What pro athletes can teach us about youth sports

In the 1980s, I was a reporter for a newspaper in Baltimore assigned to cover the Baltimore Orioles. For eight months each year, I traveled with the team around the country, writing about what I witnessed at the ballpark and occasionally outside the ballpark. This is one of those outside-the-ballpark stories that has stuck with me.

Each season, the Orioles visited New York twice for series against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. The players, manager, coaches - and us writers - stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Midtown. Some of the traveling party commuted to Yankee Stadium by chartered bus. Occasionally, I hopped on.

As we got close to Yankee Stadium, we got a view of a bunch of athletic fields. Always - in my memory, at least - they were crowded with kids, playing pick-up sports, running, jumping, batting, kicking. Mostly, having fun.

I remember something unexpected. As we approached the fields, heads turned. Conversations ended. Players suddenly (and shockingly, for me) were very interested spectators. I'm not sure what they were thinking. To me it felt like longing. Maybe even envy. (Ironic because the kids on those fields would have been feeling exactly the same things about the big-leaguers.)

What I took from this scene is pretty simple. Pro athletes, more than most of us, understand that sports can provide some of the most carefree moments in a child's life. They also understand that there's no rush about turning sports into a job. I haven't met too many professional athletes who thought travel teams for eight-year-olds was a brilliant idea.

For the past year, I've been keeping a tally of those who have been quoted about keeping sports fun for kids (and managing the ambitions of the coaches and parents). Here’s my list (including one mom): Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon (golf,), Mike Richter, Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky (hockey), Joe Dumars and Phil Jackson (basketball), Debbie Phelps, mother of Michael (swimming), Tommy John and Jim Poole (baseball).

If you know of others, fill me in.

Joe Dumars: "Some of these parents need to stop."

I'm starting an honor roll for pro athletes who - to their everlasting credit - speak out about problematic adults. From hanging around locker rooms and batting cages as a sportswriter, I know that players who reach the top often shake their heads at the parents, coaches, others who mistake Little League for the big leagues. Not many speak publicly about it, though.

Let's recognize the ones who do. Already in the club:

Wayne Gretzky: "[E]verybody asks the same thing, 'Do you think my son can make pro?' The answer is, he's 15, just enjoy it. Just let them have fun."

Billy Andrade: "The problem lies in the money. If there were no prize at the end of the rainbow, would families be doing these things? I doubt it."

Today's honoree, Joe Dumars.

Here's what the former NBA star and current Detroit Pistons president recently told Bill Khan of the Flint Journal:

"Some of these parents need to stop. They need to stop and just let these kids be kids. When I go to Country Day games [his kid's high school team], on the road or at home, I find the farthest corner of the gym and I go and sit deep in the corner by myself and stay away."

More nominees? The floor is open.

The wisdom of Kelsey Twist and Wayne Gretzky

Former athletes - especially those who've played at the highest level - often are the best advocates for a saner, kid-centric approach to youth sports. When Wayne Gretzky advises parents to back off, let their children play for fun - as he did recently - adults tend to listen. Other pro athletes I have spoken with over the years - golfer Billy Andrade, baseball players Tommy John, Jim Poole, among them - have been equally outspoken.

Kelsey Twist played varsity lacrosse at Stanford, graduating a few years ago as one of the top players in school history. Now she teaches and coaches at a private school in Baltimore.

This op-ed written by Twist for the Baltimore Sun is an eloquent and disturbing statement of what has changed about youth sports - and the price of that change for young players.

Kelsey writes:

"While coaching, I often stop to consider my high school career at Roland Park Country School. I mostly remember face paint, spirit parades to Bryn Mawr, and tossing the ball around after practice until we couldn't see it any longer.

I do not remember stress fractures, personal trainers, lacrosse tournaments during basketball season, hiring a recruiting specialist to help me get into college, or paying outrageous dues to play on a club team.

I am left to ask: What happened to high school sports in the six years I've been gone? When did being a high school athlete become a job instead of a pastime?"

And Twist is writing about what, until recently, had been a regional and, in some respects, minor sport - lacrosse. Multiply by 10 and you are approaching the pressure on top high school basketball and football athletes.

A pro athlete's take on youth sports

Here's my silver bullet for fixing the adult-generated problems that hamper youth sports: put professional athletes in charge.

A simplistic fix, of course. But the observation comes from a series of conversations with basketball players to tour golfers about kids, sports and the expectations of parents. To a person, the ones I've chatted with complain that sports for kids have become far too serious. As pros, sports is their job. They're opposed to turning sports into a job for 11 year olds.

Billy Andrade, the PGA Tour golfer, was particularly firm on this point. He told me his parents were pretty much removed from his golf life as a kid. They didn't attend all, or even most, of his tournaments, and he felt no pressure from them to succeed on the golf course. Turning pro one day wasn't on any of their minds. Now, he said, some parents see sports as vocational training. Put a club in a child's hand at age 5. Raise a millionaire. "The problem lies in the money." he told me. "If there were no prize at the end of the rainbow, would families be doing these things? I doubt it."

The more Billy Andrades speaking out, the better for youth sports. So the Positive Coaching Alliance, an admirable organization, has it right by enlisting many former and present pro athletes to speak about kids and sports. On its advisory board sits a who's who of past and present pros: Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley, Jennifer Azzi, Shane Battier, Larry Brown and Phil Jackson, among others. This video, featuring Jackson, is terrific.