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In many suburban settings, the term "pick up game" is largely
unknown. While a daily staple of urban communities and older
neighborhoods, especially in inner cities, sports activities, whether
games such as basektball or football or perhaps shagging fly balls that
are not organized by adults for kids are largely unheard of in the
suburbs. As we have become more and more conscious of violence, abuse of
children, assaults, and the like, as parents we have reacted by
restricting the athletic activity of our children that is unsupervised
by adults to a minimum. A lot of this is both understandable and
warranted. But today, the extent to which parents sheperd their children
within our suburban communities seems self defeating when you consider
some of the opportunities available to kids left to pursue sports with a
minimum of oversight.
This is not intended as a jeremiad about returning kid sports to the
"good old days," whatever those were. Rather it's an effort on our part
at Sportademics to begin a dialogue with our readers about the role of
sport in the lives of young people. Do the hours so many of us as
parents spend shuttling children to and from soccer, T-ball, swimming,
gymnastics and other "club sports" really do that much for the kids
themselves? Never mind the time it takes away from other things we might
otherwise be doing with our children. Are there "neighborhood
solutions" that might offer kids an outlet for physical activity of
their own devising? Can we assume an "overwatch" position, so to speak,
that lets kids play sports on their own terms, relatively free of direct
adult involvement? Can we trust our 13, 14, 15 year olds to seek their
own level and interests when it comes to sports?
Growing up in a small town, I was first exposed to baseball in a
vacant lot next to a friend's house. I went home with him from school
(he had a motorcycle-like scooter-a Cuishman Eagle-long since departed
from the mobility scene). (Back then, really young kids could ride these
things with impunity, sort of). Anyhow, while I was at his house, he
asked if I wanted to play some baseball with some of the kids in the
neighborhood. I readily accepted and thus began a long running love
affair with the game. We didn't keep score. The bases were what ever we
could find to call a base: a piece of styrofoam, a brick, a stick. The
ball was not lilly white--it was a well worn muddy brown as I recall. We
had one bat and a couple of gloves. But it was baseball and we were
"baseball players." Does something like that still happen today? Can it?
Are we willing to let our kids just "play ball"? Or are we so hyper
competitive for them--they are largely not for themselves--that if they
are going to do sports, it can only be with the proper amount of
coaching and adult oversight?
These are the sort of questions we want to put out there for
discussion in this section of sportademics.com. Offer us your opinions.
We want to know what you think about kids, sports and pick up games.
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