How much is enough?

[BigLion10]

Little Johnny could just walk or ride a bike like we used too

[beach bum]

Little Johnny could just walk or ride a bike like we used too

I used to bike around town thinking it was the greatest thing in the world until I could drive. I would ride it straight up to the gym doors and right on into the gym I'd go to shoot some hoops.... Most kids now think they are too cool for that and would not ride a bike around.

[Jimbo Morphis]

Then little Johnny probably doesn't need to be on the team if he causes that many problems

Do you remember little Johnny jokes?

[hogfan10]

AirWarren makes good points. I see impact from other activities being a bigger issue than football itself. Football has easily become one of the shortest season sports due to AAA regulations. Sure, it gets rolling during the hottest time of year, as well as a time most kids deem for "resting, sitting on the couch and playing x-box." So, I'd agree, if burn out occurs it may be because of other school activities or reasons, but not a time consumption issue. It seems baseball has become a year round sport for many due to the travel ball popularity. Most Jr. and Sr. High basketball programs practice and condition year round. It's good for kids to choose which activity they are passionate about and stick to it, whether it be 3 or just 1.

Agree and disagree.
At most schools in Arkansas, football is the driving school sport. Meaning that's where the emphasis is focused. Most schools, at least 5a down have coaches that coach multiple sports (head baseball coach is also an assistant football coach, etc.). Being that football is the driving sport, emphasis on football is literally year round. Offseason workouts for football b/4 baseball practice, etc. Everything takes a backseat to football; so if you're a kid that doesn't see much reward for all that work (playing time, scholarship potential), the logical (to some) conclusion is to forgo all that hard work and free up a lot of time for something else of interest.

[gameoflife]

Unless little Johnny is a stud and then he can do what he pleases.

[Coltfan2005]

Unless everyone hates Little Johnny. He has gotten in trouble for years.

Rascal steals packages from porches, I don't blame everyone for hating him.

[LakeRat]

We have a rule in the press box. If you want to question play calling you have to say what you would call before the play is ran.

I'd love to see a a rule in the stands that if you want to officiate from the bleachers you have wear a striped shirt and a dunce hat with flashing LEDs's to qualify...

Back on subject... several have mentioned "kids should be doing things a kid should be doing" outside of traditional sports seasons and the school schedules. We've had a significant shift in society/culture in the last 20 years with the advent of electronic technology within our daily lives.

Prior to that, kids went outside, interacted face to face and majority would engage in neighborhood sports activities in their free time. Even your non-athletic kids would get involved in pickup football, baseball, basketball games among their peers in their neighborhood. In my case on the coast we had surfing in the mix as well...

It was a natural progression from non-organized activities to sports programs and a lot of natural talent came from those neighborhood activities. Add to that a lot of kids could endure summer weather much better due to natural conditioning.

Whereas today... kids don't engage in non-organized outdoor sports hardly at all. Parents and school programs have also taken the competitive aspects and raised the bar way out of reach from just a fun factor. Even non-competitive programs like cheer now expect nearly Olympic level gymnastics just to make the squad.  If you aren't a college D1 or pro-prospect in any high school sport then what's the point of kids pushing themselves in all of these sports development programs..?

Kids can make a fair value judgement on investing their time and effort in this stuff and that's why I think you are seeing a lot of fallout from these programs. The competitive push and pressures are too high. The rewards and fun factors too low. Sadly the passion for a sport that was born on a corner lot or public sports complex by a neighborhood full of kids looking to "play" can't be found in a game console, TV or PC with A/C cranked all day...

[Chief_Osceola™]

^ Well said. Technology, and more specifically social media, has had a big hand in the decline. Fortnite is putting a lot more nails in the coffin.

[gameoflife]

Some people would say that we are raising generations of kids that don't have the same work ethic of past groups.  We want it easy and we want it now.  If I have to work real hard for a long time it isn't worth it.  Sort of like the give every kid a trophy for participating mentality.

[Overdahill]

I guess I'm out of step and just don't get it but I thought kicking butt with your friends on the football field was about the most fun thing ever and that the prep work to pull it off was pretty fun too; I mean who doesn't want to get bigger, stronger, and faster in HS or college? Yes we paid a price in terms of time and effort but it seemed a very worthwhile price to me. And, no we didn't win every game but just competing all out in every game was still rewarding

[Sigmund Sauer]

The 2 comments before this one are absolutely spot on! +1 +1

[KASH dba The Lumberjack]

Some people would say that we are raising generations of kids that don't have the same work ethic of past groups.  We want it easy and we want it now.  If I have to work real hard for a long time it isn't worth it.  Sort of like the give every kid a trophy for participating mentality.

If kids are being raised to be lazy, then it's our fault. I can work circles around my kids and my kids are by no means lazy compared to their peers. My son works for me and is attending apprenticeship school for four years and I treat him like an employee for 8hrs a day. I pay his cell phone bill because I can justify its work related but the rest of the bills are his responsibility.
No matter what sport he's played, he was taught to do his job. I feel like that has helped in transitioning to adulthood. His class was undefeated because of the hard work it took to go the extra mile as a team.

[Coltfan2005]

"criticism isn't easy for their ears,
they feel like they know most everything.
See they grew up with undeserved confidence,
cause they got trophies just for Participating"*

*Micah Tyler

[StevenGlen]

I read it somewhere above, but kids almost have to specialize in one sport anymore.  Every major sport has become a year-round activity.  And it's fairly recent too. 

It's sad how sports have evolved to get to this point.  I was fortunate enough to play 3 sports, and I never did any of them out of season.  Football was played in the fall, basketball after football, and baseball after that and then a little in the summer.  I would attend one camp for each sport every summer, but never worked on one sport over another out of season.  I also had the opportunity to play a sport after high school too, and I decided on baseball because it was my best sport and I liked it the most.  And looking back, I feel lucky that I didn't have to make that choice until after high school.

The Chief here is spot on with his point.  Are we really helping the young men and women by asking them to specialize in one sport?  I have had a little league mother bite my head off, but major league scouts are looking to see what other sports young men are playing besides baseball.  Why?  As the scouts and front office officials explain it, other sports help develop the over athletic ability of players.  The drills done in basketball can help an outfielder with a chance to jump a wall and rob a home run.  The skills learned on how to fight through or slip step a pick and roll in basketball can also be used to defeat a lead blocker in football and lead to a tackle on Friday night. 
I do not know if the pressure is the same for ladies to concentrate on one sport but it is pretty obvious how the speed and agility drills in basketball can help a lady play defense on the softball diamond, or the jumping and timing drills in volleyball could help in the basketball court. 
Let us also not forget that this is about fun.  Such a small percentage of players in any sport any given year will play at the next level are we really doing them a favor by forcing one sport specialization in Jr. High or High School?  Let them play! 

[Coltfan2005]

I think this topic has reached the point where this much is enough.

[Neckred]

AAU basketball.
Travel baseball.
Now, soccer in central Arkansas has become the same as AAU/year round baseball.

With my daughter, it's one activity a year. She is interested in gymnastics so that's what she is involved in. I refuse to have her at the ball field 24/7 in the summer away from doing things a kid should be doing. We have tried softball but it was for a year. And I hate being at the ball field so if I'm paying for it then I'm going to have to like it. She has done cheer which was fun for her. And she has done basketball through upward. We coached her team which was a blast. And she was good at it. I think as parents we should listen to the kids likes and needs vs our own needs and focus in on what the kid is good at and focus on that. Too much can go a long way with a kid.

She was just accepted into a school that is a non football school but has baseball, cheer, softball, tennis, basketball, and golf. I actually hope it stays away from football because the academics are front and center and football people will start allowing "stud athletes" into the school to win and allow academic standards to fall to put all emphasis on football. God willing, I'm hoping to raise another RN in the family, an engineer or doctor....not a lifelong letterman jacket wearer hahaha.

If you are paying for it YOU are gonna have to like it?  That's pretty sad. 

[$aintMaximu$]

Me too. My daughter thought my son and I were saying ForkKnife instead of FortNite.

Try PUBG mobile... You will never play Fortnite again...

[CoachDupuyFan!]

I'm not happy with how things are being done. I know several kids who worked extremely hard jobs this summer, and were told if they didn't quit work, and practice they were off the team. That is not right, as most some need to work, aren't gonna play in college so work experience is good for them. I don't mind spring practices, but only giving them 2 weeks break during the summer is absolutely resiculous. Would I have loved to had more time practicing back in the day? Sure I would've, but most are  not pro-athletes. We weren't even allowed to practice until August when I played, and that heat was more than enough to wear a player out. If anything they should focus on weight training for the majority of the summer, and stop controlling their everyday lives. A few good players have left our team, or was told they couldn't play this year.

I'm also not happy with the coach's pushing protein shakes on my kid. He's strong, and big enough already. Pushing them to get bigger while not helping to guide them dietary wise is incompetent, and is harming some kids. It's bad enough knowing about CTE, much less their overall health. They're running these kids through a mill just like colleges just to up their coaching record, and not allowing them to be teenagers anymore.

[gameoflife]

Younger generations have been told too often they were "special" and not because of what they have done but because of what they might be able to do.  They took it the wrong way.  They are SPECIAL in their minds by right of birth not because they earned it and did it.  It the same in athletics, you are not special until you earn it. 

[KASH dba The Lumberjack]

Try PUBG mobile... You will never play Fortnite again...

H1Z1 fan myself

[KASH dba The Lumberjack]

I have to start by saying God is great, He's taking great care of my son. I'm not reviving this thread for sympathy. I felt like I needed to warn some parents on here to not take some small ailments for granted. My son was told by his surgeon today that he is well on the path of recovery. He had Chiari decompression surgery 2 weeks ago. That's why I started with God is great. I know my son has been in His hands.

Back in '15, after we lost to Nashville, he came home with what we thought was a stinger. So we treated as such. He got better but had a nagging shoulder pain. Doctors said to rest it and it should get better, but as we all know, football is 365 in Warren so he never really got to rest it. Now before I continue, this is not a slam on the sport. This was a problem he had since birth, and wasn't caused by football. Football did bring it to the surface however.

So we make it through the summer going to 7v7 and working with me, go to Stuttgart and he sprained his shoulder. Again back to the Doctor, MRI's and some therapy and he's back to the grind. He plays the rest of the year until a knee injury took him out in the Robinson game, applying lotions,gels and pads with lidocaine just to do his job under those Friday night lights. He helped the Jacks go undefeated and be champs.

Now football is done and graduation is over, he even gets a year of apprenticeship school under his belt. He's under a house running gas piping during that hot week we had in July. He crawls out and can't get his balance. I'm thinking he's dehydrated and put him in A/C . That was on a Friday a lunch, Tuesday he goes to the Doctor and with the X-rays, MRI's and CT's, they finally found what his problem was. Dr. Wharton, who is the Team Doc is also my son's primary, told him he was lucky he wasn't in a wheelchair for life.

I'm not asking for sympathy like I said. I just want to let other parents on here to know don't ignore small signs. As parents, we try to keep our kids healthy and playing but sometimes it's not up to us. Just be vigilant and don't ignore or make light of what your child is telling you because telling them to play through the pain and to toughen up may be too much when enough is enough.

[AirWarren]

I have to start by saying God is great, He taking great care of my son. I'm reviving this thread for sympathy. I felt like I needed to warn some parents on here to not take some small ailments for granted. My son was told by his surgeon today that he is well on the path of recovery. He had Chiari decompression surgery 2 weeks ago. That's why I started with God is great. I know my son has been in His hands.

Back in '15, after we lost to Nashville, he came home with what we thought was a stinger. So we treated as such. He got better but had a nagging shoulder pain. Doctors said to rest it and it should get better, but as we all know, football is 365 in Warren so he never really got to rest it. Now before I continue, this is not a slam on the sport. This was a problem he had since birth, and wasn't caused by football. Football did bring it to the surface however.

So we make it through the summer going to 7v7 and working with me, go to Stuttgart and he sprained his shoulder. Again back to the Doctor, MRI's and some therapy and he's back to the grind. He plays the rest of the year until a knee injury took him out in the Robinson game, applying lotions,gels and pads with lidocaine just to do his job under those Friday night lights. He helped the Jacks go undefeated and be champs.

Now football is done and graduation is over, he even gets a year of apprenticeship school under his belt. He's under a house running gas piping during that hot week we had in July. He crawls out and can't get his balance. I'm thinking he's dehydrated and put him in A/C . That was on a Friday a lunch, Tuesday he goes to the Doctor and with the X-rays, MRI's and CT's, they finally found what his problem was. Dr. Wharton, who is the Team Doc is also my son's primary, told him he was lucky he wasn't in a wheelchair for life.

I'm not ask for sympathy like I said. I just want to let other parents on here to know don't ignore small signs. As parents, we try to keep our kids healthy and playing but sometimes it's not up to us. Just be vigilant and don't ignore or make light of what your child is telling you because telling them to play through the pain and to toughen up may be when enough is too much.

God is good.


I've taken care of kids right out of surgery with that diagnosis. Most often, they are found while playing sports. God took care of your son.

Know your kids folks. A simple headache/nagging shoulder pain, can be something simple as needing glasses to needing surgery or experiencing something more grim. Also, take advantage of wellness visits for your kids.

Glad all is well man.

[gameoflife]

Great to hear you son is recovering, God bless.

[KASH dba The Lumberjack]

Thanks Guys. I'm just hoping his story would help other parents not be as dense as I was. He actually told me this morning that his right foot has began to point straight. We always assumed that he twisted his ankle in the 9th grade and favored his foot to point out. He could make some noise in the deer woods,  I would make fun of him and it wasn't anything he could control. Parents be cautious, take nothing for granted. But also know God is great and when it's in His hands, it'll all work out.