The Teenage Tumble: Why Teenagers Are Leaving Sport

[ALPJr]

I saw this on the Tournament Waterski Australia site. The author makes some good points. Although I don’t agree with everything, overall it’s good food for thought.

https://newsportfuture.com/the-teenage-tumble/

[jgills88]

Reading through the article, a lot of it can definitely be applied to skiing (and much of it already has from what I've seen!).

 

Putting skiers ahead of skiing (especially at young ages) is a great way to retain people in the sport as they grow past just doing it with their parents, or as part of a collegiate club. Making sure every skier is having fun and cared about really helps retain people in the sport. I forget who said it, but someone announcing last year's NCWSA Nationals made a point to be excited for the first rounds of each D2 event. They mentioned that even though many of those skiers are not going to run a pass, do a sideslide, or land a jump, they deserve 5 minutes of attention just as much as the Jaimee Bulls of the tournament. Making the experience of just being on the water fun can create lasting memories! And hopefully someone who has fun even though they aren't great will continue to have fun and stay in the sport, where they will inevitably get better. They may never cross the big milestones, but they will keep participating.

 

As far as adapting official rules to people new to the sport (whether they are young, or just getting into skiing), my state has started a "novice rule" for tournaments that I think really helps people feel that slaloming in a tournament it worth it, even if they have never run a pass. Basically, if you have never run a pass in a tournament, your opener counts for your score, and if you don't run it, you still get 3 more unscored passes to ski. It helps keep kids on the water, and gives the fresh adults more worth for their tournament fee

[Horton]

I could not be disagree with the author more. Sport is about achievement in a structured environment. That article feels very much like "Everyone gets a trophy".

 

How to keep kids in sport is a real challenge. As the father of a 6 yr old, I am very conscious of the subject. I want Reagan to achieve in sports ( or music or something ) for her own enrichment - to make her a more rounded person. I already know what I need to do to keep her skiing and it is all the things that I do not want to do and or are more difficult for me.

 

Childhood sports is a model for life. Work hard, follow rules and find out how you rank. If you do not meet expectations then work harder.

 

Playground fun is sometimes more fun but lacks much of the personal achievement.

 

@luzz what do you think?

[Stevie Boy]

Generally children like to be around other children with similar interests, they like to hang out and have fun, in my opinion don;t push too hard, they have to want to do it.

[Than_Bogan]

@Horton I feel like I didn't read the same article. I don't get an "everybody gets a trophy" vibe at all. My sense is a guy who deeply values structured competition and wants to figure out how to get that experience to more people.

 

Here's an example of how I think I am applying some of these concepts in my own coaching:

 

I place huge value on having lots of girls vaulter who can clear around 5'6" on my crew. Firstly, one or two of those will emerge some day to go a lot higher. Secondly, they will recruit somebody else with more natural ability.

 

But that doesn't in any way imply that a 5'6" vaulter is just as good at vaulting as a 10' vaulter. What (I hope!) it implies is that I value everyone who wants to work to get better, because that's where I see the real core value in sport. At the same time, I want them to look up (literally) to the folks competing for a state championship and think "maybe I could be that good someday."

 

The trophies are for the people who win in a structured environment. But if you don't have fun along the way, not many people will ever get to the point of vying for a trophy.

[Horton]

@Than_Bogan I guess my reaction is because that article felt like an indictment of structure.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

While I don't agree with everything in that article, I thought it made many good points and didn't see the "everybody gets a trophy" attitude.

 

If there is one thing I see as the change that drives kids away from sports, its too much structure and organization. For example, if you want to play high school basketball, you pretty much have to play in leagues year round starting around 7th grade. Kids are being asked to commit to one sport at a relatively young age and sacrifice the chance to play 2-4 different sports that we use to do in the dark ages. This leads to serious burn out if a kid is absorbed in a single sport for years.

 

To continue with the basketball example, kids almost never play pick-up games anymore, its almost always structured games or practice. Informal pick-up games offer opportunities for less skilled kids and a lot more "freestyle" that kids can experiment with - and be more fun.

 

Another issue is accessability (sound familiar?) - i.e. if there are 1000 kids in a high school class, how many really have a chance at making the high school team? See the previous 2 points for the full circle problem.

 

To come back to how this relates to skiing, I think the opportunity and attitude to have fun (and ski with other kids) vs "training to compete" is critical. When kids are having fun, they will want to ski more, which will inevitibly make them better, then they will be ready to compete if they have the desire. Once they have basic skills in place, they will have more confidence and be much more prepared to compete and really improve. Premature emphasis on competing (in any sport) makes it more likely the kid will loose interest sooner.

 

For a specific example on philosophy, lets say you have a B1 or G1 just learing the course. Do you push to compete right off the bat - "you just got 1 buoy at 15mph and are qualified for Regionals! Lets go!!!!" or is it better to spend time on 2 skiis running LOTS of passess and having fun with siblings and other kids and go to tournaments later? Which will have a higher probability of keeping that kid interested when they are 16?

 

Just my $0.02

[disland]

@horton please read the article again. I didnt see anything in there about taking the competition part out of sport. He wants to take the BS out.

 

Here are a couple of random ideas for waterskiing

 

1. plan tournaments so the kids know when they are skiing. The old school way of having everyone show up at 7:00 AM, to find out they dont ski until 11:00 sucks.

 

2. Make sure there is a social plan for tournaments where there are enough juniors in attendance when it makes sense.

 

3. Overlay some fun tounament ideas on top of the usual competition to make it fun. Not instead of but in addition to.

 

I ma sure there are a ton more ideas along these lines that folks can come up with

[lakeaustinskier]

After many years of angst, I have finally decided that my job as a parent is to just support my kids in whatever they want to do. We live in an extremely competitive school district for both academics and athletics and I have seen the damage that can be inflicted by parents who push their kids towards a particular sport or interest.

 

Ultimately the kid must want to do the activity and while as parents we can try to set up a structure for success – we cannot force our kids to love a sport and/or achieve. They must come to that conclusion and passion for something by themselves.

 

As the father of 3 kids – currently 21, 18 and 16 - the pain of my kids not caring about tournament skiing was a problem for me for a long time. This was especially hard when my kids were younger, and I had to make the decision whether to attend a tournament by myself OR spend valuable time that weekend with my family.

 

I own a lot at a private lake but live on a public lake (Lake Austin). All three of my kids can competently trick, slalom, and surf, however, they could not care a lick about competing. BUT this year my kids have put almost 300 hours on my surf boat. At the end of the day my kids love the water, are very competent and safe boat drivers, and most importantly are great people.

 

For me - that is complete victory.

 

 

[Fastguy888]

The lack of opportunities for children, adults and teens to fail is the problem. I'm no sports phycologist but greatly enjoy studying this subject. Physically demanding sports presented as a means to entertain oneself falls short of justifying the extra work and risk required to participate. Recent studies of "fandom" show our brains are tricked and behave similarly watching sport on TV or playing a video game vs. physically participating.

 

I believe its the bodies physical recovery processes and humility physical sports offer that make them so awesome and worthwhile. When your mind and body are pushed to failure; you experience a physical response by becoming stronger, you are able to build new mental synopsis that turn fear into a series of solvable problems to become better.

 

It would also help teens if 3-event skiing disciplines had better public exposure. The current low public exposure and cool factor are likely exponentially detrimental to teen participation. A teen wired brain is looking to participate in things that will get them a mate and fame. The self fulfilment and praise from parents or coaches lessens. If a teen is lucky enough to have a circle of skiing peers that is awesome; but as soon as they can replace skiing with an activity they perceive as gaining them significantly greater fame or a mate, they will jump.

[scuppers]

@Fastguy888 Spot on!

[Rich]

My family all skied, with my kids all being good enough to be national competitors until they reached highschool. In highschool other sports & specialization start to happen. I personally skied in boys division back in the 70's and played varsity football & varsity wrestling. As I look back even then to be really competitive in skiing I would have had to devote more time to skiing & missed HS sports. I did manage to win a regionals in boys & compete in Nationals. But my ski season always was cut short for Football summer practices & training. My son went to the same HS and had an outstanding HS football career as a running back, leading to college opportunities, but he didn't have time to practice waterskiing to be at the higher levels & being competitive, he didn't like not being at the top, so in HS he skied some weekends and just had fun. It did help him to be disciplined at an early age as he tried all sports from skiing, football, basketball, baseball, but specialization starts at about highschool. All my kids were skiing a lot by age 6 & going to clinics ect… It was all positive. He took all that discipline into football, and after that ended up doing martial arts, MMA for a couple of years & is a blackbelt in juijuitsi which took 13 years. I took up skiing again in men 2 & still ski in men 6. Skiing is a great sport in that you can learn young & pick it up again later in life. Its also a sport that requires hours & hours of practice to be good at. Even gifted athletes that dont train will get beat by those that put in the time. Competitive water skiing is a huge time commitment and is a lifestyle for those at the top.

[escmanaze]

Right at the start I disagree with the guy.

 

It's not this, It's not this, It's not this, It's not this. The only reason is this boogie man right here!!!

 

Nah dude. It is like a zillion reasons all put together and different for each individual kid and family. Don't tell me it is all this one reason and we just need to fix this one reason and then everything is all good again and it is 1975 all over again. No.

[Orlando76]

Kids are falling out of skiing because of the skiers. Unless mom and dad ski, there’s no opportunity for the high end snob private water skiers to allow a guy to bring his 2-10 yo kids and teach them to ski and get them introduced to skiing.

[Luzz]

Sorry @horton, I just got to the article a few minutes ago. I will try to connect some of the things everyone said here with the article and some theory.

 

Akin to others, I don't read this as "everyone gets a trophy" inasmuch as "stop focusing on the trophy and diverge all attention on participation". The first one would be outright wrong, the second one exaggerated and unrealistic.

Burnout can often result in dropout, though they are not the same thing. Athlete burnout is an unpleasant condition in which three factors coexist to a high level: emotional&physical exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, and sport devaluation. An environment that stresses performance (e.g. academies) can make some athletes feel they don't perform as well as they should. If you couple that these environments tend to have high training loads, one can see how 2 out of 3 symptoms are already likely by virtue of the environment. However, these two could just result in overtraining syndrome, provided the athlete still values the sport activity (hence we cannot talk about burnout). So what could make athletes tilt to devaluation?

A lot of this goes to motivation. What makes the youngsters want to partake in sports? If we stay with Self Determination Theory (a solid theory of motivation, at least in Western cultures), we are more likely to do something more and for longer if our three basic needs are met. These needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They are fairly self-explanatory. What in my opinion Goldsmith seems to disregard is that competence is a huge need, especially for adolescents who, due to their stage of development, are searching for an identity. Opportunities for competence should be encouraged. He mentions autonomy (e.g., let athletes choose drills) and (rightfully) stresses the importance of relatedness. There are several studies in sport psychology showing that a higher fulfillment of basic needs is related to lower dropout rates.

My Ph.D research was focused on the concept of meaning in sport, something that didn't exist in the literature before. In starting the validation of this construct, I looked at its relationship with many things, including athlete burnout. Contrary to my hypothesis, the symptom that was most related (negatively) to a presence of meaning in sport was reduced sense of accomplishment, more than sport devaluation. This could make sense considering that my sample was US collegiate varsity athletes (pretty much all sports), but it starts to make less sense if we consider that only 22% of my sample was Div I. One of the things that I concluded is that clearly perceiving to perform up to own standards is meaningful and important to young athletes. Probably something the environment (coaches, club admins, ATs, PTs, etc) should keep into consideration.

 

Okay, I'll stop here as I can continue for hours. Specifically about the article, I would say that a lot of the characteristics Goldsmith criticizes about "traditional, organized sports" might not necessarily be present in water skiing. However, that doesn't mean we should disregard potential burnout in our young skiers. When you have 13yo skiers tricking 10k or doing other great performances, it's tough to perceive accomplishment in kids trying to practice runs. A reduced sense of accomplishment makes it for low competence needs being met (it's impossible and inadvisable to shelter kids from rankings and other media). Relatedness is the big challenge for young water skiers, especially if they only ski with parents or +36 club members. Which is why bringing them to tournaments and sending them to ski schools and camps might help them feel like they belong to the sport.

 

Okay, now I'll stop.

[lpskier]

Kids leave the sport because they want to hang out with other kids, not their parents. I hated skiing with my dad. But once I was old enough to drive a boat and could ski with my friends behind a 14 foot Boston Whaler, I decided I loved skiing. AFTER I came to my own conclusion that I loved skiing I sought out real coaching and tournament skiing. More that 50 years later, I’m still at it.

 

Both my kids hated skiing. Until they went to college and could ski with a bunch of other kids their own age. Then they loved it.

 

I think the best way to keep kids in the sport is to not push them, let them ski with their friends (which means someone has to have a small boat that they can beat up and not get in trouble and they don’t need parents for anything but gas money), and let them develop a passion for it BEFORE putting them in any structure.

 

And parents should not coach their own kids, unless you are a professional ski coach. Or until the kids ask for help.

[Clydesdale]

@lpskier nailed it. My son was getting pretty good. At 19 he was running 28 off/36. But... in the northeast where we live there were very few other kids his age skiing. At tournaments he’d hang out with 1 kid 5 years younger, but the age just wasn’t close enough to form a real friendship. So... now he’s 22 and no longer skis. He loved it when he was doing it, and I hope he’ll get back into it later when age isn’t such a factor any longer. Compare this to when I (we) were young in the 70s and 80s. I remember LOCAL tournaments with 50+ young people close to my age. And those that didn’t compete knew enough about skiing to at least think it was “cool”. Take all those peers away and would I have stuck with it? Probably not.

[Jimbo]

@lpskier and @Clydesdale have it - at least for the teen competitor. My son, who has the competence @Luzz found to be important (national level skier) and identifies with the competence he has in the sport is increasingly driven by the author's point #10, Social programs - he continues to ski because he has friends who ski. If he didn't have several skiing friends who attend tournaments, I believe he would not want to ski. While he practices to achieve the competence, I believe he finds his identity in the sport from the social relationships *and* the competence. At most tournaments we see our son for 5 minutes at each event and then he is gone. On the golf cart with his friends, riding bikes with his friends or whatever else catches his eye.

 

Teens are driven by their social relationships - so making skiing social is extremely important to prevent the "tumble," at least in my opinion. Camps, social events all are an important part of retention for teen athletes. Heck, even inviting his non-competitor friends to ski or wakeboard or surf with us helps prevent burnout and loss from the sport, but I have no idea how to do this on a wider level. Make some rec pulls at smaller tournaments for a chance to wakeboard or ski on two skis? Something to bring out the non-competitive friends and keep teens social, perhaps? I truly believe we need to find a way to draw more teens to tournaments to make them as social as they are competitive.

 

As my wife often says - we can't keep thinking that what worked when we were kids 30-50 years ago is going to work today. The days of "because I said so..." are long past.

[6_Buoys]

My kids are one year apart and both started skiing around 5. She's now skiing D1 and he rides a ski about once a summer for the last 10 years. She loved the tournaments when she was younger but in the past 2 summers, skipped a couple when she learned non of her "skiing" friends were signed up. Although she still practices as much or more than she used to. He had to play teams sports and was a 3 sport athlete in HS. Two kids, same parents, same setting, same opportunities, two different paths. Both athletes and I couldn't be happier for them both. I do agree with @Bruce_Butterfield, we ask these kids to pick one sport way to early. However, by 16 years old they know which one they want to focus on and that is a life decision. You can't do it all.

[S1Pitts]

Similar story - 2 kids who started watersports at a young age - took part in slalom, tricks, wake boarding, barefooting but neither was interested in it beyond a rec level. By late teens other interests took them off the water but now at ages 34 and 30 they hit the water every chance they get. Maybe that's the way it will play out now- Plant the seed and when they are older they will return.

[ral]

Compared to its income, population and performance in other sports, waterski is an overachieving sport in Chile, especially at the teenager level, with many kids ranked at the top in the U14-U17 categories.

 

Main reason of the interest is the social aspect, where kids are happy to spend all day at the lakes during tournaments gathering with the rest of the kids.

[Joeprunc]

Interesting topic....

 

I was one of those kids many moons ago. I quit playing varsity baseball as a senior, I was bored (right field is a boring position), tired of playing ball year round, and wanted to do other activities.

 

I have a close ski buddy, his teenagers have little to no interest in skiing anymore.

[Timr71]

I don't see the article as "every kid gets a trophy" either. I see it as an indictment of the "travel sports" arms race. My son's story is similar too...started in T ball at age 3, yes age 3 and it was super fun, just something to do. Fell in love with baseball but also played soccer, flag football, basketball, and ran cross country. But always focused on baseball. Just after 9U everyone left the park/rec baseball world to join travel teams. From that point on my son only played baseball. We moved travel organizations a couple of times. Lots of money and politics were involved but he stayed focused on the game and his development. It all culminated a summer ago. My son played for a travel organization from the adjacent state. They played in three national championship tournaments, 2 for Perfect Game and one for USA baseball. He was plying up on a class of 2021 team and was the only class of 22 kid there. That summer he played 54 games in 48 days, in 3 different states, none of which were the one where we live. That was all smashed in from the weekend prior to Memorial Day until about the 17th of July. In fact we left the last tournament a day early so we could get back home so he could attend band camp. He marches snare drum in the marching band. Four weeks later, at his travel team try out, after he re-made the team we stood in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A and he told me that he wasn't going to try to play baseball in college, and that he didn't really want to play for the high school team either. I told him that was fine, it was his choice. He didn't play for me and his mom but only for himself. My assessment of the situation was that he reached the point where he was done sacrificing everything else. He had a girlfriend, he wanted to go to the lake, wanted to get a summer job. Now, a year later, I know he misses the game, but doesn't regret the decision. He would play probably if there was some lesser option that wasn't so involved. We'll see where he goes with it from here. But it was difficult to see the transformation from playing 2 games a week down at our local park where everyone knew everyone, to traveling to adjacent states to play tournaments every weekend...watching him do homework in the car. Sleeping all the time when he wasn't playing. Was it too much like a job? Do we need to try to train kids like they're pro athletes? I don't have all the answers. I just think perspective influences how you read an article like that.

[jcamp]

"Travel teams are the devil!"

 

- Says this father who has kids in four of them, knows they suck, but still feels like he "has to" so his kids don't get "left behind" their peers.

[jcamp]

Any time someone says "kids these days are lazy" they should be directed to the comment from @Timr71 above.

[NikolG]

Teenage tumble...I would say the iPhone is a huge part of the issue. Apps, gaming, social media fills that void of camaraderie and competitiveness of sports. It's a false reality but kids take refuge in it and its easy. 24-7 its right there :(

[jercrane]

My 15YO daughter just quit her Lacrosse club she has been involved with for about 3 years because their approach was all or nothing. They didn't explicitly say this but it was clear to her that If you weren't completely committed to getting recruited to a D1 school for lacrosse there was no place for you on the team. This meant no summer job, no social life, and demonstration of almost professional athlete commitment (nightly wall ball video submissions).

 

She wants a summer job, wants to hang out with friends on the weekend and wants to be able to do things in the summer like go to a few random water ski tournament's.

 

Water skiing is no different for her. She doesn't need/want to be the best, but she does desire growth and improvement over time. We have a hard time getting access to a slalom course. This means when she does get in a course it has often been 3-4 weeks since the last time. This unfortunately often means she's starting over each time and gains come very slowly. She's barely 5' tall and knows she's never going to be elite at the sport or really any sport but she really enjoys doing it. The organized competition aspect makes it more engaging and fun. Regular access to coaching, training and engagement with others is the key to her happiness in the sport ... any sport.

 

She doesn't want a trophy. She just wants a place to have fun with a sport, get better on her terms and be a part of something.

 

I completely agree with @Timr71 .

[unksskis]

I remember the day my mom made me choose baseball or skiing.

 

An old girlfriend backed out on a full ride D1 soccer scholarship because she had accomplished her goal of earning that scholarship, but had no desire to continue playing, she wanted to enjoy college.

 

Pro athletes still tend to be multi-sport athletes, because they are athletes.

 

https://www.nsr-inc.com/scouting-news/multi-sport-athletes-vs-single-sport-athletes/

 

Side topic, I would just like to point out along with this discussion, is that because of the seriousness put on these other sports, skiing loses a lot of young skiers simply due to our scheduling. Fall sports start by August, and you have to be there to make the team and show commitment, as shown in some of these examples. Tournament skiing loses more than just a handful of young competitors because we are stuck in our old scheduling ways. For society, August means summer is over, it's on to school and Fall sports. That's not including that these other sports are already going year round. If we want to retain younger skiers, we can't make them choose skiing over these sports.

[Ilivetoski]

My thoughts as someone who is 26 and has tried to get every single one of his friends hooked on skiing and why it has mostly failed.

 

1- Instant gratification. Its hard to be a good slalom skier. You simply cannot be athletic and be a good skier. As everyone here knows its a technical sport and just being big and fast doesn't help. The best skiers are the ones who spend the most time training.

 

2- Price. I will go to my grave saying this. Its too damn expensive. If I want to start any other sport the barrier to entry is less than $1000 to start unless you start messing with horses. If I want a friend to start skiing I can point them to SIA, they can use my boat and I won't even charge for gas most of the time. Still a used ski, bindings, vest, handle, gloves will run them damn near if not more than $1000. Even people I skied with in college for 2 years were hesitant to spend the money on their own equipment, understandably so.

 

3- All of our friends have surf boats. We go with them see something that is super simple (i.e. instant gratification) and you can drink while your doing it. The number of times I've seen or been thrown a beer while surfing.... Cant do that in a slalom course.

 

4- For people who don't get it, watching a good skier is not as impressive as they realize. I took a friend to the lake this summer. He watched me get a couple at 32 off 36 mph straight up. Nothing amazing but not terrible. We were with some friends the other day and he told me if I gave him 1 summer he would be able to beat that. A short, should we call it a debate, followed. I explained it takes years to be able to run even into 32 off. He didn't believe me, still thinks 1 summer is all he needs. He isn't a skier. I remember listening to the 2008 worlds video cast and Marcus Brown made a point when Rossi was skiing. He said "the better the skier the less impressive it is to watch because they make it look easy" I 100% believe that and sadly the spray can be the coolest part someone sees.

[Dysco]

Someone somewhere came up with the theory that most people, including kids, have about 8 years worth of "competitive interest" in a particular sport or activity.

I find that fairly accurate. When as a high school and collegiate wrestling coach when they should get their kids started in the sport, I ask them "what age do you want them to quit participating in it? Then subtract 8 years, that's the starting age." Most parents never fathom their kids quitting until I ask that question. Many ignore it and start their kid in kindergarten. I can say with 80 percent accuracy that I will never have that kid in high school.

 

 

 

 

[lpskier]

@Live2ski I agree. There is a lot of deferred satisfaction slalom. But someone who can ski reasonably well on one ski, not even running the course, can ski out their very first jump. I think we lose kids (among other reasons) because jumps are no longer found on public water.

 

@Dysco the 8 year theory applies to a lot of sports, but there are school age sports that most people don’t do after college, like football and wrestling, and there are lifetime sports, like golf and tennis. Waterskiing is a lifetime sport, even though a lot of kids drop out in their 20’s. A lot of those drop outs come back in their 30’s and become the backbone of the sport.

 

 

[Intheday]

A long time ago I read a theory that kids should be involved in a team sport for all that’s good and bad about being accountable to team mates, team success and failure. They should also be involved in an individual sport, running, swimming, tennis etc as it is likely to be these sports that they continue with later in life as you don’t need to find a team to play..

 

My child competes in barefoot and three event as a young teen. The challenge is water time for training for any of the disciplines and for barefoot the lack of kids his own age to hang out with at tournaments making it a less fun day.

 

The harsh reality is that you can spend all day at a tournament for 15 minutes skiing or ski all day at a public lake just having fun.