Out of Sorts with High School Sports

I was at my 6-year-old daughter's soccer game the other day when something really creepy happened. As the girls were warming up on the field, a dad from the other team called his daughter over for a "pep talk." He was direct and to the point.


"Do you want to get frozen yogurt after the game?"


"Yeah!"


"Great, then score a goal."


"But --"


"No buts. Also, no yogurt if you don't score a goal. Now go win."

There have been very few times in my life that I wanted to punch someone as I did then. However, I don't think it would have set a good example for the kids. Also, judging by his shaved head and ritual scarring, he probably would have punched back, so I bit my tongue, choosing to save my rage for the internet, as any good nerd would do.

So now, I lash out at him with scientific research, although I know that unless the study I'm about to mention was printed on a beer bottle or tattooed just above his girlfriend's ass, he'll probably never read it. Regardless, here's a summary from Science Blog:

Vigorous sports activities, like basketball, during childhood and adolescence can cause abnormal development of the femur in young athletes, resulting in a deformed hip with reduced rotation and pain during movement. This may explain why athletes are more likely to develop osteoarthritis than more sedentary individuals, according to Dr. Klaus Siebenrock, from the University of Bern in Switzerland, and colleagues, whose work is published online in Springer’s journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.

I'm sure you're asking what this has to do with Yogurt Nazi Dad. Listen, I'm all for fit, healthy kids. I also think a little competitive fun builds character. However, what really chaps my hide is when grown-ups get all Friday Night Lights about it, using kids as pawns in some kind of demented, glory days-seeking full-contact chess game. I don't care if little Jimmy catches the winning pass in the big championship and you shouldn't either. Mahatma Gandhi didn't catch the winning pass. Bill Gates certainly didn't catch the winning pass. I seriously doubt most US Presidents caught the winning pass. (I know a lot of you are going to say Ronald Reagan, but that was a movie, not real life.) The winning pass has no bearing on what a person is capable of achieving later in life.

Kids aren't naturally inclined to torture their bodies when survival isn't on the line. No one is. It's completely counterintuitive from an evolutionary standpoint. So, to get back to my point, that imbalanced, play-to-win, destructive approach to fitness starts with a messed-up dad telling his daughter the only point she's on the field is to score a goal. If the kids in the study I mentioned above weren't pushed the way most of us were pushed in high school sports, were taught to enjoy sports, to respect injuries, and to crosstrain, I bet the incidences of early-onset osteoarthritis would plummet.

Either we're letting them sit inside on summer days, playing PS3, eating nachos, and ballooning to 300 pounds - or we're driving them into the ground on the playing field, battering their joints into oblivion. We seriously need some balance here.

Yogurt Nazi Dad's daughter did score a goal and her team did win. Guess what? I was stoked. I gave my daughter a huge hug and told her she did great and I was happy because it looked like she was having a fun time out there. Then, even though it's counter to everything I stand for nutritionally, I took her out for frozen yogurt.

So take that, Yogurt Nazi Dad!