Crisis on Our Playing Fields

“At the heart of these problems (in sports) is a profound change in the American culture of sports itself. At one time, that culture was defined by colleges, high schools, summer leagues, and countless community recreational programs. Amateurism was a cherished ideal. In such a context, it made sense to regard athletics as an educational undertaking. Young people were taught values ranging from fitness, cooperation, teamwork, and perseverance to sportsmanship as moral endeavor. All of that seems somehow archaic and quaint today.”
The Knight Commission, A Call to Action, 2001

“….organized sport in America is not all bad. There are plenty of coaches and athletic programs committed to instilling positive values in participants. There are thousands of athletes who benefit greatly from athletic participation. And there is a degree of value in sports’ entertainment function. But while it is not all bad, it is clearly not what it is supposed to be. The fact is, an honest, rational argument can be made that organized sports’ overall influence within our culture has become more negative than positive, that the moral basis upon which it was built has crumbled to dust and, as a result, has left it devoid of meaning. Merely the fact that such an argument can be made should certainly give us reason to pause”.
John Gerdy (Sports: The All-American Addiction 2002)

Chapter 1 (From Svare, B. 2004, "Crisis on Our Playing Fields: What Everyone Should Know About Our Out of Control Sports Culture and What We Can Do to Change It", Sports Reform Press)

Journalist Rick Reilly wrote an essay in Sports Illustrated entitled “Parental Discretion Advised” in which he poked some fun at our present unbalanced sports landscape. His piece consisted of a running conversation between two fathers that were caught up in their own children’s sports success and their potential for careers as professional athletes. The two fathers, labeled as Nike cap and Reebok headband, engaged in one-up-manship as they went on to discuss how they intended to position their respective star athletes for success. The usual trappings of our modern sports landscape soon emerged as the proud fathers discussed how they were giving their children an edge in the competition for material gain. They insisted upon specialization at an early age as well as extra personal coaching, intensive sports camps, and travel to select competitive tournaments. To show their commitment to their child’s athletic dreams, both fathers discussed their families’ personal sacrifices such as extra jobs to pay the expenses and lost weekends in the pursuit of athletic excellence. At the same time, they belittled other parents who sought a more normal, less pressurized existence for their children by allowing them just to be kids. This included permitting them to miss games for school activities or even to take a summer off completely away from any form of athletic participation.

The essay finishes with the following sequence:

“Which one’s yours, anyway?” says the cap.
“The little one in the pink diaper near the incubator,” says the headband.
“Beautiful. Mine’s in the blue. With the nurse and the bottle.”
“Got creatine?”
“Hey, it’s never too early to start, am I right?”

Though written in his usual tongue-in-cheek style, Reilly’s piece is sadly prophetic since this is what sports are rapidly becoming in this country. Almost like a race to see who can engineer the best athlete, the competition often exploits our youths from their early childhood all the way through to their collegiate years. Sadly, it does so at the expense of long-term physical, intellectual, and emotional development.

How early does the serious business of becoming an athlete begin? Try the time of birth on for size where there are increasing reports by pediatric physicians that more and more parents are opting to delay the start of their child’s schooling an extra year. The reason given? To provide their child a physical edge down the road when a college athletic scholarship might be in the cards and ultimately a professional contract is in long range sight.

There is a crisis brewing on our nation’s playing fields and it is fueled in part by the unprecedented popularity of sports in our country. Look at the nationwide figures today regarding sports participation and you will see some staggering numbers. Roughly 22 million 6-18 year olds participate in youth sports programs such as Little League baseball and Pop Warner football; approximately 16 million athletes are involved in intramural or interscholastic sports; 2 million are involved in club or fee based programs; 332,000 are involved in intercollegiate athletics. These numbers, which represent dramatic increases over what they were 10 and 20 years ago, clearly indicate the rising popularity of sports in our country.

At the same time however, take a look at the dark side of our sports landscape and reflect upon some issues that many of us thought unimaginable when we played sports in our youth, adolescent and college years. Listed below are the 12 deadly sins of our modern sports culture:

• Sports have become very serious business and immense pressure is now placed upon the early specialization and professionalization of young athletes, the intense promotion of athletic achievement for the reward of an athletic scholarship or professional contract, and winning at all costs.
• Academic corruption is pervasive in our public schools and institutions of higher learning that house big-time sports programs.
• Commercialism and the big business of pre-professional sports is increasing and threatening the integrity of our academic institutions.
• The utilization of supplements and performance enhancing drugs is pervasive and has been fueled by a culture of winning at all costs.
• Declining sportsmanship, elevated violence, and the general misbehavior of athletes, coaches, parents, and fans threatens to compromise the essence of athletic competition.
• Sports injuries and other health related issues are increasing for almost all levels of athletics and not enough is being done to prevent them.
• The media acts irresponsibly and at times unethically in the manner in which it overexposes, glamorizes and hypes the lives of young athletes and popularizes their misbehavior both on and off the field.
• Sports gambling and the printing of point spread information threatens to undermine the integrity of sports.
• Sports opportunities are shifting dramatically and producing severe inequities in many segments of our society.
• Competitive sports, which satisfies the needs of a small group of elite athletes, is the dominant theme in our sports culture while recreational and fitness-based sports, which satisfies the needs of the vast majority, have been de-emphasized.
• Existing sports governing bodies, youth and amateur organizations, and educational institutions have done a poor job of protecting the health and welfare of athletes who are increasingly abused and exploited by our present sports culture.
• Our sports loving parents, many of whom are well intentioned but not sufficiently armed with important information, may not be aware of the threat posed to their children if our runaway sports culture is not reformed before it is too late.

Sports participation can be a wonderful experience in the lives of our developing youths. In its purest form, sports allow us to improve as individual human beings. Sports foster the development of character, fitness, teamwork, ethics, integrity, fair play, and sportsmanship. They allow our youths to experience the thrill of victory as well as the disappointment of defeat. Learning to win with grace and to lose with humility has also been a cherished byproduct of an experience in organized sports. At one time, sports were a positive educational experience for all those who participated. But, there presently is a sick and gloomy sense that sports are not what they used to be and that the educational principles upon which they were founded have become sadly irrelevant. Sports at one time were a part of the educational process but now they stand distinctly separate from it. The end result is that our young athletes are being exploited and abused like never before.

Does this concern you as you shepherd your own children through youth, scholastic, amateur, and collegiate sports? If it does, I hope that you will take a brief period of time to read this book. As a result, you may become motivated enough to tell others about it, and most importantly, you could become empowered to do something in your own family and your own sports community to rectify the ills of our present dysfunctional sports landscape. If this happens, then sports reform will begin to sweep across our country and a better educational and athletic experience will await your children and grandchildren.

The format for this book has been simplified for clarity and readability. First, each chapter begins by raising an important question about our sports culture. It is then followed by an answer with supporting evidence as well as some solutions to cure the problem. Its aim is to educate the reader about problems which threaten the underpinnings of pre-professional sports in our country. As you read each chapter, I encourage you to reflect upon the sports experiences of youth, scholastic, amateur, and collegiate athletes in your own community. You may find your own supporting evidence for the claims that are advanced in this book, and hopefully you will begin to realize the universal nature of the problems threatening sports in our nation today.

Second, I suggest some changes that are needed to bring sports back to the ideals upon which they were initially founded. These reforms are not novel in some cases but renewed resolve and effort is required to implement them. Some of the reform measures discussed here have been advanced by the Knight Foundation (A Call to Action) as well as sports reformers such as James Duderstadt (Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University), Walter Byers (Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes), John Gerdy (Sports in School: The Future of an Institution and Sports: The All-American Addiction), David Janda (The Awakening of a Surgeon: One Doctor’s Journey to Fight the System and Empower Your Community), Alan Sack and Ellen Staurowsky (College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA’s Amateur Myth), James Shulman and William Bowen (The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values), Murray Sperber (Beer and Circus: How Big-Time Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education and College Sports Inc.: The Athletic Department vs the University), and Andrew Zimbalist (Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports). In other cases my own ideas for reform are new and quite radical. Admittedly, if implemented, they could require a massive, but perhaps beneficial, reordering of our priorities in sport. In both cases however our only hope for change is the energy and commitment of you the reader…the next generation of adults who will be on the frontline of our sports culture guiding kids in their athletic endeavors.

[Return to the top of this article]