Adults should keep hands out of youth sports

Jason Gallic – Opinions in Paradise

There were many times during my high school athletic career when I just couldn’t get myself on track.

Jump shots seemed not to find the mark or my hands felt like ice blocks when I tried to dribble the basketball. I would trip over my own feet on defense and throw errant passes.

Many times after such erratic play and the subsequent benching, I would turn to the bleachers and search out my mother. She sat in the same place every game. She would smile, sometimes shrug her shoulders and then clap me some encouragement.

There were also times when I was on top of my game, when it seemed that I was incapable of doing wrong.

I turned to the stands then, too. My mother would smile, sometimes shrug her shoulders and then clap me some encouragement.

It used to frustrate me to no end that she was never overt with her emotions – particularly when I excelled.

Other boys’ moms I’d hear hooting and hollering, or at least cheering loudly and raising their arms with pride.

Not mine.

Why not, I’d ask her.

She’d say she was cheering, and that she didn’t see any need to attract attention for the purposes of supporting her son. She’d remind me that nothing was to be gained in volume.

What a brilliant woman.

Those years now passed, I see the infinite wisdom in her silhouetted approach to comprising my fan club.

But it’s not just time that’s shown me. It’s the actions of other parents.

I wrote a column last year about how obnoxious certain mothers and fathers can be when it comes to cheering their young ones – to the point of embarrassing the aspiring athlete.

Well, it’s worse.

One need look no farther than that bastion of purity, Little League Baseball, for proof.

By now it’s common knowledge, high-velocity pitcher Danny Almonte is not 12 but 14, his birth certificate forged by his father, Felipe de Jesus Almonte.

It’s just the latest example of not simply obnoxious behavior (which, of course, it is) but blatant interference. Interference with Danny’s desire to play a game he loves and to become an honest human being.

We see parents interfering frequently. Every time two of them get into a fist fight at a youth hockey game or baseball contest. Every time one takes a coach aside to questions substitution patterns.

Every time we hear about a gymnasts’ stunted growth or a tennis player sent to the Bollettieri Academy at the age of eight or a ballerina with poor circulation in her toes.

Do we really think a kid under 10 years old is that driven to succeed – at anything?

No. It’s the interfering parent driven by ego and vicarious experience.

Or worse, money.

Which is likely what was driving Felipe de Jesus Almonte to falsify his kid’s age, keep him in the United States illegally, not send him to school, lie to Little League officials and deceive his son’s teammates and the other boys playing baseball.

Maybe the dream was that Danny would deliver unmatched performances at the Little League World Series (which he did), have his face plastered on newspaper front pages and television screens (which it was), get the attention of major league players and Big Wigs (he did) and put himself in line for future contract consideration – where his father might have stood to receive a cut.

Since when did it become okay to turn one’s child into a tool, a thing one uses for personal gain?

Danny may still have the opportunity to play professionally. Who knows?

But scandal will now follow his name indefinitely; he has been scarred for life. And all at the exploiting hand of his own father.

Outside of coaching and watching (Team Moms are usually okay, too), parents should stay out of organized youth sports.

The risk of meddling is too high.

I can now look back fondly on the way my mother carried herself at the thousands of sporting events to which she accompanied me. There was a bit of shame, then, because I thought she wasn’t getting much enjoyment.

Turns out she was just making sure that’s all she got.