Sandlot Sports

I am looking for others to join me in the creatiion of a new concept in youth sports and activities. It will be called "Sandlot Sports."
The idea behind Sandlot Sports will be to reduce the artificial, adult-driven influences on athletic activities for young people and replace it with a version of the old informal style physical activites many of us grew up playing in sandlots across America.
As a young parent, I signed up my kids for soccer and baseball and track when they were all very young. With the best of intentions I became involved as a coach and official and organizer of every league they were a part of. Although I really did approach my involvement from a positive viewpoint and tried my best to avoid the pitfalls of becoming the stereotypical overbearing father, I did occasionally fall into the trap of putting too much emphasis on winning and standings and all stars, etc. I managed to keep some perspective, and as the years went on, I became more and more aware of the negative influence of parents in youth sports.

That's when the idea of Sandlot Sports hit me.

Imagine this scenario:

It is a Tuesday evening. You take your 6-year old daughter to the park where Sandlot Sports is holding their regular "practices" that day. Several hundred children and parents show up.
Around the park are several "stations" where trainers have set up areas to teach skills. Tonight, the skills are focused on soccer. There are separate stations where children can learn dribbling, passing, shooting, chipping, trapping, ball control, juggling and goalkeeper skills.

The kids rotate through the stations, spending about 20-30 minutes in each one. If they show up twice a week, it will take most kids three weeks to make it through each station once. They will go through the stations 3-4 times throughout the "season" and the trainers will vary the routines and increase the complexity of the drills as they see kids are picking up the skills.

Now it is Saturday.

The kids and parents show up at the park. The kids are divided up into teams by the trainers, who are at least somewhat familier with the skill levels of the kids.

The teams put on cover-ups and the games begin, with the trainers as referees who are only there to make sure no one gets hurt, and to remind kids to treat each other with a sense of fair play.

No scores are recorded.
No standings are kept.
There are no All-Stars.
There are no League Champions.
There are no Area Champions.
There are no Regional Champions.
There are no National Champions.
Most importantly - There are no Coaches!! There are no Team Moms! There are no banners!
No parents are allowed to scream on the sidelines - they are only permitted to watch and enjoy the fun their children are having.

Maybe we can return to some semblance of sanity as regards the physical and emotional development of our children, and stop trying to live our pathetic fantasies through them.