Let Them Be Kids!

This is an article from yesterdays New York Times sports page. As soon as I read it I ran the gamut of emotions starting with astonishment and ending with anger. What are we trying to do here? Isn’t this just exploiting kids? Why don’t we just let them be kids? I have a long time interest in Long Term Athlete Development, youth sports and physical education, this concept and many of the things being done with the proliferation of travel teams and national championships down to the under six age group are sad developments, they have no bases on sound pedagogy. Who is this for, it not for the kids, they are being used. The culmination of all of this is IOC Youth Olympics, an event that will only encourage more exploitation of youth. We are taking their childhood away from them and giving a distorted view of sport at the most impressionable age. We need to wake up and do something about this, it is wrong and exploitative, it is far from educational and I would venture to say in many cases it is both physiologically and physically harmful. Despite what many people think the Soviet Union and The East Germans did not do it this way, their sports programs were based on participatation and physical education not early identification and competition.

This Friday I am speaking at the NSCA Sport Specific Conference in Nashville on this topic. This gives me more ammunition for my arguments and the position that I will present, essentially a plea for sanity based on sound pedagogy and principles of growth and development.

Barely Teenagers, Already Groomed for Stardom

By THAYER EVANS and PETE THAMEL

SAN ANTONIO — At age 13, the 6-foot-3, 280-pound Reeve Koehler is so big that he has never been allowed to play organized football. Despite that, he already has a full scholarship offer from the University of Hawaii.

Wes Medeiros, 13, is a YouTube sensation who kicked a 45-yard field goal at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp. He wants to attend a high school with a turf field so he will have more consistent kicking conditions.

Chris Laviano, 14, can throw a football 50 yards. He has been compared to Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman, and has been courted by a top high school football power.

Koehler, Medeiros and Laviano are among 143 players here for Sunday’s inaugural Football University Youth All-American Bowl, a series of three games at the Alamodome that will feature the nation’s top seventh and eighth graders. The event will be broadcast online at footballuniversity.org.

“Imagine if you could have saw Reggie Bush when he was in eighth grade or seventh grade and see how he develops,” said John Gallagher, the director of the Football University Youth All-American Bowl.

Organizers are billing the bowl as an event similar to the Little League World Series, but coaches and others say it opens a path toward professionalism already traveled by other sports, like basketball, golf and tennis. It is another example of America’s seemingly endless search for the next great star.

“It’s a slippery slope, and I’m a little bit queasy about it,” University of Cincinnati Coach Brian Kelly said.

The Football University Youth All-American Bowl is the brainchild of SportsLink Inc., a sports-marketing company based in Wharton, N.J., that operates the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, an annual all-star game for the nation’s top high school seniors.

The new event was the idea of Rich McGuinness, the president of SportsLink, who said he had grown tired of having players in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl who were physically gifted, but technique deficient. So he created Football University, invitation-only instructional football camps across the country from February to July at a cost of $40 an hour for campers.

The sons of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, the former N.F.L. wide receiver Ed McCaffrey and the former N.B.A. star Karl Malone are among the participants in the Football University Youth All-American Bowl. The event is meant to showcase the nation’s top seventh and eighth graders, as well as emphasize leadership, teamwork, and speed and strength, McGuinness said. Even with players paying for their travel and lodging, the event is expected to lose $30,000.

“In major sports, they start identifying their best players in seventh and eighth grade,” McGuinness said. “That’s what happens in the world. It never happened in football because the N.F.L. is the only player.”

What worries many college coaches about all-star games proliferating to this level is that high school football coaches could become less influential in the recruiting process.

Wake Forest Coach Jim Grobe said he was concerned that sponsors of all-star games could influence players to consider universities with which they have financial arrangements.

“I think it could develop into a concern if those companies also outfit college teams and have a vested interest in them,” Grobe said.

Exposing players to corporate sponsors at such a young age could invite the type of outside influences that have become so prominent in basketball that Myles Brand, the N.C.A.A. president, called them one of his organization’s most difficult problems.

Kelly said: “When you have these kinds of events, you open up the door for third parties. Is the guy an A.A.U. coach? Is he a personal trainer? Is he a street agent?”

To play in the Football University Youth All-American Bowl, a nomination form and highlight tape must be submitted for a player. The event relied heavily on Football University’s network of youth scouts, directors, commissioners and coaches for selections, Gallagher said.

Thousands of children were scouted and 2,000 nominations, from Hawaii to New York, were received. They were evaluated by a selection committee and Gallagher, who until June had been a Nasdaq institutional trader.

A youth football league president in New Jersey, Gallagher selected players based on performance, competition level and long-term potential. Size and speed were major factors. By seventh grade, Gallagher said, it is “mostly clear” as to which players have football talent.

“It’s not an exact science,” Gallagher said. “You try to do the best you can with what they present you.”

Malone said he was honored that his 13-year-old son, K. J., who is 6 feet and 208 pounds, was selected for the event, but cautioned that he and the parents of other youth players must keep their children grounded.

“Let our young kids be kids,” Malone said. “They’re going to have plenty of time when it’s serious and for real.”

Lewis added: “I wouldn’t say it worries me. You try to keep them as kids, let them play as kids, instead of being so serious.”

Malone said that he was not sure how talented his son was as a football player, which the Football University Youth All-American Bowl spokesman Kristian Dyer clarified.

“If his name was K. J. Smith and you saw that video, you’d still walk away just as impressed,” Dyer said.

Dan Gould, the director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State, said the first question he has about such events was why they were necessary. Dr. Robert Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery and director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., said the health risks for football at this age were “hard to come down on,” but the question lingers about why these games are played.

“What we’re worried about here is too much, too soon,” Gould said. “My flags go up at a seventh- and eighth-grade national all-star game. What does it do for the kid? Probably not that much.”

Koehler said he received his verbal scholarship offer from Hawaii this past summer while attending one of its football camps. Official written scholarship offers are prohibited by the N.C.A.A. until Sept. 1 of a player’s junior year in high school.

Koehler said he expected to play on the offensive and the defensive lines once he could finally compete in high school football next fall.

“It’s frustrating,” Koehler said of not being allowed to play in Hawaiian youth football leagues. “I want to get out there and play on the field, but I’m just too heavy.”

Medeiros is used to the spotlight because of his friendship with the Steelers’ kicker, Jeff Reed. The video of Medeiros making field goals at the Steelers’ training camp last year has been viewed nearly 12,000 times on YouTube.

Medeiros, who uses a two-inch block on his field-goal attempts instead of kicking off the field, is considering three private high schools in Charlotte, N.C., for ninth grade next season. His father, Paul, said his son’s being able to kick for a school with a turf field would be a significant factor in his decision.

“It’s just a lot more consistent kicking,” Paul Medeiros said.

Four days before the festivities began for the Football University Youth All-American Bowl, Laviano arrived from Brookville, N.Y., and prepared. Laviano, a 5-11, 165-pound eighth grader, participated in three-a-day workouts at a local university under the watch of his father, Tom.

Laviano said he had been approached about playing next season for the football power DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md., but his father did not want him to move in with a coach. His youth coaches have told him that he is comparable to Manning, a three-time N.F.L. most valuable player and a Super Bowl winner.

“There’s a little pressure,” Laviano said.

Gallagher mentioned Laviano in the same breath as Aikman, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“He’s definitely a great player,” Gallagher said of Laviano. “I think he can play in high-level college.”

But college is seemingly the last thing on Laviano’s mind these days.

“College?” Laviano said. “I don’t even know where I want to go to high school.”

Thayer Evans reported from San Antonio and Pete Thamel from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Comments

[Jonathan Hewitt ATC]

Would you put the Little League World Series in this same category of exploitation? Why or Why Not?

[timsulliva]

I want to kick my own butt for NOT planning to see and listen to you speak. Funny thing is, Nashville TN is where I started my minor professional athletic career. I had a chance to witness some of those kids in their adult cycle.

[Allen Mayes]

You made a statement with out taking to the kids, parents or coaches. Why not reward those kids for working hard in both the class room and in the locker room. feel free to contact me on any other comments. I'm a parent of a very Proud FBU All American, who came home today from school and did his homework and said he remember the speech by Herman Boone about good grades.