True-Sport-Report

2. Teach what we value.
There are forces at work in sport that have
created an environment that, if unchecked,
can erode the core values of sport. The
growth and expansion of professional
sports, the reliance of colleges and universities
on revenue-generating teams, the
celebrity status granted elite athletes, the
pack-like mentality of some sports fans, and
the obsessive behavior of parents to produce
elite athletes highlight the priority
we place on the extrinsic values of sport.
This is not to suggest that athletes should
not get paid, that colleges should not fill
their arenas, that fans should not love
their team, or that children and their
families should not aspire to healthy competition
and excellence in sport. Rather, to
save sport it means that those in a position
to reinforce its intrinsic values must be
vigilant and persistent in communicating
those values.
The Sport in America research found that
coaches are the number one influence
in children and youth sport, followed
by parents and teachers. These are the
adults who are directly involved—face-toface—with
young athletes. Coaches have
more influence than professional athletes,
college athletes, or Olympians. In fact,
they can help guide children and youth
not only in their game, but also in how to
understand the examples set by others.
That is a tall order for coaches, especially
those who volunteer, and they need all
of the support they can get from their
leagues, schools, officials, parents, and
communities to impart and enforce the
core values of sport.
Sport organizations, whether in schools,
in clubs, or in the community, need to
encourage active and engaged discussions
about what true sport means. We need to
identify and develop strategies for
communicating the values of true sport
to athletes, officials, coaches, parents,
and fans, and comprehensive education
must be widely accessible to coaches
on fostering ethical coaching, as well as
on such topics as empowering athletes
with character, moral development, and
citizenship; performance enhancing
substance prevention; and others.
3. Explore new ways to organize
youth sport.
There is much good to be found in many
youth sport programs around the country.
More children are playing sport than ever
before, and many communities have made
concerted efforts to provide venues—
formal and informal—for children and
youth to train, play, and compete.
However, many parents are finding that
there is still a significant chasm between
playing at the high school varsity level and
not playing at all, with few alternatives
in between. As a result, many youth (and
their parents) are either on the highly
scheduled regimen of intense training
and specialization in pursuit of a place on
the varsity roster or are left out of positive
sport experiences altogether.
This societal norm perpetuates the
notion that youth must get “on track”
early and young and make haste to secure
rightful spots on high school teams, even
leading to practices such as “redshirting”
kids at kindergarten age to facilitate
later success as more advanced students/
athletes. It is important for organizers
of youth sport to remember that even
though only a small percentage will go
on to become college athletes, let alone
elite or professionals, all can benefit from
the life experiences sport provides.
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