Single-sport training year-round not good for kids or budget

The question that Bob Veller, youth hockey director for the Rolling Meadows Park District, gets most often is also the hardest one for him to answer:

“How do you know when your child is truly gifted in a particular sport and warrants advanced (and usually expensive) training?”

His stock answer, he said, is that the child will let the parent know when he or she wants to concentrate on a particular sport. It is very important that parents let children make their own decisions with regard to playing sports, he added.

“I advocate that my players try soccer, baseball, everything they think looks fun. Don’t let them or suggest that they should devote themselves to any one sport until they are at least in their early teens,” Veller said.

“Having a child on the ice 24/7 at the age of 7 is not going to turn them into the next Jonathan Toews,” he said.

Often, coaches tell parents what they want to hear because they don’t want them to leave a particular sports program, according to Veller.

“That is why you have some families that are paying so much for hockey that they have taken out a second mortgage on their house,” Veller said. “I know one family that is paying $10,000 a year for their 14-year-old to play and participate in clinics, camps, etc.

“It just isn’t worth that kind of money because the odds are against them ever becoming pro athletes. Most youth hockey players will end up happy to get a college scholarship or a job as a referee or in a related field like sports medicine,” he said.

Brian Grasso, president of the International Youth Conditioning Association and author of “Training Young Athletes: The Grasso Method,” agrees with Veller.

“I remember a Wall Street Journal article in November 2004 that estimated that Americans at that time spent $4 billion each year on athletic training for kids and that is crazy,” he said.

Parents who invest a lot of money to have their children train exclusively in one sport from a young age, Grasso said, will invariably end up poorer and will usually be disappointed by that child’s eventual sports achievements.

“Youth sports must be played seasonally. Children absolutely should not play one sport year-round,” Grasso said. “Otherwise they are at risk for injuries, weight concerns later in life and emotional trauma.”

Many aging skaters and gymnasts whose parents allowed them to train exclusively in one sport at a young age are overweight and emotionally stunted adults because they lived an unnatural life, seeing few people but their parents and their coaches, Grasso said.

“Between the ages of 0 and 15 is when children learn the most about the world, what it is to be a human, how to be part of a team, etc.,” Grasso explained. “Those who don’t have the opportunity to do that at the appropriate age end up with a prima donna complex.

“Imagine home schooling your child but never allowing him or her to have contact with the larger community. Imagine the emotional trauma that would cause. Children who specialize in a particular sport too young experience the same thing,” he continued.

“I compare it to academics which most parents can understand,” he explained. “If a child was good at math, would you withdraw them from reading and science? No. They need to be well-rounded in both academics and sports.”

Training in other sports promotes multilateral development which is necessary for children to advance to the next level in any sport, Grasso said. Even Olympic athletes only devote 75 percent of their training time to the sport of their choice. The other 25 percent is spent on training that is not sport-specific.

Unless a child is interested in swimming, gymnastics or figure skating, all of which tend to see peak performance at a younger age, Grasso advocates that children not specialize in a sport like football, baseball, soccer or hockey and have parents invest a lot of money in training until they are 15 or 16 years old.

“And stay away from a conversation with any coach about a child’s ‘promise’ in a sport,” he continued. “Kids are a mixed bag. No one coach can predict how a child’s abilities will develop. Remember that Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky were both late bloomers. It wasn’t until they got older that they became dominant in a particular sport.”

When talking to a coach, the main thing to discuss is his or her training philosophy, according to Grasso. Make sure that they advocate multilateral development which exposes a young athlete to many different types of training that are not necessarily sport-specific. Unfortunately, he said, many coaches don’t yet grasp the concept.

“Be an ambitious consumer. If a coach talks about specializing and ‘sport enhancement training,’ walk away,” he said.

Grasso’s organization offers training and certification in the youth athletic development industry. For more information about the International Youth Conditioning Association, based in Elizabethtown, Ky., log onto iyca.org.