As youth sports continue to grow, increasingly more kids experience sport schedules that inevitably overlap with one another. On the surface this may not be a big deal, but when kids are regularly conflicted and forced to miss practices because they are at other sport practices, a number of problems emerge. Kids who miss practice lose out on instruction, team building, game planning, friendships, and many more things that they can only get by being there. Coaches are also put in a position when they are unable to develop practice plans because they do not know how many kids will be attending practice. Increasingly more sport parents seem to be signing their kids up for sport after sport, regardless of conflicts, and not fully taking into account what their child’s intermittent participation is not only doing to their kid, but to the entire team.
Playing time & other issues
How would you feel if your child attended all of her team’s practices, but then for games she sits on the bench behind another girl who has only been to some of the practices? In the old days, the child who has attended all practices would be rewarded for her effort with playing time — even playing in front of more talented kids who simply haven’t been at all the practices. And, even crazier, nobody had a problem with this kind of coaching! Coaches used to reward kids who prioritized practice, and held out other kids who only made some practices when it was convenient. Today, coaches are challenged to keep that kind of philosophy, especially when upwards of half a team might be comprised of kids playing multiple sports! How do you feel about playing time? Should kids who make all practices play the most, or should more talented kids who might only be there some of the time get the bulk of playing time?
Practice time is crucial for both individual and team success. Today, however, practices are routinely compromised by kids only partially committed to the team, leaving coaches to scramble trying to game plan, build team cohesion, and help kids with individual concerns. Even more problems emerge when the part-time kids do eventually report to practice and learn that they missed out on important instruction, or are on the bench behind other kids who made all of the practices. When these kids become distraught, it can lead to unplanned team challenges around building cohesion and chemistry — adding yet another layer to the difficulties that flow from kids playing multiple sports at the same time.
Interestingly, perhaps the biggest hurdle to kids being over-scheduled are nonchalant parents who do not see any problem with their kid missing practice. By contrast, when the multi-sport student athlete began to emerge about 10 years ago, parents often struggled with over-committing and felt a sense of guilt leaving coaches in tough spots. Today, however, I witness increasingly more indifference, with more parents seeing no problem at all when it comes to signing up for a team, but only coming to practice when it’s convenient to attend. Aside from all the issues this causes the coach and team, is this the message we want to send to kids? That you can sign up for as many teams as you like, and to go to whatever you want, whenever you want? How is that a winning message?
Final thoughts
The idea of consistently attending practices is not a punitive notion, but instead the most basic approach to discipline, responsibility, and general team building in sports. If you find yourself regularly conflicted with sports that overlap, it may be time to make some important sport decisions to narrow down to one sport per season. No, the over-booked, multiple sport athlete really does not serve anyone well — it leads to a greater chance of burnout for kids, confused parents trying to balance it all, and frustrated coaches and teammates who simply cannot rely on certain kids being a part of the team. While it may be true that you can become just about anything in this world, you cannot do everything, prompting today’s sport families to make important decisions unique to their children.
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