Legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell once quipped that “Sports is the toy department of human life.” In other words, just like a child plays with a toy, sports were originally created for fun and enjoyment.
But as my late grandfather would often say, “Times, they are a-changing”. And, nowhere better do we see this than in the ever-changing arena of sports. While it wouldn’t be fair or accurate to just lump every participant and every parent in the same category, there do appear to have been some fundamental changes that have impacted athletics in recent years, especially in youth sports.
Below are three noticeable changes that I believe have adversely affected the landscape of sports as we know them:
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
While the number of children participating in organized sports continues to rise, there appears to be a fundamental change in why kids are “suiting up.” For whatever reason, many parents today are forcibly prodding their children to participate in sports. Perhaps they are dreaming of their little Johnny or Suzie someday making it to the big time or, perhaps worse, they are attempting to live vicariously through their children. But for whatever reason, oftentimes it seems that mom and dad are more into it than their kids. Back in the day, most kids would play sports for the mere enjoyment and challenge of participation, but now because of outside pressure, many play for the potential of future gain—whether it be a college scholarship or a professional career.
In his best-selling book, Comeback, former major league pitcher and Christian cancer survivor Dave Dravecky illustrates the slim odds of a kid actually playing in the major leagues when he says, “Every year in America hundreds of thousands of kids go out to play little league, and every year each of them dreams of playing in the major leagues. The odds are so slim. It’s as if you had a huge stadium jammed full of kids, each wearing a uniform and a glove, and just one out of all those thousands got picked to come down on to the field and play with the big boys.”
Yet this is the very carrot that parents seem to want persistently dangled in front of their oftentimes less-than-enthusiastic child.
Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly refers to this parental obsession as “upping.” He says, “For some reason over-caffeinated parents feel they have to keep up with the Joneses. They used to do it with their cars. Now they do it with their kids.” It’s no wonder that many kids aren’t participating in athletics for the same reason they once did because many of their parents are working their own agendas.
WIN-AT-ALL-COST MENTALITY
If there ever was an innocence in sports it is now gone. Sports are big business. If you turn to your local newspaper’s sports page you are likely to find the odds makers’ line on not only professional games but major college games as well. Communities, schools, institutions of higher learning and professional franchises seem to be tolerant of many things as long as their teams are winning, but watch out if their squads begin to lose. En vogue today are youth traveling teams that customarily have a general manager and/or a business manager so that the coaches can concentrate solely on winning.
The win-at-all-cost mentality has subsequently produced scandal at all levels of sport. We read of parents punching umpires after Little League games because their kid “got cheated.” We read of professional athletes taking illegal steroids and other drugs to gain a competitive advantage. We read of college athletes being indicted for intentionally affecting the outcome of a game for personal financial gain. We read of coaches who have intentionally broken recruiting rules in hopes of landing “the big one.” All of these actions are a direct result of ungodly, sinful, win-at-all-cost pursuits, motivated ultimately by money, pride, prestige and greed.
The secular Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics agrees:
“At the heart of these problems [in sports] is a profound change in the American culture of sports itself. At one time, that culture was defined by colleges, high schools, summer leagues, and countless community recreational programs. Amateurism was a cherished ideal. In such a context, it made sense to regard athletics as an educational undertaking. Young people were taught values ranging from fitness, cooperation, teamwork, and perseverance to sportsmanship as moral endeavor. All of that seems somehow archaic and quaint today.”
The win-at-all-cost mentality has not only aided in the overall corruption of sports in general, it has also had a trickle-down effect on the church and church attendance. Again Reilly hits a home run when he says, “…Sports [are] becoming this country’s main religion. Priests and pastors across the country have noticed something lately; God is competing more and more with Sunday sports—and losing—especially with youth sports.” Whereas in years past Sundays seemed to be off limits for sports teams to practice or play (Hebrews 10:25), today it is just another day of the week. And instead of Christians bucking up against this trend, most have just gone along with it to their families’ spiritual detriment.
THE LURE OF TECHNOLOGY
When I was a kid, my friends and I spent much of our free time in the back yard playing wiffle ball or kick ball or shooting hoops. Kids today don’t seem to do much of that any more. Now kids are lured by technology and spend much of their discretionary time watching TV, staring at the computer or playing hi-tech electronic games. As a result, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, obesity rates among children are at epidemic proportions. For the most part, kids today won’t play athletic games unless they are organized—and even then many still have to be prodded.
So how are we as Christians to navigate through these waters of change? I’ll try to answer that question next month as we conclude our series on Sports & the Christian.