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)