SPORTS PARTICIPATION:
THE METAPHOR OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

It has been observed that after religion, sport is the most powerful cultural force in American society. This sweeping generalization covers two domains: sports spectatorship or viewership, and sports participation. The latter is arguably the more important, because it lends itself to that ineffable process called "youth development."

From an adult viewpoint, youth sports participation serves four broad purposes:

• It provides children with "fun" and instant gratification;

• It fulfills what social psychologists call the "affiliative" need — friendship, and a sense of belonging;

• It offers the near-term prospect of healthier minds and bodies through physical exercise;

• For the longer term, its cumulative benefits hold the promise of those favorable "outcomes" associated with youth development.

Aside from the issues of overzealous parents and untutored coaches, most people have no trouble with the first proposition. That sport is fun is almost a banal observation — requiring little in the way of social commentary. The joy of sports can be expressed very powerfully in the unintended eloquence of a simple anecdote:

"I knew that sports were very important, even though I also knew when I was six that I wanted to be a doctor. So I worked hard in school. But nothing was like that moment on the basketball court when you drove to the hoop. There was nothing like that in anything else I ever did. So I knew the value, the importance of athletics."

These are the words of Dr. James P. Comer, Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale University, describing his Indiana boyhood, where he played Basketball under street lights. Generally, a quote from such an eminent educator would be reserved for a more penetrating discussion of youth development, not squandered on so obvious a notion. For many of today's youth, there may already be a vague quaintness about Comer's anecdote, as "the thrill of driving to the hoop" is being superceded by the adrenaline rush of BMX, Snowboarding, Paintball and the other new, so-called "Extreme Sports" — but the enjoyment of sport is timeless, and its potential as a youth development medium, vast.

That sports fill a basic social need is also obvious, but not widely discussed. Indeed, the major incentive for many children who participate in team sports — especially those who are lacking in athletic skills, and also perhaps in self-esteem — has little to do with athletics, and everything to do with a newly acquired network of social relationships.

The third premise, that physical activity is a source of improved health and well-being — while also accepted — does not quite achieve the unanimity of the first two concepts. Simply stated, all sports are not created equal: some are insufficiently demanding to exact even the minimum fitness benefit, while at the other extreme, certain sports pose the threat of injury. Both issues have kindled narrow academic debates.

In any event, long ago, even before the advent of modern conveniences and the mass production of the automobile, it was observed that despite the natural appeal, innate moral, physical and spiritual benefits of sports participation, children — when left to their own devices, or the influence of peer groups, family or other institutions — did not get enough exercise. This belief was implicit in the very creation of physical education, which early on was abdicated by policymakers, legislators, healthcare providers and the philanthropic community to the public schools, which by the end of the 20th century — had begun to fail abysmally in this obligation. A partial result of this failure is the declining level of youthful physical activity, and a concomitant child obesity crisis that according to some criteria, has achieved epidemic proportions. Nationwide, only about 1 out of 4 teenagers take part in some form of physical education; from 1980 - 1999, the percentage of adolescents who were overweight nearly tripled (from 5% to 14%).

The enormous power of sports can serve not only as a magnet for youth recruitment; if properly harnessed, it offers remarkable leverage for youth development outcomes in sports-dedicated programs. In a word: because of their passion for sports, kids will stick with and thrive in an enrichment program, if that's what it takes to stay on the team. And if we can make sports relevant to the particular educational or enrichment curricula that underlie what is known as "positive" youth development, the probability of successful outcomes will be multiplied proportionately.

Sports Participation and Youth Development Programs

The fourth idea — sports-as-medium-for-youth-development — is far more complex. Long ago, it was said that the battles of the British Empire (most notably Waterloo) were won many years earlier on the playing fields of Eton. Two centuries later, the metaphor persists: early experiences of American children on the baseball diamond, basketball court and soccer field will mold good citizens, and productive, well-adjusted members of society. In theory, (and with some empirical foundation) youth sports promote self-esteem and self-confidence, build character, engender responsible social behavior, inspire the living habits, social values, civic participation, healthy and wholesome lifestyles that culminate in the better life, and if we're lucky — a few outstanding leaders. But this compelling thesis has never been proven.

Within the constellation of youth development, sports are barely visible — dwarfed by much larger influences and institutions including: family, peer groups, public schools, healthcare systems, and community organizations. In the wider "problem-focused" world of youth development, the list includes counseling and treatment in the areas of drug addiction, alcohol abuse, violence, gang membership, teen pregnancy, academic failure, homelessness and joblessness, to name just a few.

Against such an array of grave subjects and solemn mandates, sports participation can only seem frivolous; and this begins to explain why — in the overall context of youth development thinking and funding — sports programs are given short shrift, or avoided altogether. But this is not the only reason.

As a cultural concept, "sport" is synonymous with "fun", "leisure", "recreation" and "play" — distinctly separated from the more serious work of society. The immense popularity of spectator sports in the U.S. tends to widen this gulf in the public mind, with tarnished images of sports celebrities and professional teams further undermining the value of sports as a legitimate youth development vehicle.

Defining "youth development" has been likened to "shoveling smoke", and the definition of a youth development program is no less ethereal. Measuring the success of a youth development program is the equivalent of throwing a grappling hook into a cloud.

Sports participation is linked to youth development only as a metaphor — and this is essentially why it is not taken seriously by the professional/philanthropic community, and a major reason for the scarcity of "pure" stand-alone youth development programs that highlight a sports theme (i.e. Harlem RBI, Think Detroit, Students Run LA, etc.). Because a metaphor by definition is not obligated to explain precisely how, for example, the captaincy of a basketball team translates to leadership in the boardroom, the links between sports participation and the various goals of youth development (i.e. respect, discipline, compassion, perseverance, decision-making, problem-solving, etc.) remain vague abstractions.

Nonetheless, if we think about how sports can interact with educational or enrichment programs, a four-level hierarchy is suggested:

Level I
Stand-alone youth sports programs that are purely recreational and unassociated with any youth development agenda;

Level II
Sports participation deployed as a "hook" to attract youth at drop-in centers or other programs;

Level III
Sport is the centerpiece of a youth development program, but remains disconnected from the developmental or educational component, functioning merely as a lever to encourage program attendance/performance;

Level IV
Sports become directly relevant to youth development. Elements of the sports experience are synthesized with character education, skills acquisition, academic subjects or other enrichment themes. (Baseball statistics are used to teach math skills; a Scuba Diving course incorporates the rudiments of marine biology/oceanography, etc.).

All four types of programs have their place, but Level I, without a developmental component, is least likely to be funded. While Level II programs abound, Level III programs are scarce, probably numbering fewer than 100 nationwide. Level IV initiatives are almost non-existent, likely enumerated with a single digit.

As a corollary, "best practices" for sports participation and youth development are exceedingly rare, because these two parallel lines almost never intersect. In most youth development settings, sports participation is a peripheral adjunct — at best, an essential lure for attracting kids to a community center or program; at worst, tolerated as an annoying distraction from the priorities of youth development: education, jobs, pregnancy, drugs, violence, etc. Even in the rare dedicated, sport-centered program, the sports team or league is conceptually detached from the particular prevention, intervention or enrichment theme(s). Potentially, Level IV programs (if they existed) would define the best practices.

Linking the playing fields of Eton to the battles of the British Empire is probably more analogy than metaphor; the latter day connection between the sports participation of underprivileged children and the goals of youth development is far more abstruse. How exactly can we link Soccer with "character-building"? Golf, Tennis or Lacrosse with benevolence, fair-play, civic participation, or integrity?

Little contemporary research exists on the practical application of the sports metaphor. On the adult level, Dr. Robert Keidel's Game Plan: Sports Strategies for Business (1985), related the dynamics of sports teams to management styles and organizational forms. Character Development and Physical Activity (Shields & Bredemeir — 1995) offers the most exhaustive academic treatment of the application of sport to moral development and character education. Ewing (1997) has discussed the role of sports in social and moral development, emphasizing the on-field contributions of parents and coaches to the younger child's evolving self-esteem, social competence, sense of fairness, honesty and other values.

Because the power of abstract thinking is less developed in very young children, they cannot and perhaps should not be "taught" precisely how sports experiences translate to the building blocks of character development; suffice it that they internalize these values through feedback, coaching, emulation, or other natural processes. In addition to the acquisition of self-confidence and self-esteem, the moral principles inherent in sharing, abiding by rules, "right-and-wrong", consequences of behavior, cooperation, honesty, respect, and fairness can be learned on the playing field. Later, the lessons can be taught more formally.

If we borrow a pedagogical technique pioneered by the great academic philosopher John Dewey, sports can be made relevant to academic subjects, life skills instruction, and to varying degrees — most aspects of youth development. Dewey's method was simple, but required significant creativity — perhaps explaining why it never entered the educational mainstream. His purpose was to erase the distinction between the natural condition of the "real world" and the artificial, coercive — and to children, seemingly oppressive — nature of the classroom. In the process, he enlivened and enriched the educational experience by taking mundane pursuits and occupations such as cooking, carpentry, sewing and weaving, making them relevant to academic subjects such as arithmetic, physics, chemistry and biology. Cooking for example, might invoke arithmetic (measuring and weighing ingredients) or physics (temperatures of boiling water); carpentry the subject of geometry; weaving and sewing, geography, etc.

A curriculum linking the various sports to academic subjects would not be a great departure from the original Dewey model. One such application — created by a veteran of the Harlem RBI program — uses Baseball statistics to teach math skills. Another New York program, Urban Dove, applies a similar technique: marine biology and oceanography are seamlessly interwoven in a program that trains and then certifies children in Scuba Diving. Students Run Los Angeles is unique in that it helps children build self-esteem by training for and completing a full 26.2 mile marathon, where elements of the sports experience and desired outcomes are one and the same, unseparated by conceptual leaps or metaphors. These are rare Level IV phenomena.

A leap from sports to leadership, career goals, or morality would be a bit more difficult, but not beyond the imagination of a good theorist. And there is nothing, we have been told, so practical as a good theory — even during the twilight of progressive education.

An anecdote borrowed from the outstanding contribution of Milbrey W. McLaughlin (Community Counts) illustrates how the sports experience can be linked to the goals/outcomes of youth development. Successful programs, implied the research, were among other things, accompanied by an interplay of specific rules and strict expectations. The following example of a basketball program is taken from a case study:

"If a player stops going to school, he cannot play. Missing two practices means the bench for the next game. Not showing up in uniform means the bench plus push-ups. Youth were adamant about having and enforcing such rules. For example, a basketball coach had a lot of explaining to do when he called a benched player into the game against a tough opponent. The coach reasoned, wrongly, that the team would consider winning the game more important than sticking to the rules. As they told him in angry recriminations after the game 'rules are rules' and even if it meant a loss, they should be applied consistently."

But will the children who so fiercely defended the "rules" understand that in the larger context of society, the "rules" are the legal system? If so, can they — without any prompting or guidance — make the conceptual leap from the Basketball court to the judicial system? Will they understand that, to make the larger system work, the same underlying moral principle is required? The answer is that we probably cannot rely on the vagaries of osmosis and unstructured learning to ensure that an adolescent makes this abstract connection.

This vignette provides the ingredients for a participant module, coaching seminar or parental workshop that addresses rules, fairness, integrity, the judicial system or similar topics relevant to the goals of youth development. There are countless others to be gleaned from the annals of everyday sports experience — certainly enough to build a curriculum from the century-old experimental philosophy of John Dewey.

Fortunately, a quantum leap in this direction has already been made by Dr. Jeffrey P. Beedy, who reminds us that, in contemporary education, sports and physical education are classified as "extracurricular" — disembodied from the "true" academic curriculum, without even the faintest recognition that sports have didactic value for general education.

In 1995, Beedy pioneered a Boston After School program called Sports PLUS. This unique integration of sports participation and classroom learning creates a "unit" for each of five character themes: teamwork, respect, responsibility, fair play and perseverance, where children explore such complex issues as discrimination, justice and violence. Reading serves as the primary instructional vehicle — honing language skills, improving thinking ability, and teaching interpersonal values. In addition to sports participation, other teaching media are sports vignettes, sports dilemmas, workbooks, journal writing, sports cartoons, current sports-related events, and role playing.

The early results of this 24-student pilot were very encouraging. Participants increased their amount of reading, demonstrated an increased understanding of character themes, and improved their ability to work together in small teams.

To bridge sports participation and youth development we need only refine this prototype, tweak it for slightly older children, adapt it to a neighborhood setting, and penultimately — design a Level IV model for national replication.

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