In the US… Soccer led the way for the rapid growth rates — read that: chasing the BigBucks — of both local gov’t Recreation Depts and pay-to-pay leagues for grades 1 – 12… much, I’m sure, to the detriment, of millions of kids, esp. boys…
How many kids had bad experiences when their 1st grade team went 1-11 when playing teams with better coaches and 2nd graders and refused to come out again the next year. Hey Mom! Hey Dad! I’m talking to you….
Moms & Dads everywhere bought into year round, drop ’em off and pick /em up, leagues choosing to pay for convenience, rather than teach and supervise their kids and their friends…
Years ago… John Fuqua, the lawnmower king from Danville whose name is on the B-school at Duke, wrote a thought piece… about ‘YardBall’…
What he said was simply this…
The real lessons learned playing football and baseball in the yard or street as a young kid were far more important than catching, passing, tackling, hitting and fielding.
In order to play, kids had to learn how to
1. Organize — schedule the game, agree on the local rules, handle logistics — who’s got the ball, who’s got the bat, etc, etc, etc…
2. Recruit — round up enough kids to get up a good game…
3. Get along with enough of ’em to kept ’em coming back…
4. Play all the positions — both offense and defense — decently — re #2 & 3…
5. Play successfully with younger and older kids with different physical and talent levels — re #2 & 3…
6. Clean up your own mess after the game…
7. Fess up when you F’d up and broke a window or trampeled a freshly planted dogwood…
In addition, in YardBall… there was no scoreboard, no box score, no champions, no participation trophies… everybody was a winner, at least in his own mind…
And the sport changed every season… which led to the development of multiple skills and more healthy uniform body / muscle development…
Parents pretty much left the kids alone, to work out their differences, and no parent was thinking about the big bucks awaiting their future Hall of Fame kid…. Homework always came first, at least in my neighborhood….
By replacing YardBall — government and business all across the country have succeeded in helping millions of kids over the last 30 years graduate from High School without being able to do consistently 1 thru 7 above.
Soccer — with a field way too big field for little kids to run hard for 30 or more minutes and a ball too heavy for little legs — was not the villain, just the villain’s unwitting accomplice.
Look around your or your grandkids’ neighborhood and Think about that….
BOTB
