For High Plains Public Radio Readers Club, I'm Shane Timson from Colby, Kansas.
At the time of this recording, it is July. It's hot - 100-degree temperatures, severe weather.
But this time of July, we now start thinking about August in the fall sports season. It won't be long, and kids will be at the football field practicing, and they'll be on the volleyball court. It's going to be in full session.
So, for that very reason, I chose this book, Taking Back the Game: Why Money and Mania are Ruining Kids Sports – and Why it Matters by Linda Flanagan. According to this book, and this book is about how do we get youth sports back to having fun and not so competitive?
According to Linda Flanagan, youth sports are a million-dollar business with Walt Disney creating their Disney sports complex in 1997, luring high school tournaments. That gives people the idea that they can be on the big stage. Also, with college being so expensive, one way to get an education is to simply go out for sports, and many parents are pushing their kids to go out for these sports, for that reason, or it's because they want to live through their kids.
In other words, well, I was a star football player. My son should be a star football player. Also, you've got colleges starting to scout kids as early as junior high, watching out for who might be the next big thing.
On top of that, practices are harder than ever before. There's a story in the book, about a swim team. The coach, if he didn't think that the practice was going well, he would make the kids, get out of the pool, run for two miles on the track, then get back in the water and swim for two miles. This practice could go on four or five hours.
You also have kids traveling to competitions farther than ever before. You could see kids traveling up to four hours to compete. So, here's how a week could typically go. You get school, you get practice. You've got to travel four hours. Play the game, turn around, travel another four hours back home. Get up. Go to school the next day. This is just exhausting. Many people are quitting sports before their senior year. Even the star athletes because it's just taking a toll on their body.
Another statistic. Recently, it was reported 82% of coaches quit, and they quit because the parents are too unruly. Same with referees.
We hear referees shortages all over the country because of the same thing. The parents are just too mean. So how can we take back the game, making youth sports fun again?
Well, one of the suggestions in this book is to let the kids play. Kids know how to police themselves better than parents. It's the parents that are driving this highly competitive era of sports.
Most kids just want to play and have fun.
And that's where I'm at. I played sports when I was in high school, but it got to the point where I quit because too much focus was on winning. And if you didn't win enough, you weren't good enough. I wanted to just have fun with the sport, win or lose, and that's where I'm at today.
Can we just play a good game of football or basketball and have fun and not be angry if our team didn't win? So, as we enter into this 2025-2026 school year, and we watch sports, enjoy it.
But let's be nice to the officials and nice to the kids. I'm Shane Timson from Colby, Kansas.
