Parents and Sports

Article in the Abilene reporter news. 

Posted April 21, 2012 at 8 p.m.

There seems to be a lot of talk and attention around town lately concerning parents and their athletic children and the verbalization toward the kids during the kids' athletic competition. Apparently there is too much negativity and coaching from the parents. The conversations and newspaper articles have centered around baseball parents but unfortunately this problem is prevalent in all sports.

Parents have to be careful what they portray to their kids in their actions and also in their tone of voice as they are saying it. Those kids are very much affected by what their parents are yelling at them and it definitely affects their performance.

During a competition is not the time to be barking instructions. An athlete's mind needs to be on cruise control during competition. Practice, not competition, is the time to think and analyze. If they have to think about the physical parts of the game during their competition, that means that they weren't ready for that competition and they should have practiced more. Once their match or game starts, their mind should be allowed to cruise without outside distractions and without thoughts of physical actions. Their attention should be focused on the mental side of their sport.

This is true even at the youngest ages. A child's mind doesn't need to be cluttered with too many thoughts. The young mind can't handle it and the performance will greatly suffer, much to the dismay of the parent. When the parent or coach tells a kid to be sure to remember all of these things, the kid's mind will not perform.

If a parent or a coach is constantly reminding the child to keep their elbow up while batting or to get their first serve in more often the child just freezes up. It's called paralysis by analysis. With so many distractions from the parents, in addition to the pressure that the kid has already placed on himself or herself, the athlete is forced to analyze their situation so much that it just paralyzes them. Paralysis by analysis is deadly for any athlete in any sport.

I heard a story this week about a soccer mom yelling to her child "Come on, score! If you score I'll give you $5." Does that parent really think that this comment is helping her child? My favorite is "keep your eye on the ball!" What athlete is not going to watch the ball? That is just the parent grasping to try to get involved, but comments like that are very detrimental to their child.

Something that I would love to do some time is to videotape these parents and then show them on a big-screen TV what they look like and sound like. After hearing and seeing themselves, maybe they would then understand how they are affecting their children.

Tennis has it right in its rules. Spectators are only allowed to say "words of encouragement." Even a comment like "watch the ball" is considered coaching and coaching is not allowed during USTA tennis tournaments. Unfortunately, this rule gets abused by some parents who think the rule doesn't apply to them and they try to get away with their coaching. But I, and I'm sure most other teaching pros would agree, would say that, once again, their coaching greatly hinders their child's performance.

I had always thought I was correct on all of this but one day in the late 1990s I had the opportunity in New York during the U.S. Open to spend some time with Tom Gullikson. At the time, Tom was the U.S. Davis Cup coach when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were on the team. I asked him what he said to Pete and Andre during their matches on the changeovers. His response didn't surprise me.

He said "I just keep it simple. I might suggest one, possibly two things to consider trying. But I mainly just try to calm them down, get them to refocus and say positive things to them."

So please be aware of what you are portraying to your child. Even if you think you are encouraging them, your urgent tone of voice can be very compelling and hurtful. Everyone knows that you are just trying to help them but please take a hard look at how you look and sound to your child.

So what should you say? I always advise to abide by the adage of "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all." When your child is competing, if you can't say something encouraging in a positive tone of voice don't say anything at all.