The Challenge Facing Parents and Coaches in Youth Sports: Assuring Children Fun and Equal Opportunity

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, Dec 2002

By Douglas E. Abrams, Published on 01/01/02

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The Challenge Facing Parents and Coaches in Youth Sports: Assuring Children Fun and Equal Opportunity

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal The Challenge Facing Parents and Coaches in Youth Sports: Assuring Children Fun and Equal Opportunity Douglas E. Abrams 0 Recommended Citation 0 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal by an authorized editor of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository Part of the Entertainment; Arts; and Sports Law Commons - THE CHALLENGE FACING PARENTS AND COACHES IN YOUTH SPORTS: ASSURING CHILDREN FUN AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DOUGLAS E. ABRAMs* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ......................................... II. Fun and the Emotional Needs of Child Athletes ..... Pressure to Win Imposed by Parents and Coaches ......................................... Not Like Miniature Professionals ................ Child Athletes Need Adult Role Models Whose Sportsmanship Helps Make Participation Fun .... D. Child Athletes Need to Play Without Adult Imposed Pressure for Financial Gain Inspired by Professional or Big-Time Collegiate Sports ....... III. Equal Opportunity in Youth Sports .................. A. Why Private Youth Sports Programs Deny Equal Athletic Opportunity, and What Parents Can Do 254 264 267 272 278 280 283 283 * Associate Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. B.A. 1973, Wesleyan University; J.D. 1976, Columbia University School of Law. Professor Abrams teaches juvenile law and family law and is co-author of Children and the Law - Doctrine,Policy and Practice(West Group 2000), and Children and the Law in a Nutshell (West Group 2001). He played varsity ice hockey at Wesleyan and has coached youth hockey for 32 years. In 1994, he received the Meritorious Service to the Children of America Award, presented by the National Council ofJuvenile and Family Court Judges to recognize his coaching and other community service. This article is based on an address he delivered at the annual dinner of the Jefferson City (Mo.) Christian Women's Club on April 15, 2000. I thank ProfessorJames R. Devine, Bob Bigelow and Kathy Spadone for their perceptive comments on drafts of this article. I also salute my first Wesleyan hockey coach, Hedding Professor of Religion, William A. Spurrier, longtime chairman of Wesleyan's religion department and University Chaplain. Rev. Spurrier captained the Williams College hockey team in 1938-39, played for the New York Rangers organization during his graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary in the early 1940s and founded Wesleyan's hockey program in 1955. Bill was a man of ethics and an aspiring coach's role model, who shared his solid values about youth sports with me for three decades before he passed away in November of 1999. (253) 254 VILLANovA SPORTS & ENT. LAW JOURNAL B. Why Secondary Schools Deny Children Equal Athletic Opportunity, and What Parents Can Do About It ......................................... IV. Conclusion: Youth Sports as a Local and National Youth sports systems that are createdfor the greatest good of the greatestnumberof children will be the right choicesfor all children -from the child who appears to have the greatest athleticpotential at a young age, to the child who may not show that potential until later, to the child who never shows any athletic talent. Former Boston Celtics basketball player Bob Bigelow1 I. INTRODUCTION Youth sports today brings both good and bad news. The good news is that organized sports programs enhance the vitality of communities large and small because twenty-five to thirty million children, nearly half of all American youngsters, join at least one program in any given year. 2 At some time during their childhood and adolescence, nearly all children have some experience with organized sports.3 Outside the home and schools, no other activity reaches so many children from coast to coast. The bad news is that about seventy percent of these youngsters quit playing by the time they turn thirteen, and that nearly all quit by the time they turn fifteen. 4 Indeed, the dropout rate begins ac 1. BOB BIGELOW ET AL., JUST LET THE KIDS PLAY 37 (2001). 2. See, e.g., FRACTURED Focus: SPORTS AS A REFLECTION OF SOCIETY 177 (Richard E. Lapchick ed., 1986) [hereinafter FRACTURED Focus];Joy AND SADNESS IN CHILDREN'S SPORTS 10 (Rainer Martens ed., 1978); GLYN ROBERTS, Motivation in Sport: Understandingand Enhancingthe Motivation of Children, in HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON SPORT PSYCHOLOGY, 405, 411 (Robert N. Singer, et al. eds., 1993). In 2000, there were 70.4 million children under the age of 18 in the United States. See FEDERAL INTERAGENCY FORUM ON CHILD AND FAMILY STATISTICS, AMERICA'S CHILDREN: KEY NATIONAL INDICATORS OF WELL-BEING 2001 2 (2001). 3. See, e.g., Bari Katz Stryer et al., A Developmental Overview of Child and Youth Sports in Society, 7 CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHI (...truncated)


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Douglas E. Abrams. The Challenge Facing Parents and Coaches in Youth Sports: Assuring Children Fun and Equal Opportunity, Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, 2002, pp. 253, Volume 8, Issue 2,