Hazards of trying to specialize kids in sports

FROM: The Hour (US)
By: Anthony Scire

As I continue my career in youth athletic development, it concerns me that there are still parents who still want to specialize their kids in a sport at such a young age.

Tom Farrey's book, "Game On -- The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," discusses the myth of specializing kids early in a sport. By doing so we are hurting them physically and psychologically. I read that the odds against a child becoming pro by the time they are 18 is about 3 million to 1. It's not even always about being the next "great one" in (insert sport), but parents feel their kids are behind other kids at their age.

Just the other day a father brought his son into our facility. He wants to get his son into a golf program. After we got some information from him, we wanted to do a quick assessment on how his son moved. We had him do some basic movement skills such as hopping, skipping, shuffling, etc., and then we started to set up a course for him to hit some of our training balls. Kind of like a golf obstacle course with hula hoops set up as the holes.

The father looked perplexed, and asked us when was his son going to be able to hit real balls with real clubs, and what type of golf-specific program were we going to put him in? Did I mention the boy is only 5 years old?

Parents and coaches need to understand the importance of the Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) of our kids. The LTAD is a general framework of athletic development with special reference to kids' different growth, maturation and development. Sadly here in the U.S. this is not the norm. A study done by the U.S Olympic Committee from 1984 to 2000 found that Olympians were most often introduced to their sport through unstructured activities; physical education classes played a key role in developing fitness and basic movement skills (sadly P.E. classes are on the decline for many of our kids), and many of them played multiple sports as teenagers, they did not specialize! Kids need to be taught sound fundamental movement skills first. If a kid has never been taught how to skip, hop, jump, run properly, (all athletic-based movements) does it make sense to stress getting a 5-year-old into a golf-specific program or any sport-specific program?

Here are some quick recommendations for parents and coaches out there: Stop trying to identify the athletically gifted and give all kids the gift of athleticism. Let kids play more and minimize the adult and parental involvement, put the play back into play and make movements FUNdamental, let's have them participate in a variety of sports and activities and let's not HURRY the developmental process and let's teach them good life skills as well. It's not just about developing an athlete. Every kid will not win a scholarship or sign a pro contract -- for every Lebron James/Tiger Woods/Freddy Adu, there are thousands who are not playing anymore, let's keep them playing!

Anthony Scire is a Youth Sports Performance Specialist working out of The Athlete's Performance Zone, 88 Sugar Hollow Road, Ridgefield. Visit his Web site at www.anthonyscirefitness.com