Sports For Kids

As a child, my mom enrolled me in a lot of sports. I wasn't a particularly coordinated or athletic child. I think this was really more social and exercise reasons. Either way, I put up with it awfully well, if I do say so myself. I only took one sport per school year, which I recommend. Overloading children with after school activities is a terrible crime, one that should be punished by taking away the parent's precious Starbucks. Anyway, my sports were: T-Ball, Volleyball, Soccer, and Basketball. I don't know why I capitalized them. But you can deal.

I know most kids start t-ball earlier. But I was busy, I'm sure doing something epically important (more than likely it was talking to my Barbies and riding my bike up and down the block, periodically crashing into people's garage doors). Anyway, it went just fine. There was only one problem. To play t-ball, you just had to be wearing your team hat (we were the Tigers, in purple. Makes a lot of sense, I know), team shirt, pants, and sneakers. But some dumbass parents decided to outfit their precious little porker in full regalia, complete with cleats. So one day, I'm out on third base, and I'm told to run home and, I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I decided to slide home. Well, little porker was at home plate, and stepped onto my pinky finger, ripping off the nail and severing all the nerves. I didn't know I was hurt, but luckily someone noticed I was profusely bleeding, and wrapped up my finger before I noticed it, which would have led to me immediately passing out. As it was, I never knew what it looked like. The moral of the story is: t-ball is great, just don't put your seven year old in cleats.

I think I've blocked a lot of this out, for some reason. But I remember the coach being way overzealous. Before you enroll your child in any sport, please be sure that the person teaching your progeny about good sportsmanship is themselves a good sport.

Soccer was okay. Too much running, if you ask me. I don't remember much, except being penalized for not staying where I was supposed to at one point and then talking back when the coach yelled at me for doing that. Yeah. I was a smart mouth. But let's be serious, they hadn't earned my respect. Elders, in my opinion, have to earn my respect just like anyone else. Why should they get off the hook just ‘cause they've aged? ‘Oh, I understand, you're old, so you get to be a jerk to me.' Hells no. I also remember standing on a soccer ball after a game, losing my balance, and falling flat on my back, getting the wind knocked out of me. Horrifying. I don't recommend it. Tell that to your children if you see them attempting it.

We lost all our games. Except one, which happened to be the one that I missed. Coincidence? Well, tough to say. We had a male coach, and we were an all female team, and he suggested that, since our team was blue, we should be called ‘The Blue Babes', which, even at 10, I knew was horribly offensive. I voted against it, but my bubbling teammates went for it. Blurg. That's another thing to watch out for. Don't allow sexism to enter the playing field. Girls can be just as good at sports as boys. And boys don't need to play sports just because they're boys. Come on. It's the 21^st century. Let's advance ourselves a little bit.

Basketball turned out to be my favorite, and I continued to play it through middle school (during which I was taking clarinet lessons, but that's another Hub) until my intensely competitive nature got to be so insane that I had to stop playing lest I lose friends. But I was happy to have the experience of trying all those sports. I would definitely recommend letting your child try. Let them choose what they want to do with their life, listen to them, and you will be floored by the things they come up with.