Those lazy days of summer are upon us at last! Now it’s time to find stuff to do. Back when we first began this backyard fun discussion, both Carol and Julie K. posted musings on the joys of fishing. Julie says that when she finally manages to kick her kids off the video games, they usually head for the park to fish and find wildlife. And lucky Carol lives in a neighborhood with a lake. If you don’t have a fishing pond in your backyard, fret not. There are plenty of places to take your kids and tackle box here in the Bay Area. Start with these five ideas…
1. If you’re not a fisherman yourself, the easiest way to start is at a Fishing Clinic. These free, 45-minute clinics are sponsored by California’s Fish & Game Department, and they feature learning stations on everything from safety and knots to casting and ecological lessons too. The clinics are designed for families with kids 5 and up. All equipment is supplied. And the next one is this Saturday, June 20 from 8 a.m. to noon at Newark’s Lakeshore Park. Get there early! The last clinic starts at 10 a.m., although once you’re in, you can fish till noon. Read the rest of this entry »
Whether they admit it or not, I suspect most fathers of Little Leaguers live vicariously through their children. Am I projecting? Perhaps. I’ve always told myself it’s OK so long as the kid isn’t aware of the old man’s vicarious thrills. Am I rationalizing? Perhaps.
There’s a fantastic, deeply disturbing article by Mark Hyman, author of “Until It Hurts: America’s Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids,” in this week’s Sports Illustrated Magazine, which hit newstands this morning. A disturbing and escalating number of youth sports injuries, says Hyman, are caused by athletics-obsessed parents who push their children too hard, causing chronic overuse injuries that can impact not just their children’s prowess on the court and in the field, but their growth plates and physical development.
How bad is it? Hyman says Lyle Micheli, a Children’s Hospital Boston doctor and co-founder of the nation’s first youth sports medicine clinic 35 years ago, no longer makes small talk with the thousands of Little Leaguers, future Olympians and everyday young athletes he meets each year. He just asks them where it hurts. Back in the early days of his Boston clinic, sports injuries stemmed from gridiron pileups or ill-advised slides into second base. Even as recently as the 1990s, only 20% of young athletes’ injuries stemmed from repetitive stress and chronic over-use. Now, it’s 75%.
“They’ve trained—and overtrained—in their sports,” writes Hyman, “until their bodies just can’t take it anymore.” Read the rest of this entry »
If Michael Phelps were a teenager and your son, what would you do if you caught him smoking pot? New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey says USA Swimming made the wrong call. Read the rest of this entry »
Forget that they look as if they’re 10 years old. Ignore all those “misleading and erroneous” records posted online that listed the ages of some Chinese gymnasts as 14 years old. Pretend its possible for an athlete to state one year that she’s 13 and the next that she’s suddenly 16 — she just misspoke that first time around.
The international gymnastics federation says everything is peachy regarding the ages of the Chinese gymnasts who competed and won gold at the Beijing Olympics in August. Federation officials have checked passports and other documents, verifying the gymnasts were all the legal age of 16. (Of course, the Chinese government produced said documents — and yes, I’m alleging that the government was a party to duplicity.) Case closed on the 2008 team, but hey, at least the federation is still investigating the suspect ages of two Chinese gymnasts from the 2000 Olympics. Due diligence, right?
As a former Olympics beat writer, I’ve had a lot of people ask why age-gate matters. Who cares if the gymnasts are 14 or 16? The international age limit is a “ridiculous” policy in the first place, they say. Except, it’s not. That rule is the only thing keeping the highly exploitive sport of gymnastics in check.
Baseball season’s winding down - or rather sliding full speed into championships - and rec swimming, water polo and summer sports camps are revving up, and those achy knees, slipping shoulders and jammed fingers just keep going, don’t they? So, here’s a Fab Five list to help keep young athletes healthy and injury-free, with a little help from St. Louis University’s director of athletic training education Tony Breitbach:
1.Doublecheck the equipment. Kids grow fast, so gear that fit perfectly last year may be too small now. “Ill-fitting shoes can be an especially big problem,” says Breitbach. “Last summer’s baseball cleats will likely not be right for this summer.” And protective equipment - cups, helmets, shin guards - must fit properly to protect.
2. Watch the diet - low fat, lean protein and complex carbohydrates - and hydration. Athletes need lots of complex carbs – what Breitbach calls “high-energy foods” – right before and after a game or workout. And water, water, water. “People place way too much emphasis on energy and sports drinks,” he says, “hen good cool water will do just fine. Don’t give him a bottle of water for a long game. A jug would be better.” Read the rest of this entry »
There’s been a lively discussion going on all week over California High’s dugout fiasco. Now here’s another question for you. Do you see conflicts between your high school’s academic philosophy and its athletic practices? Have you had coaches tell your kids their priorities should be: 1) swimming (baseball, soccer, etc.), 2) sleep and 3) academics, in that order?
Do the North Coast Section and league championship trials and finals conflict with AP exams at your kids’ high school? I’m not talking “conflict” as in “cuts into studying time,” although that’s certainly a concern. I mean, games and meets that start during the exam. Senior year, our oldest son had to choose between swimming in the DFAL league trials, which began at 2:15 p.m., and taking a German AP exam that ran from 12:30 to well after 4 p.m.
There’s a tempest brewing in California High’s baseball dugout, after a San Ramon Valley family accused coaches of giving members of their year-round, non-school team prized JV and varsity positions that left other players out in the cold. In essence, coaches were playing favorites, the family charged, with players who’d paid to play.
Frankly, it’s a common complaint, particularly in prosperous suburban areas where kids play high-octane, year-round ball, and their parents routinely hire private pitching/batting/whatever mentors to help their kids excel. In this case, school officials investigated and found no evidence of preferential treatment, but one of the coaches was removed halfway through the season, so commence with the dot-connecting.
Having had four kids play nearly every kind of aquatic and field sport for the last decade and a half, we’ve heard similar charges lobbed every time someone’s kid gets cut from a varsity team or doesn’t get as much playing time as mom or dad expects — and we have to say, this is a complicated issue. Read the rest of this entry »
Is your kid spending his childhood on the soccer field? Is your family’s summer a series of non-stop swim meets? There’s no doubt that youth sports have taken over family life. If your kid is playing year-round everything because he or she loves it, that’s one thing, but if it’s because you think there’s an athletic scholarship or professional sports glory waiting in his future, you need to read this morning’s New York Times story, “Athletic Scholarships: Expectations Lose to Reality.”
Parents sacrifice weekends and vacations to tournaments and specialty camps, spending thousands each year in this quest for the holy grail. But the expectations of parents and athletes can differ sharply from the financial and cultural realities of college athletics…
“People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once so they could always reach the next level,” said Margaret Barry of Laurel, Md., whose daughter is a scholarship swimmer at the University of Delaware. “They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?”
And what’s never discussed is the downside to playing college ball, track, swimming, etc. - the painfully early morning weight training, long practices and travel time. There’s a reason colleges routinely hire tutors for their star athletes. Read the rest of this entry »
Those lazy days of summer are upon us at last! Now it’s time to find stuff to do. Back when we first began this backyard fun discussion, both Carol and Julie K. posted musings on the joys of fishing. Julie says that when she finally manages to kick her kids off the video games, they usually head for the park to fish and find wildlife. And lucky Carol lives in a neighborhood with a lake. If you don’t have a fishing pond in your backyard, fret not. There are plenty of places to take your kids and tackle box here in the Bay Area. Start with these five ideas…
