By Paul Woody
Source: Richmond Times-DispatchWhen it comes to the care and feeding of young athletes, the questions that parents and coaches always must ask are, "How much is enough? How much is too much? Who is success more important to, the parent or the child?"
We live in an age of specialization, and an unfortunate result is that athletes make decisions to specialize in one sport early in their careers.
That should be "too" early in their careers.
The three-sport athlete long has been a vanishing breed. As more and more pressure builds to make elite travel teams in soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, more and more athletes will make decisions to forego other sports.
There is a cost associated with this. It can be extremely high and it has nothing to do with money.
A recent story in the New York Times examined the results of young athletes who pick one sport, overtrain for it and play it year- round.
The Times found a 16-year-old baseball pitcher who already had undergone "Tommy John" surgery. There was a young soccer player who tore her anterior cruciate ligament when she was 13.
"Tommy John" surgery involves removing a tendon from one arm and transplanting it into the injured arm. It is a last-ditch effort to save a career and is a procedure most often associated with major- league pitchers. The fact that it had to be done on a 16-year-old is alarming.
But that is what can, and probably will, happen when a young pitcher, in this case Jaret Adair from Atlanta, starts 64 games in a single summer for his travel team.
Some remember a time when young pitchers were advised to not throw a curveball until they were at least teen-agers. Those days seem to be gone.
Moderation now seems to elude us in just about everything. Too many children exercise too little and provide statistics for obesity. Too many exercise too much in one sport and provide statistics for overuse injuries.
Parents play a significant role in all this. Some parents are happy only when their children achieve at the highest level possible. This leads to all manner of problems.
Children do not form travel leagues. Children do not set up national tournaments in Orlando, Las Vegas and Erie, Pa.
If you were to visit a weekend soccer tournament in Raleigh, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., or Columbia, Md., you would find the ultimate goal of almost every child there is to receive a college scholarship. That also is the goal of many of the parents, who have thousands of dollars invested in the process.
All of this is beyond unrealistic. College scholarships are difficult to earn. Every child on a travel soccer team, AAU basketball team and AAU baseball team is competing against every other child in the country. And in the case of soccer and basketball, the competition for college scholarships extends to a worldwide level.
The NCAA boasts of having more than 300,000 athletes in its programs. What it does not point out is that the vast majority of those participants are non-scholarship athletes who continue to play for the love of their sport.
One thing is certain. Pitchers who require arm surgery as teen- agers and soccer players who need knee surgery in high school damage their chances to earn one of these rare college scholarships.
Balance is essential in life. Competing in more than one sport provides a physical balance for young athletes. Competing in several sports can, and often does, sharpen an athlete's competitive edge in all sports.
It's commendable to give your child a chance to be successful. It's a problem when nothing less than great success is acceptable.
---------------------------------
