What’s wrong with youth sports? ‘Adults’ —says author and former Celtics forward

For the past 16 years, Bigelow, a Winchester native, has been discussing the idea that adults involved in the organization of youth sports who are living out their own sports fantasy through their children are sending the wrong message to kids. His presentations to parent groups have taken him around the globe several times. 

 

His book, “Just let the kids play,” co-written with sports journalists Tom Moroney and Linda Hall, is reportedly one of the first of its kind to expand upon the notion that adults trying to impose adult ideals on a kids game is what is wrong with American youth sports.

 

“If you took a post doctoral MIT professor and put him in a fourth-grade science classroom, that professor would probably not be prepared to teach to those 10 year olds,” said Bigelow.

 

“[In relation to youth sports] the challenge is this,” he said, “can you get adults in a child’s endeavor to think more like children? The biggest problem with American youth sports has been that 9-year-olds are being coached and organized by people who haven’t seen the age of 9 for more than 30 years. They bring a 40-year-old mind to the table to organize and coach a game that theoretically is supposed to be serving the children.”

 

“The first battleground is to get adults to understand what being a kids is about — what is that child within the context of sports as an activity? The younger these children are,” he said, “they have fare more incapabilities (sic) than capabilities. It is hard for adults to understand when their core mentality and understanding of sports is gained from watching TV or what they learned in high school sports.”

 

“People who have no physical education or child development background have no business coaching children, especially those younger than 14,” he said. “Too many coaches who get involved in the youth sports program use the one-size-fits-all approach.”

 

“The vast majority of adults who administer and coach youth sports in this country are primarily men. No matter, most have no child development or physical education backgrounds. It’s your classic adult in youth sports who probably played high school sports and watches too much ESPN,” Bigelow said. “What you did 15-18 years ago and watching TV while 25-35 year olds play professional sports, has nothing to do with coaching sixth grade youth soccer.”

 

“You can see the children struggling,” he said. “The are obviously not going to be as good as the people on TV, even the most blind person can see that. This is especially evident in team sports. There is so much cognitive processing, so much thinking that goes into those plays. So much of what I see in youth sports is like trying to teach trigonometry, algebra and calculus to who kids who haven’t learned math yet.”

 

Not all those involved in organized youth sports have the wrong approach, according to Bigelow.

 

Although not based on anything scientific, but merely on personal observation, Bigelow said, “If I could take 20 percent of the adults involved in youth sports, and that’s a multi-million number, and put them on a spaceship to Marks, never to be seen again, it would clean up 99 percent of the problems with youth sports. Too much of what is wrong with youth sports is their competition. Only about 20 percent that do get it. I would love to keep them around. I am fighting for the other 60 percent in the middle. That is the battle royal.”

 

“People who come and see me speak are overwhelmingly the ones who get it – made up of the 60 percent in the middle and the 20 percent who get it. If I get 120 people in a room to, I will know I have a good cross section to start to affect change and get people to think outside their narrow boxes.”

 

The self-professed sports reformer and activist said, “My main thrust is to try to get adult egos out of children’s games.”

 

There are too many Monday morning quarterbacks trying to coach children from the earliest ages of organized sports to the time when the get into high school.

 

“The delicious irony in all of this is that so many of the adults in youth sports, the lion’s share being age 28 to 45, grew up differently than I did,” he said. “Those in the 35- to 45-year-old group were involved in organized youth sports. At my age, 98 percent of what I did as a athlete was done with other kids, no adult involvement until I was about 14. As kids, we modified, adapted and figured it out on our own. We didn’t have adults interfering.”

 

He cited competitive T-ball leagues in Florida as a primary example of adults interfering in children’s sports.

 

“Just let kids play,” is the name of his book and the impetus behind his discussions with parents worldwide. Although he doesn’t see himself as a one-man crusade behind this theory, claiming that there are many others out there pushing the notion, he is beginning to see a change little by little.

 

Bob Bigelow will speak at Wakefield High School on Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. as a guest speaker in the Wakefield Parent Partnership speaker series.

 

Donna O'Neil is the editor of the Wakefield Observer.