I’m always amazed on my daily drive home at the numbers of urban children I see playing basketball, football, tag, made-up games, etc… I don’t think I stand alone with amazement at the skill level and athleticism of these athletes when they become young adults. There ability to accelerate, deccelerate, jump, change direction, etc… cannot be gained in a week-long camp.
In more affluent communitites parents send their kids to expensive sports camps, travel teams, personal positional coaches, private lessons, etc… yet they rarely match the athleticism of the children that never go to those camps, coaches, etc…
I constantly hear from people who live in middle income areas who complain about how their children can’t compete against the money schools, how they can’t send their kids to week-long camps, how their kids have to work to pay for a car and car insurance and so on and so forth.
But both the upper and middle class schools get consistantly beat by the urban programs in football, basketball and track.
So the topic of conversation is, do the Haves dominate the Have Nots or in some situations the other way around? Or is it sport specific? Obviously if I don’t have access to a pool I won’t become a world-class swimmer. But I could always run.
Some of the top football programs in Texas (nationally) are rich schools. That’s just because of much more advanced coaching and systems developing middle schoolers. The top recruits usually still do come from the lower income schools.
For basketball it’s a level playing field, so the rich schools usually can’t hang athletically although coaching can also close the gap in some cases.
I grew up in the inner city. and I have to tell you that it starts from an early age. We were contantly doing athletic things all day everyday. We would pratice back flips, play fight etc we used to have something called the Ghetto-lmpics whre we would race and do SLJ and verticals. We did not have any entertainment at home so all we had was playing outside. Couple that with bad tempers and anger… you have some fast strong kids…
Over here in London…same thing…My little crew used to have these types of Games similar to the World Champs or Olympics! It was heavy! Sprints,Long distance races around the gardens and block. Throwing events etc. These were the days when you valued being a kid! Try telling that to some of these new cats and they’re like “what…later! I’m playing on my PS2” or some shit like that…Cats in my days were also strong and fast!
I don’t know if it’s socioeconomic so much as a generational thing. Suburban kids today don’t just play anywhere near as much as they used to. City kids, at least poor ones, still do since they don’t have the video games, etc.
I’ve heard hockey people decry the lack of playing instinct, especially goal-scoring “knack” among players coming up since they aren’t skating rivers and ponds all day, just learning how to play the game. They’re programmed by their youth league coaches and then do something else between practices, rather than getting out there on the pond and seeing what they can do.
True. I think coaches who train kids need to keep it general until the kids can specialized at the early teen years. I think when kids play many sports they develop a good “vocabulary” of movements as opposed to kids who specialized to early.
Basketball, football…these are easy sports to have access to growing up. All you need is one ball and a small group of friends. Poor, rich, etc. can all learn.
Some of the finest baseball players in America were raised in absolutely shocking poverty in Latin America. I mean the sort of poverty that is virtually unknown in America. Yet with bad nutrition, bad facilities, bad clothes and bad material, they become Sammy Sosa.
It’s really amazing. You can build successful athletes with rudimentary weight training facilities and whatnot. Ask Charlie Francis! He built the world’s premier sprint team in the 1980’s with little budget and a hostile Canadian bureaucracy.
Swimming, tennis - these sports require money, which is why poorer players are rare. Swimming, the sport I compete in, is still mostly middle to upper class. That’s ashame. There are great African American swimmers, but not nearly as many as you’d like to see.
Swimming, tennis - these sports require money, which is why poorer players are rare. Swimming, the sport I compete in, is still mostly middle to upper class. That’s ashame. There are great African American swimmers, but not nearly as many as you’d like to see.
This is a great discussion. I’d like Charlies thoughts if possible. We can surmise that good athletes can be developed without a load of money backing them. Except in a few sports like swimming and equestrian. Any others?
I think you could become decent in tennis if you start off as a youngster with a partner or a wall and then as you get older get some instruction. There are literally thousands of athletes at that tennis complex, (I can’t remember the name) in Florida. How many of these kids make it to the national or even international level. Perhaps they get college scholarships. For the money spent on lessons you could spend on tution.
I was introduced recently to a 13 year old young man from Ghana. He lived in the Bronx since he came to America at age 10. This young man has the most skill as a soccer player that I have seen in nearly 20 years of experience. On top of that he is a fierce competitor. All he did growing up was play soccer all day. Sometimes by himself, sometimes with friends.
I’d like to use him as an example when the soccer moms want to know why little Jimmy isn’t being recruited by any DI programs. “But we sent him to all those camps!” Maybe some of these parents are misguided. You just can’t throw money around and think your kid is going to develop based on the cost of a camp.
I’ve heard hockey people decry the lack of playing instinct, especially goal-scoring “knack” among players coming up since they aren’t skating rivers and ponds all day, just learning how to play the game. They’re programmed by their youth league coaches and then do something else between practices, rather than getting out there on the pond and seeing what they can do.[/QUOTE]
The problem with teaching youngsters to play hockey is that there are so many important skills to teach, and only 2-3 hours/week to do week (due to the cost of ice time). In that time players need to work on passing, shooting, defence and most importantly, skating, so there is little time to work on creativity and offensive ability. However, with most sports like hockey I believe creativity and offensive ability can’t really be taught. Some people just have it, while some don’t.
A friend of mine teaches at a golf school in Hilton Head. It is a school that costs maybe 30,000 a year where kids can get an education but get golf instruction every day. With this some kids do get scholarships but I was surprised that even though these kids have been immersed in golf, no one has yet been able to break into the PGA. The money would be better spent on a Harvard education.
I’ll add my 2 cents on football because you guys have hit on something that really pisses me off!!
For years now suburban kids haven’t been playing football in the sandlots. Parents put their kids into minor football at the age of 9. They slap on the equipment and go out and play the game the way it must have been played before the forward pass was invented. What we get is this:
Kids coming in at the high school level who can’t throw, can’t run a route, can’t catch a pass, can’t cover and have absolutely no f**king clue about anything other than playing buck-buck and give the ball to the big kid at RB and see if he can run away from everybody or over all the little kids.
Put that on top of the parents who having no fking idea whether the ball is blown up or stuffed it leaves us with … a clusterfk!!!
Football Coach
P.S. My compliments to all the minor coaches out there in all sports who actually teach the kids what their respective games are all about. There just aren’t enough of you.
It’s tough to tell my friends I don’t want to watch their kids play. Tougher to tell the kids. And now kids hockey season is in full swing. Neanderthal.
[QUOTE=Football Coach]<snip>
Kids coming in at the high school level who can’t throw, can’t run a route, can’t catch a pass, can’t cover and have absolutely no f**king clue about anything other than playing buck-buck and give the ball to the big kid at RB and see if he can run away from everybody or over all the little kids.
Put that on top of the parents who having no fking idea whether the ball is blown up or stuffed it leaves us with … a clusterfk!!!<end>
If someone who doesn’t know baseball gets shanghaied into coaching their kid’s team, I’d tell them that they could do a pretty good job by just watching a typical practice, observing what the “coach” does, and then do the opposite. I used to practice at a park, and what these guys would do with the kids is almost comical. The ones who actually have a clue and give a damn deserve double credit since they have to put up with the idiot parents who, not used to seeing a coach who knows something, are no doubt questioning his every move. Do you encounter opposition from parents, Football Coach?
The odd time over the years I’ve had a parent or fan who would tell me what I should do. I explain to them in detail why I do what I do. In detail and quickly. I don’t dummy it down for them. They are lost long before I reach the end of the first sentence. When they try to beg off after a minute or so I won’t let them go. I’ll keep them there listening for 5-10 minutes. That usually solves it.
I’ve never had to deal with any assholes though. Probably because I’m a fairly good coach and I’m also a players coach. So the parents know I have their kids best interest at heart.
If a parent or fan asks me a question I’m always happy to explain to them in simple terms why I do what I do.