So I heard this story just yesterday from a friend who helps run an organization that’s holding tryouts this week for spots on their teams. Kids from 3rd-8th grade are vying for these coveted spots, and roughly half of the players are going to end up getting cut. It’s a question of numbers, as the club only has sufficient space and coaches for a certain number of athletes.
Here’s the part of the story that got me. A phone call was made to the mother of a boy who had played well enough to be near the top of the second team in his age group. My friend told me this kid scored 13th out of 44 boys in his grade. So he’s on the phone with the Mom, tells her that her son had earned a spot on the second team, and she says, “Yeah, I’m not surprised. He blew it. His tryout was terrible.”
She proceeded to go on and on about how poorly her son had played at the tryout. All this on the phone to a guy she barely knows. And here’s the thing….the kid is in the 4th GRADE!! He’s 9 or maybe 10 years old. What kind of garbage are they dealing with in their lives that would make a mother talk that way to a stranger about her 9 year old son? It makes me wonder what life is like for that boy when he’s at home. It makes me wonder how in the world this kid could possibly enjoying playing sports, knowing that he’s being analyzed and mercilessly critiqued by the one person in the world who you’d expect the most compassion from. It angers me and it saddens me.
Some of you might be thinking that I’m being overly critical or overly dramatic. Maybe you’re thinking that the world’s a tough place, and kids need a dose of reality sometimes. Maybe you’re right. But I keep coming back to the question of WHY? Why are we doing this? Why do we have these leagues and teams? Why are we signing kids up to play? What are we hoping they’ll gain from the experience? And at the end of the day, when Mom is willing to tear down her own son like that, is it really about the child and his development, or is it about the grownups using sports and the young people who play them to try and meet their grownup needs?