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| Center For Sports
Parenting Chair Rick Wolff |
RICK WOLFF was drafted by the Tigers in ‘72 during his junior year at Harvard, spent a couple of seasons in the minor leagues, completed his studies in psychology and joined the coaching staff of the Indians. He was later head baseball coach at
Mercy College and has worked with dozens of athletes from MLB, the NFL and the NHL. A prominent and respected voice in the field of sports parenting and youth sports, Wolff is Chair of the Center for Sports Parenting and long-time host of the weekly radio show “The Sports Edge.” He is the author of 19 books (his latest, “Parenting Young Athletes the Ripken Way,” will be published in April by Gotham Books) and has written for Sports Illustrated, the N.Y. Times, GQ, Psychology Today, the Harvard Business Review, Child, Scholastic and USA Today. Wolff spoke with SportsBusiness Journal
New York bureau chief
Jerry Kavanagh.
| FAVORITES: |
| Piece of music: My tastes go from MOZART to the Beatles. |
| Vacation spot: Nantucket. |
| Author: I have so many friends who are authors that I can’t go there. |
| Sport: Baseball. |
| Last book read: GENO AURIEMMA’s autobiography, “Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection.” |
| Athlete you most enjoy watching: My role model growing up was BILL BRADLEY. |
| First job: Minor league baseball. |
| Basic working philosophy: With every job I try to be prepared and I apply myself to it in a very serious manner. |
| Best professional advice you received: My dad, BOB WOLFF -- one of the great sportscasters of all time -- has been a tremendous influence on me and my business career. Dad has always stressed to me to treat people the way you want to be treated. He gave me that advice many, many years ago, and I still try to adhere to it as best I can. |
| Best decision: To marry my wife, TRISH. |
| Biggest challenge: Sports parenting is an ongoing concern. We like to think we’re making progress in getting the word out to parents everywhere that it’s not about the parents, it’s about the kids, but there’s still a long way to go. |
Q: How do you define youth sports?
Wolff: For me, youth sports goes from five years old all the way to college. At the Center for Sports Parenting, and even with my radio show, we always tackle issues that encompass that span because clearly the issues of kids who are just starting out are much different from those of the kids who are in high school or college.
Q: How did you first become associated with youth sports and acquire such a prominent voice in this field?
Wolff: Back in the early ’90s, I worked for five years as the roving performance-enhancement coach, the psychology coach, if you will, for the Cleveland Indians. My wife and I have three kids, and at that time they were very young. I had heard all the horror stories about crazy sports parents and was curious. One day in spring training I went around and asked a number of the ballplayers if they wanted their own kids to follow them and use sports as they had. And regardless of where the players had grown up, most of them said that they had pushy coaches and saw crazy parents on the sidelines and said they weren’t sure that they wanted their kids to go through that. I did some research and ended up writing a book called “Good Sports.” And all of a sudden, I was very much in demand. Sports Illustrated came to me and asked if I would write a series of articles on youth sports. That led to the radio show and eventually to the CSP.
Q: What are the benefits of athletic participation for children?
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| Wolff Believes Team Sports Are
Important To Children's Development |
Wolff: The most important benefit, of course, is having a healthy body. In our society today, where obesity is a real concern, it’s just good for the kids to go out and exercise and get in shape. In addition, all the other psychological elements of playing sports still continue to have a major impact, just as when we were kids: things like overcoming adversity, learning how to be a team player and to set and achieve goals, learning sportsmanship -- all these things are still vitally important to kids who play sports.
Q: You cited a study that said this will be the first generation of kids whose life expectancy is lower than that of their parents.
Wolff: I don’t recall the source for that, but it struck me when I read it as startling and very disturbing. I probably read it somewhere within the President’s Council on Physical Fitness or the President’s Task Force on Obesity and Kids.
Q: And the reason for that is a lack of fitness?
Wolff: Kids today are so sedentary. They come home and they eat and play video games or watch TV, as opposed to going out and playing in the yard or sandlot ball or whatever it might have been. Kids are also exposed to so much more when it comes to giant sizes of soda and fast foods.
Q: Yet with all that inactivity, organized sports seem to be bigger than ever.
Wolff: I think it’s safe to say that more kids now are playing sports than ever before, but the other side of that is that three out of four kids quit playing sports by the time they are 13.
Q: Why?
Wolff: It’s hard to say. Maybe the kids realize they’re not going to be stars, so why make the effort. Maybe they just get burned out. But the fact is that’s a huge number. That comes from the Michigan State Institute for Youth Sports.
Q: I wonder if that’s true of other pursuits for children: music, art, scouting, and so forth?
Wolff: I have no idea. Look, we all know that as kids go through adolescence, clearly they find their own way and decide what really turns them on and what things they turn away from. But three out of four kids just quitting sports? There’s going to be some attrition, but that’s a high number.
Q: Dr. BRUCE SVARE, Dir of the National Institute for Sports Reform, said that sports at the youngest level is about making better people, not better athletes. He said that the basic conflict or imbalance between the parents’ needs (victories, scholarships) vs. the kids’ needs (fun) has to change or we will continue to see kids leave sports by age 13.
Wolff: That’s a pretty fair statement. The continuing problem we have is with the parents. It’s never about the kids having issues. It’s the parents who, quite frankly, lose their way, lose their perspective, lose their cool, or don’t have a real sense of reality about their kids. And that, unfortunately, is where a lot of the conflict ends up.
Q: How would you characterize the state of youth sports?
Wolff: Clearly, as our population grows at the younger levels, more and more kids are playing sports. As to whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, that’s hard to say. I do think that parents unfortunately cause a lot of the concerns or problems for kids today -- after coaches. On the other hand, thanks to Title IX, which didn’t exist 30 years ago, these are wonderful times to be a girl and play sports.
Also, I would caution that a number of stats from the NCAA suggest that less than 5 [%]of all high school varsity athletes ever go on to play college sports. So, in effect, for 95 [%] of all of our children, who first start playing when they’re five or six, they’re done with organized sports by the time they’re 18. You’re talking about basically a 13-year span [of activity].
Q: With all the concerns and problems, do you still consider youth sports a wholesome activity?
Wolff: Don’t get me wrong: Sports are wonderful. I’m very bullish on youth sports. It’s good for the kids’ well-being physically. It’s a great outlet for their competitive drives. It’s great for them to enjoy the excitement and spontaneity of being a teammate. These are wonderful times for kids who play sports. We just want to make sure that the other concerns about youth sports are taken care of and addressed.
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| More Sports Following Golf With
Focus On Private Instruction |
Q: Youth sports have spawned an entire sub industry of products and services geared to the young athletes and their parents: self-help tools, books, videos, camps, equipment, and apparel. You have children now who specialize in one sport at a young age.
Wolff: That’s correct. The best way to draw perspective on this is [to remember that] 20 years ago, if there were sports camps in the summertime, they were probably few and far between. Nowadays, it’s pretty common [to find] sports camps where you can go and play just one sport or play a couple of sports all day. There are private tutors to coach kids. You know, you pay so much an hour to have your kid work on his batting stroke or his free-throw shooting, or whatever it may be. Twenty years ago, most of private instruction was limited to people who were tennis pros or guys who gave golf lessons at the country club. But nowadays, you name any sport, and chances are there is somebody who will come and work with your kids for a fee.
Q: And there are more travel teams.
Wolff: Travel teams have made a huge impact on traditional varsity sports. I can’t emphasize that enough. If a kid does make a travel team, then invariably the parent has to pay for the kid to be on the team, and that can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. So, yes, a whole number of industries have cropped up in the last 10-15 years because of youth sports.
Q: Those travel team schedules sometimes conflict with varsity schedules, and decisions have to be made.
Wolff: That’s an issue that high school coaches and parents and kids just can’t seem to get around. It puts everybody in a very awkward spot. The parents say it’s not fair to the kids to make them choose one sport or the other. Then again, it’s not fair to the coach to have to put up with a kid who’s not there all the time. It’s a real concern for a lot of people.
Q: You have said that parental approval is the first model for children.
Wolff: When kids are four or five years old and go out to learn a sport -- to throw a ball with dad or kick a soccer ball with mom -- the kids clearly are looking for parental approval. The parent is usually the one who encourages them and gives them a pat on the back. That’s when kids are first involved with sports. As they get a little older, then things begin to get toward not only the parental approval but also toward the coach, to try to make the coach happy. That’s very normal. And that happens in school as well. The kid wants to do well to please mom and dad.
Q: You wrote “What Every Parent Should Know About Kids in Sports.” What is the most important thing a parent should know?
Wolff: From my perspective, it’s that their child is not put on the field or the court or the ice to fulfill the parents’ own failed dreams in sports: the old expression about living vicariously through one’s son or daughter. Parents have to understand that, yes, that is your flesh and blood out there -- and they take great pride in what their kids do -- but it’s not you. And just because you always dreamed of one day playing centerfield for the Yankees, doesn’t mean that your child has the same dream. Parents unfortunately sometimes subconsciously forget that, and they see themselves in their youngsters, and that’s not fair to them.
Q: The term “helicopter parents” describes those who hover above their children’s activities. You wrote, “We’re the first generation of parents who are so hyperactive.” The N.Y. Times in a recent article referred to those parents who “are so determined that their progeny be successful [that] they do whatever it takes to help them thrive, including doing their homework for them.”
Wolff: That “helicopter” term does not apply just to sports kids. It applies to kids in general. Parents want the best for their child, which is a good thing. But I think sometimes, when it comes to sports, they figure, “You know what? If my kid really wants this dream badly enough and works hard at it, and I am able financially to get them specialized coaching and send them to the best camps and get them everything I possibly can to insure their success, then that’s my job as a parent.”
The problem is, the parents forget one very important thing: To succeed in athletics, particularly at the high school or collegiate or pro level, the kid has to be born with a certain amount of talent. You can take any kid and work with them endlessly, but unless they have the God-given ability to be good at that sport, it’s not going to pay off.
Q: That same article cited ANNETTE LAREAU’s “Unequal Childhoods,” a study published in ‘03 that said that the upper middle class believes in “intense cultivation” of their children.
Wolff: It’s the same thing. The helicopter parents try to insure that their kids get a leg up so that they don’t miss out on great things in society or sports or school. Those aren’t necessarily bad sentiments. The problem is when the parents go too far and lose perspective.
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| Wolff Says Developing Children's
Passion For Sport Should Be Initial Goal |
Q: With youth sports, has competition gotten a bad name in the pursuit of self-esteem and positive reinforcement for young athletes?
Wolff: There’s nothing wrong with competition. My sense is that when the kids are first learning how to play, the score isn’t that important. There’s no reason to rush the kids. You just want them to develop a passion for what’s going on. Parents should not be keeping stats. By the time the kids are ten or 11, they can add and subtract and keep score themselves. That’s when you can start keeping score.
Q: EPIPHANNY PRINCE, a senior at Murray Bergtraum High School in New York, scored a national-record 113 points in her team's 137-32 victory over Brandeis High School. Was this competitiveness, or lack of sportsmanship, or something else?
Wolff: I don’t blame the youngster for scoring all those points. She was simply told to go out and play hard, and that’s just what she did. However, I do wonder why her coach would leave her in for the entire game. That was unnecessary, and clearly smacks of unsportsmanlike behavior. He should have taken her out at halftime and let the other girls on the team play.
Q: You said, “There’s been a general decline in decorum in public places these days. Twenty years ago, there was more of an element of civility.” Could the same be true of sportsmanship?
Wolff: Yes.
Q: Does participation in sports have a positive effect on a student-athlete’s academic performance?
Wolff: Yes. There have been several studies over the years that show that time-management skills for kids who played athletics helps them focus their time and do better in school. That’s come from the NCAA and the National High School Federation.
Q: Are today’s professional athletes role models? Should they be?
Wolff: It’s hard to legislate that. I think it’s up to the parent to steer the child towards those players the parent likes and society thinks highly of.
