Team Sports are to Blame for the Decline of US Dominance
By Athletes' Acceleration | August 20th, 2008
I’m not one to buckle under social pressure. In fact,
its usually just the opposite.
But the responses to yesterday’s email were good
enough to get me to modify my description of the
state of US Athletics.
So I won’t say it’s collapsed, but it’s not what it
once was. If you get better and I stay the same,
that’s equal to me being on the decline.
It’s just a matter of semantics.
I’ll cover some of the other disputes with my
argument down the road.
But to today’s discussion:
In the US, we are obsessed with team sports. More
specifically Football, Basketball, Soccer and
Baseball.
More specifically, some parents/adults are
obsessed with professional team sports. So they
try to live their dreams by funneling their kids
into those mainstream sports as early as possible.
Then many of them live the dream that their kid is
going to ‘make it’.
I can’t count how many thousands of emails I’ve gotten
over the years that say something like ‘My 13 year
old son is a football player’, or ‘My 11 and 12 year
old soccer players’.
Really?
After my last email Ron brought up a great point:
“Basketball, football and baseball siphons off a
tremendous amount of track and field talent in
the U.S. In Jamaica there’s no football or
basketball to take away the speedy athletes. I
think the main lack of U.S. depth of high jumpers,
long jumpers and triple jumpers is that they are
playing basketball at some level. A lot of
average-talent basketball players could be elite
track and field athletes if they were
“cross-trained’. The kids play basketball all
year now and aren’t recruited into T&F. Can you
imagine Lebron James in the TJ? For example the
U.S. women’s pole vault champ was a former
basketball player.”
He’s absolutely right.
I lose more talented athletes (especially girls)
to 12 month a year soccer than I even want to think
about. It’s a joke.
So many kids and parents cling to the ‘athletic
scholarship/going pro’ dream that they completely
miss the fact their kid could excel at another
sport.
I only ran track because I had nothing to do in
the spring. I was living the basketball dream
until I started abusing kids on the track.
I was a marginal basketball player but a Division I
scholarship track athlete.
And I can name dozens of others in the same boat.
And with Title IX, they practically throw scholarships
at female athletes. When I was in college there
were guys on my team who were NCAA All Americans
who weren’t on full rides. But women who couldn’t
score in duel meets against bum teams were. Sad.
(Save your Title IX comments, I get why it exists.)
If more mediocre basketball players became jumpers,
we’d have more medals in those events.
If more mediocre football players became throwers,
we’d have more medals in those events.
If more kids went into swimming….
…you get the idea.
We don’t lack talent here in the US. As coaches
and parents we lack objectivity.
Instead of being smart and giving young athletes
a diet of multilateral training during the
developmental years (9-14), one that allows them to peak
higher once they do decide to pick a focus, they
specialize kids early. And then wonder why kids
burn out or don’t perform like they should.
But I’ll get into that soon enough.
Now, since people in this country only care about
revenue sports (football, basketball, baseball and
to a lesser extent soccer) the individual sports
get no love. In the rest of the world, that isn’t
necessarily the case.
So the blame there goes to the piss poor business
and marketing ability of your swimmings, track and
fields, gymnastics, etc.
Until these fringe sports do a better job of making
people know that they exist, or care, athletes in
this country will stick to what they know.
You can’t blame the NFL or NBA for being good at
marketing and promoting their product.
But it’s also the reason we’re not as dominant on
the international stage. Because there are about
357 medals available in swimming, but only one
in basketball.
Of course, in this country people don’t care about
that as long as their kid makes varsity football
as a freshman or their daughter makes the club
soccer team that requires a 12 month commitment.
At the end of the day, part of the reason American
sports dominance on the international stage is
falling off rests in the average American’s obsession
with professional team sports and their inability
to comprehend that countless other sports actually
exist.
And that they are fun, exciting and take considerable
talent.
To your success,
Latif Thomas
NOTE: I felt compelled to respond
to a couple of the responses to
this post. Of course, I’ll be
covering these ideas later.
Alan (#4): Yes. I do blame parents for wanting
their kids to specialize early. Ignorance is not
an excuse for bad parenting. Their kids are not
going to be A-Rod, a Manning or Michael Jordan.
To put that idea in their kid’s head or allow it
to fester in their own is, in my opinion (and all
the other professional strength and conditioning
coaches I know) akin to child abuse.
Basing theirchild’s youth sport choice on their
money making potential only further proves my
point that parents are a danger to their own
children.
A more appropriate idea (not that it is) would be
to have their children run track or another ‘lesser’
sport. They have a much better chance of getting
an athletic scholarship (especially females) in
those sports than in basketball, soccer, football,
etc.
Michael (#5): I don’t disagree with you. And I
don’t think you should prevent an 11 year old from
playing soccer if he loves it. But you should
prevent him from playing it 12 months per year.
And you should have him play other sports as well.
He’ll be a better soccer player if he plays 3-6
months per year than he would if he played year
round. Young kids need multilateral training, not
sport specific repetitive motions.
------------------------------
Spread the Word:
digg this
del.icio.us
Technorati
Blogmemes
Ask Jeeves
Furl
Reddit
Rojo
Simpy
Spurl
Socialize It
Earthlink
Google
Netscape
Windows Live
Yahoo
------------------------------
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under Speed Training . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 20th, 2008 at 6:55 am
There is not enough money in track and field heard Walter dix is signing a football contract. Look a Hayes, Neamiah, willy Gault. Until you have enough money in track and field and make it marketable .it will be what it will be. It is considered a minor sport until the Olympics. most athletes cant make a living with track and field in the USA
August 20th, 2008 at 7:11 am
The entire youth sports mentality in the US is the root of the problem. As a former collegiate baseball coach I saw hundreds of youth baseball coaches that would attend clinics and talk of how their 9yr old team played 65 games in 5 different states. Then those kids would play fall baseball and be enrolled in baseball lessons through the winter.
Parents trying to live vicariously their children or mistakenly assuming that there is a correlation between sport prowess at ages 6-12 and performance at 18+ and youth coaches far more interested in winning arbitrary tournaments than developing players and keeping them interested have not only led to specialization of sport at far too young an age, but also incredibly high levels of attrition.
A much better approach would be to ‘turn back the clock’ to the days of playing 3 (or more) sports a year until the athlete (not the parent) eventually finds their preferred sport. 20 years ago that happened around college. Today - 4th or 5th grade.
Keep up the great work Latif!
August 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I read an interesting article about the medal count in the olympics. When it came to events that were not decided by judges we are kicking everyone ele’s butt. i.e gymnastics were the judges have made more than their share of calls for the Chinese.
I personally have a track club in FLorida and we have benefited a lot from other athletes training with us. My track team is comprised of mostly football, basketball and volleyball players. I may have only a few athletes who are primarily track athletes.
I think that the reason why they run for me is because of the reputation that I have for making more explosive athletes. I have taken many a “terrible” athlete and helped turn them around. I think that if more of the good track clubs would a) market B) work on philospohy and c) educate the market on the benefits of letting their children run, more parents will allow their kids to do it.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Team sports are not to blame for the decline of US dominance. Its like you said earlier in the article, we have been performing at a higher level for such a long time that now other countries are catching up. We are so used to winning everything that when a few Jamaicans do what we used to do, or a juiced up Brit steals a medal we start crying. Yes it is true that much of the younger talent is lost to more popular sports, but that has been happening since we entered the international sports arena–therefore its a bit hasty to blame team sports for a decline. If team sports were the problem we would have never dominated in the first place. Furthermore, can you blame a parent for wanting to specialize their kids early? An average elite track runner doesn’t make half of what Alex Rodriguez, Peyton Manning, or Michael Jordan make. Its not a marketing issue. Its an issue of cost-benefit analysis. The cost of dedicating a child to track is much lower than the benefit of them succeeding at basketball.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:23 am
While your points about youth sports are well taken, you are ignoring an important ingredient of the process; the passion of the kids for a specific sport. I do not believe that kids should pursue a sport merely because it is an activity in which they can excel. Rather, I think they should be nurtured and encouraged to support the sport about they which they hvae the most passion. Parents often push their kids to a particular sport often because it is more calculated to lead to a scholarship, which can come at the expense of a sport the kid truly loves. While this is understandable in part, it also risks denying the kid a unique experience that cannot be replicated and that goes to the core of the individual athlete.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Latif, I am totally with you on this. I was making the very same comment yesterday regarding the Jamaican team. That is all those kids do, and now with there success, it will fuel their young generation even more. My son currently does not run track but he is training as if he is going to in the near future. I think the 400 or 800 will be a good event for him. Now playing football and baseball.
Thanks for all you do for athletic development.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:46 am
I disagree! Yes some parents are obsessed with professional sports, but what I see as the main problem is sports running concurrently.
Think about the fact that the indoor track season is during the basketball season, training begins during football. The outdoor track season is during baseball season, with training beginning at the end of winter basketball.
For the most part in my area, athletes do participate in various sports. They play football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and they run track. Only two of these sports run year around, soccer and basketball.
They are cross-training, but something has to give.
I’ll use myself as an example. In high school, I played football, basketball, baseball, and sprinted and jumped in Track & Field. I couldn’t run cross-country or wrestle, they were during football season. I gave up basketball to concentrate on Track & Field, because training began in the middle of the basketball season. And of course baseball & Track run concurrently.
To say that team sports are siphoning off talent is an overstatement, and needs to be backed up by more than a few generalizations. There are a number of variables as to why individual sports are overlooked. Team sports is just one of them.
I do agree that the “fringe sports” need to be marketed better, but unless you competed in them there is no excitement in watching them. At least not compared to football and basketball. Just think of all the corporate sponsorship that goes into college bowl games, or the NCAA basketball tournament. That makes for excitement on its own.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:48 am
unfortunately Latiff, you are absolutely correct. My son is 9, we are from Michigan, where the focus is more on being a great athlete, not a good basketball, or football player, but an all around athlete. We now reside in the south and not to pick on the south, the football is great, the basketball ok (not really) baseball is great, and track and field is ok, but with the amount of people who are flocking to the south, no other part of the country should even come close in any sport, but what they do down here is focus on one sport, particularly football, so what happens is these kids don’t become fluid athletes, they are just one sporters. my son is a better athlete because he does a multitude of sports, football, basketball, and we alteranate track with baseball, depending on how well his speed is developing (gonna be running track for the forseeable future). But he is better than kids with much more natural talent because he just knows how to adjust, from being involved in so many different activities. I played football at the University of Michigan, but I absolutely love track and field, and my kids will be open to all sports including, swimming, diving, field events, golf, etc. because if we as parents take care of business, then we don’t have to put so much emphasis on our kids trying to turn pro. They should be free to participate in the sport that they excel in, but most kids will only ever play one of the mainstream sports and it’s really ashame because for me there would be no greater accomplishment than for one of our children to perform on a stage as large as the Olympics and not to mention the pride that comes along with representing the U.S.A.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Agree with you 100%! I have been been a player and/or coach for almost 60 years. In the past 20 years more and more parents and coaches are convincing their children/athletes that concentrating on one sport is the key to success and happiness.
What a waste!! Sure, some kids get scholarship $$, but the majority end up playing high school sports with no real passion–they’ve been going through the same routine since they were in early elementary school.
The overwhelming majority of kids would have as much, if not more, success and enjoyment if they played two or three sports, before choosing to specialize as high school freshman or sophomores.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I agree with what you said at the end about parents wanting their kids to be playing varsity as a freshmen. We are a here and now society. We have no clue what delayed gratification is and we want to be able to brag to our buddies that my 14 year old is the backup punter on the varsity squad rather than play a sport where it will open him up to a wider variety of options. There are plenty of sports in college that so many kids don’t even know about. But because we are indoctrinating our kids into the “big 4 sports” that half the kids playing football don’t realize they would be excellent on the crew team or playing lacrosse. Sad day for youth sports here.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I seem to be missing the point of athletics. I saw on TV that the Chinese are now training 200,000 Olympic athletes. They get them when they are about 3 and they go to specialized schools that work on specific sports. They also focus on fringe sports (badmiton, women’s weightlifting, etc.) to get their Gold count up. Then they pay as much as $150,000 for a Gold medal (30 yr. salary for the average worker). All to prove that communism is better than democracy while millions of chinese are so poor they can barely eat. If Gold is your main goal or proving that our system is better than yours, then this seems to be the way to go. Not cross-training. But the question is what is the goal, the purpose of sports. I thought is was to teach life lessons. Dedication, perserverance, how to lose, how to win, how to do more than anyone thought you could, how to set goals and give everything you should to achieve them. How character is more important than a win and how it pays off in the end. How to set priorities the right way. Not “our athletes are better than yours”. I was more impressed by Micheal Phelps’ attitude toward others than his Gold medals. How about the 41 yr. old U.S. swimmer that held up the race so her competitor could change suits and make the race? If you can teach that in football or olympic skeet shooting, who cares. I do have a daughter who plays softball at a high level because she loves it. She is very fast and might be able to dominate in track. Many have tried to get her in to other sports with our (her parents) permission. But she wants to play softball. Are you saying I should have a conversation with her telling her she should back off of what she loves and work on some other sport so she can dominate, get a scholarship, or win a Gold to prove we are the best country? I love the NCAA commercial that says ” Most athletes will go pro in something other than sports.”. All athletes will sooner or later. My hope is that we use sports to train younger generations about life after sports.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:18 am
The International model is far different than that of the US. If you look at the top of the triangle in the international model, it peaks at one event every few weeks or months, (Olympics and World Games), the middle is practice and skill development and the base of the triangle is training, mental and spiritual preperation, etc. The US model is inverted, the top is wider than the base because we play, play, play, play, and the base is smaller due to the lack of training and preperation. the difference in physical maturity in the AAU and JO give false impressions of later teen talent.
The fact that children participate on a team with two ‘athletes’ and a cast of participants looking needing to train and prepare physically is the dowfall of athletics.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:48 am
You forgot about the bad track coaches that push kids out of individual sports into the team sports.
I’ve seeen more kids quit track because of a jerk coach than any other reason!
August 20th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Greetings Latif:
In my estimation and experice with coaching kids, I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that young athletes (9 -14) years old are being specialized too early. I believe that kids, parents, teachers and coaches at the Youth, Middle School, and High School Level should be educated on what percentage of atheletes will actually be able to compete at the high school, college and professional levels. For example, soccer is becoming a very popular sport, especially on the youth, high school, and to a certain extent the collegiate level. As noted, soccer athletes are expected to participate not only on 12 month soccer clubs, but also on their respective middle or high school teams. College coaches will only attend showcase tournaments that the 12 month soccer clubs participate in. The failure here is that only a very small percentage of high school athletes will receive athletic scholarships, most of which will be partial, not full scholarships. The irony here is that if athletic scholarships are the goal, then why not encourage the child athlete to have him or her be placed on a training routine that will increase the child athlete’s chances for success. The best athletes are the ones who have trained in multiple sports. Specialization is best left for insects. Cross training promotes increased agility, coordination, quickness, and speed. Moreover, it’s helps promote healthy psychological alertness, and prevents burnout. Finally, cross training helps prevent injuries. This final point I cannot emphasize enough because by specializing our athletes during the formative years, I have seen a substantial increase in overtraining related injuries. These injuries stem from severe muscle strains to torn ACLs at the Middle to High School levels.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:40 am
Hi Latif and responders.
The problem is multifactoral and so complex that there is no right or wrong answer. Ethical debates around meritocracy i.e. why should a football player earn more than a month consultant surgeon in a 5 year period may be a starting point. What motivates a parent, is it always the financial, or is it something to do with availability and what inspires the parent often inspires the child. All of the above responses are extremely valid, but what you need to do is do a follow up artical listing each point briefly, then try to see what we can do to change certain points e.g. stopping year long activities based on one sport. China is a brilliant example of what state legislation can do to provide a winning environment where only the fittest survive and the rest are crippled. The year long, single sport trend is exactly the same and has the same results, just that they happen slower and later in life.
What we should not do is only focus on what is the cause. If every coach in the world said that children under 14 had to play 3 sports, but could choose one to specialise in would we even be having this debate? So maybe the real reason the whole worlds sporting stage is a slave to the dollar/yen/pound/etc is because of us, the coaches! Hope this muddies the waters further ;O)
I have multisports sessions sponsored by the rugby club where we play anything but rugby so it can be done! I coach free (I pay for equipment, educational material like complete athletic development, and others on Laifs website), the club provides the venue and insurance. My payment is the feedback from parents and children about how much fun they have, even changing birthday parties so they can come to “training”. Try it, its great advertising for you as a coach.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:36 am
Latif,
I have been coaching developmental track & field/cross county since 1997. I have to agree with you about the speacialization. Parents have been trying to live through their children by channeling them into team sports. I have always been an advocate of cross training, whether the child played soccer, football, basketball, field hockey, etc. However, through peservering through the “My child plays football, baseball, or basketball or whatever team sport they play.” I have had an increase in parents brining their kids to my training practices. It has been about a five year process, however, in my rural region, they are starting to get the word out about adding in the cross training used in track and field and even distance running. I must say that your observations and those of the post that I have seen are right on point with regards to speacializing into a team sport versus developing the whole athlete.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:08 am
There is a more serious issue. I agree with your assessment, but I also believe team sports (and golf, NASCAR) have made us a nation of spectators. While we push our kids into “mainstream” sports and possibly sacrifice their opportunity to crosstrain and become all-around athletes, adults sit in front of the TV at home or at the bar to vegitate. We are a nation of fat and lazy Monday morning quarterbacks. Look around. Obesity is rampant…but we sure know the status of our sports teams! Keep this in mind: your kids inherit your lifestyle.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Despite men sprinters being “Bolted down”, the overall results in the men sprint events appear good. The 400 and 400 hurdles must be counted as sprint events along with the 110 hurdles. Therefore the American men won 11 of 15 medals-that’s darn good! They should also win the 4X400 if they just do “safe” handoffs not like the 4X100 debacle.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Keep up the good work and I for one like the idea of Indvidual sports and a single team sport. There is nothing like teams for a social success but nothing beats Being number 1 all by yourself or 2 and 3 for that matter.
Ask yourself how do you get a job by being part of a team or by your success and skills, while working in a team enviorment. We are trying to set up our kids for success in life , and make sure that what ever they do they do thier best at it and enjoy it.
Play for fun or at least play hard..
August 24th, 2008 at 6:36 am
This topic is not that simple as you want it to be - in my oponion anyway.
First at all… Kids should choose to one or more sports to participate first and foremost because it’s fun and motivating…
Afterwards comes health and social skills…
The last goal must be goldmedals and dollars…
I don’t want to be more specific because Warren Mill descriped it pretty good in his post.
About the difference between USA and China - which one of you guys know for sure what is going on i China towards atlhetic development? You are biased up between both your ears… It doesn’t suite anyone to be critical towards others without substantial evidence.
And the biggest difference between most third world countries and the west (USA and Europe) is not the difference between athletic development but between social standards….
How many professional athletes come from the top of the society vs. the lower classes?
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 am
There were too many posts for me to read everyone’s reply to this topic. So, forgive me if I bring up any points that were already brought up.
First of all, I’d like to talk about Title IX. If I’m not mistaken, Ohio State lost their men’s track and field program in 2007 due to Title IX !!!! This is unbelievable to me. However, we all know that there is no danger of Ohio State losing their revenue earning football program (which is as it should be),
With this type of stuff going on, a parent of a male athlete would be crazy not to steer their child to the “Big Three” ( football - baseball - basketball ). this speaks to the risk-benefit ratio a previous poster mentioned.
The truth is that time is limited. The level of talent, due to the availability of training resources like Complete Speed Training, make it difficult for a young athlete not to concentrate on 1 or 2 sports just to make a team - or get some “burn” once he does make a team.
It may be true that your 9 - 12 year old child athlete, who cannot compete with his peers who specialize in 1-2 sports may be a better athlete than these same athletes by the time they all reach high school if he/she diversifies his athletic training when younger. But very few parents are going to want to bank on this.