin said it a different way but is pretty much saying the same thing that you are:

Its the perfect bridge between Barney and Nintendo.

 

Maybe someone explain why football is able to teach "toughness and mettle" more so than others. I am really interested in this.

I would simply note that any well coached sport can teach this. So I don't know why football is singled out.

 

Damn right.

I'm glad I'm in a position to see youth sports from all angles. I see relatives who should know better falling into these traps. I cover athletes, right up to the college level, who become disillusioned with sports because it eats them alive. One, a starting guard on the college basketball team I cover, quit outright this year for that reason. I see families take life completely out of perspective to devote to travel, etc.

It's like a parent who can't figure out how to make their kid happy, so they throw money and presents at them, accept in this case its worse because your throwing dreams and unrealistic expectations at them. The grind of these sports supersedes the reason most of them got into to begin with -- let's keep traveling with the team because we have to, not because we want to. It becomes its own inertia.

And it's fool's good for 95 percent of them. And deep down, all of these parents know it too, but they keep doing it. It gets abusive at times.

 

Um, I'd just like to add that soccer also has a lot of Asian players too -- unless that's just in New York.

Around here too, and I come from an area that couldn't be farther from suburban.

 

Ragu I disagree with you on your " 8 year olds should not play tackle theory"

I've done a lot of coaching at 8/9 yr old level and have found many very capable 8 year olds. I find its the perfect age to start teaching them correctly the safe way to play football before they develop bad tackling habits of the back yard.

It does help if kid has older brothers who have played- then both kid and parents know what to expect.

Its important as a coach at that age that you understand the landscape. You need to strike a balance between making it fun but also making it competitive.  Teaching "love of the game" is paramount. A key coaching metric should be the amount of kids that re up for the next year.

 

his father is an argentine and his mother is portugese