The Folly of Professionalized Youth Sports
Let’s talk next level. As in that level to which the ridiculously large percentage of participants never get to. You probably think this is about going pro, about making a living at your sport. Nope. That number is so tiny and has been parsed so many times and so many ways that it’s not worth spending the electrons thinking about how few college athletes or minor leaguers make it to The Show. What I’m thinking about this morning is some fascinating facts about how few high school athletes go on to play a sport at any level in college.
Seriously, the numbers are comically low. For boys only lacrosse and hockey are above 10%. More boys go on to swim in college (7.1%) than play football (6.8%). The statistics are similar for girls led by Ice hockey (24%), lacrosse (12.9%), and field hockey (10.1%); all other sports are in the low to mid-single digits. I don’t know about you, but with all of the teams sponsored by Division 3 colleges out there, along with the dearth of multi-sport athletes taking up more than one slot, these figures are really shockingly low.
How, then, can we justify the expense of early sport specialization, both in real financial terms, and in terms of the epidemic of injuries suffered through over-use and under-preparation?
That youngster I mentioned up top, the one on a volleyball team what uses Beth and I once traveled to an equestrian event with a couple of young women who also loved all things horse. One of them was a high school/Junior Olympic Volleyball athlete whose team used CrossFit to enhance their fitness. Unlike most kids who play volleyball at that level, volleyball isn’t her first love. She no longer does her first-love sport, tumbling, because of a repetitive use stress fracture in her back. Pretty sad, that.
How many young arms must we scar with a Tommy John “autograph” prior to obtaining a driver’s license before we suggest adding in a little winter reprieve from pitching? Isn’t it just a bit disheartening to think that the ACL tear rate in young female soccer players is higher than the overall NCAA participation rate for girls who played in HS? Mind you, these are TOTAL participation rates, not the percentages of kids who got a scholarship to play D1. The list goes on and on.
Says here that the kids would be far better off playing more sports with their buddies in their hometown schools, both physically and mentally, than they are now chasing after such a small number of slots at the next level. Probably have a better relationship with Mom and Dad, too. Throw in a little bit of fitness training that emphasizes proper mechanics in functional movements and maybe we can start a trend.
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