By Seth Herrold
Last night, amidst watching the Royals actually win back-to-back games for a change, my fiance Tiffany flipped over to watch a couple of segments from the new show “Dance Moms.” You can probably guess from the title it was one of those “reality” shows where people yell a lot. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it got me thinking about one of the older hot topics in sports… How young is too young to start a child in competitive sports?
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This dance instructor was driving a group of nine-year-old girls into the ground in pursuit of perfection. At the end of the show, the girls didn’t place in the top five of the group dance competition. So was it worth all the long hours she forced them to put in? The apparent obvious choice is no, but in the future this will probably make them better. I wouldn’t be surprised, especially now with the fame this show is going to bring to these kids, if one of them has a successful career as a professional dancer.
In Trenton, youth are introduced to sports at a young age. We put pictures in the paper of soccer teams made up of kids under the age of six and the tee-ballers at Van Meter Park are just as young. Youth in Trenton also have opportunities to play golf, wrestling and football at a very young age. While the tee-ball and soccer can’t be considered as competitive, others, like wrestling and football, are very competitive.
When you look at Trenton sports down through the years at the high school level, you will find that wrestling and football have been two of the most successful sports. Does that go hand in hand with parents sending their kids out for these sports at a very young age? I think it has a little to do with it anyway. For girls, softball and basketball have been some of the more successful sports and I think they get thrown into those sports at a very young age as well. Trenton’s golf teams are usually pretty solid and you look at the kids on those teams and they are the ones that grew up with parents who were country club members.
When kids get thrown into something at that age and they have it forced upon them, you are going to get one of two results: they are going to love it and go on to play the sports as long as they possibly can or they are going to hate it and drop out of it before they even reach the high school age. Little kids are impressionable, but they also can burn out on things pretty quickly. Obviously, a young De’Andre Vandevender didn’t get burned out on football and it led to one of the greatest careers in THS history and a spot on a Division I FCS roster at Northern Iowa. For every Vandevender, there is a youth who gets pushed too hard and ends up not playing a sport they probably would have enjoyed down the road.
At the end of the day there is one way to keep any burnouts or bad experiences from happening. Just listen to the kids, something the dance moms weren’t real great at. It’s a fine line, especially for those who dream of greatness for their kid, but you have to find some middle ground. Push them too hard or let them quit too early and all will be lost.
The bottom line is the youth need to be introduced to sports at a young age if you want them to have a shot at being really good. You just have to know when to stop when things start to get out of control.
