Out of Williamsport, Into the Parent Trap

Ronald L. Kamm, M.D.
The New York Times
Sunday, June 29, 1997

With Kids' Interests in Mind, Little League Was Born. So Why Are Adults Taking the Fun Out of Playing.

The founder of Little League certainly did not intend it, but he is partly to blame for transforming some sports experiences from child's play to what could e called child abuse, if we are to cite two recent stories about browbeaten young athletes.

It was eerie that I ran across the two articles on the same day. The first, "A Met Prospect Walks Away From Baseball," (The Times, May 30), examined the decision of Ryan Jaroncyk, 20 years old and the Mets; 1995 first-round draft pick, to quit baseball. Jaroncyk revealed that he had never really like baseball, but had played all his life to make his parents happy.

The second article in the Sports Illustrated dated June 2 described the travails of Melissa Raglin, a 12-year-old catcher in a Babe Ruth league. After two and a half years of catching without incident, as she crouched behind the plate in the second inning of a playoff game, Melissa was asked by the umpire whether she was wearing a protective cup.

When she said no, informing the umpire that she was a girl, Melissa was told that a cup was required by the rules and that she would have to put one on. Melissa refused and ws forced from behind the plate in tears. An intense, weeklong conflict ensued involving coaches, parents, league officials and lawyers.

There are many compelling aspect to each of these stories, but a common element to both is that of adults imposing their standards on children without considering if the fit is right for the child.

Carl Stotz, an oil company clerk from Williamsport, Pa., was the one who, in 1939, unwittingly changed youth sports forever when he plopped adults a miniaturized version of major league baseball on a backyard game that had been played in splendid isolation by children.

Stotz's intentions were good. He had originally conceived the idea when, as a boy, he was playing right field and felt bored because his teammates were arguing incessantly about whether a runner was safe or out. Young Stotz daydreamed of growing up and organizing a team with adult supervision, where such bickering could not occur.

Years later, when his two nephews came to him dejected over not being allowed to play with a group of older boys, Stotz had a flashback to that day in right field. He excitedly began describing his idea to the boys.

They were wide-eyed and enthusiastic as their uncle described how he intended to outfit them in real uniforms and, using brand-new balls and scaled-down bats, give them regulation fields to play on and teams to play against. They asked Uncle Carl if he thought people would actually come watch them play, and whether there would be a band, like the Williamsport Grays had at their games.

From that grand and innocent notion, we have come down to the tennis dads and swimming moms who become so involved in their children's athletic lives that they take the fun out of youth sports.

There are many ways that adults do this. From my reading of the article in The Times part of Ryan's problem with baseball may have been the achievement-by-proxy syndrome, as described by Dr. Ian Tofler and others, whereby parents live vicariously through the success of their children.

Parents push their kids to ever greater heights without considering what is best for the child. In its most extreme form, children may be forced to train or play when injured. Many children, hungry for love and approval, go along with the program.

Ryan's father, Bill Jaroncyk, a former University of Southern California defensive back, started his son playing baseball at age 5, and encouraged him to keep playing even when Ryan protested that baseball didn't have enough action for him. Ryan tried to quit baseball as a high school junior, but his parents wanted him to continue.

As parents, how are we to know if we are pushing our kids too hard? One way is to ask them. Or, we can ask their coach, or their teacher, or our spouses. Bill Jaroncyk's wife, at times, seems to have been uncomfortable with her husband's behavior at games and his pressuring of their son. Her influence seems to have been negligible, however.

It is important that both parents agree on the extent of their own involvement in their child's sport and the degree to which they want their child involved. Too often, one spouse allows the pushier parent to dominate.

A way to ascertain a child's interest is for parents and children to independently fill out a 16-item checklist of reasons why each parts wants the child to play a particular sport. The three most important reasons are checked off, the most important reason is circle, and answers are compared.

Discrepancies are then openly discussed. Six-to 10-year-old children most frequently check off "having fun", "learning new skills" and "making new friends". Adults often cite things like "being challenged," "learning to compete" and "winning". The ensuing dialogue can be enlightening.

In Melissa's case, the adults, instead of eliminating bickering as Stotz had dreamed, took it to new heights. (The bickering among children in backyard baseball was often actually constructive, building a sense of competence in handling and solving disputes.)

One of the definite advantages of Little League has been the protection it afforded children from the humiliation that came from being selected last in the backyard days. The way Melissa, crouched behind the plate, was questioned and dismissed was horribly humiliating for a 12-year-old girl, whatever the debatable merits of the need for a girl to wear a cup, and it echoed how girls, for the most part, were excluded from backyard baseball and "pre-Title IX" Little League. This is the antithesis of Stotz's original inclusionary ideal.

As coaches and parents, umpires and league officials, adults are nothing if not teachers. Yet, while the dedication of many adults in youth sports is worthy of high praise, most coaches and officials get little training in child development and psychology and are not responsive enough to the individual differences among kids.

We would not tolerate a "one-size-fits-all" approach from a classroom teacher, and we shouldn't tolerate it in the adults running our youth sports programs. The parents who enter their kids into these programs, as Ryan's case illustrates, need education, too. Fortunately, coach and parent training programs do exist. But most do not address psychological issue in sufficient depth.

As one looks over the youth baseball playing field today, the wide-eyed enthusiasm of Carl Stotz's nephews is too hard to find. Instead one too often sees young athletes with worried, bored and robotic looks. One rarely hears band music.

In both Ryan's and Melissa's cases, it seems that adults have forgotten that we are really only Carl Stotz's "invited hosts" in children's play.

Hosts have responsibilities, and one of the primary ones is to try to make the sport experience a positive and fun one for each child involved, showing respect for the individuals that they are and for the ones we hope them to be.

For a Healthy Youth Sports Experience: