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OT: kids sports and keeping score

In Uncategorized on May 15, 2009 at 10:39 am

This is completely off topic and very different from anything I’ve ever written about on this page or the old one.

I’m writing about the at times hot-topic issue of organized youth sports in the U.S. today. A few years ago, when I wasn’t yet a parent, I was appalled when I heard that youth sports leagues didn’t keep score. You know the response: the that-wasn’t-the-way-they-did-it-when-I-was-little response. Now as a parent of a little one and sports still a few years a way, the conversation of youth sports seems to come up occasionally with friends or family. Lastnite a friend of ours was adamant that the no scoring leagues were bad for kids and another friend of ours made some real good points that were in favor of the leagues.

I just listened and tried not to say much (which isn’t easy for me to do). Most of our friends know I like sports and I was asked my opinion. I thought about this before I answered and came up with something like this (paraphrased below):

“I think everyone thinks this is a black and white issue. You either keep score or you don’t. I don’t see it that way. I think there is an age where keeping score becomes appropriate, not sure when that is maybe between 7 and 10. I don’t see any point in keeping score for a 4 or 5 year old’s league. That to me is pointless. So is having a 12 year olds league where you don’t keep score, let’s face it at that age every kid knows what the score is anyways.

What I think is lost in organizing all of youth sports is that kids no longer play at the playground with no adults around to keep score. I played sports with my friends everyday growing up. We usually kept score, but after the game didn’t really remember if we won or lost. The other thing that is lost is the repetition you get. When I played pickup ball with my friends, I’d get 15-30 AB’s during a day depending on how many kids were there and how long we played. Kids don’t get that kind of repetion in organized ball. I played organized sports, but spent much more time playing with friends in unsupervised games.”

Now I’m not gonna say everything was better. I also learned how to chew tobacco and do a lot of things that weren’t so good in these pickup games. But anyways, that was a different time. Today most of the kids play sports in organized leagues and that’s the way it is.

So I stumbled upon this blog, where a youth coach discusses the topic:

There’s a lot of debate about no-score leagues. Does keeping score hurts children, and America, in the long run because kids don’t receive an early lesson in getting their confidence crushed? Or does keeping score hurts children, and America, in the long run because kids receive an early lesson in getting their confidence crushed? These questions engender the sort of reasoned debate you see in such topics as evolution, race, abortion and gun control.

Why does this topic become so hot button? LOL?