PipemanRadio Wants to Know Why Johnny Hates Sports

0:04 Hi, you love done to thissu? Why great Young? This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures of Pipe Man W four C Y Radio, and I'm here with man. This is gonna be a good one because this is a show host on our network that talks about something that's not talked about a lot. And I know I've experienced it. I know you the listeners have probably experienced it. And now we're going to find out why Johnny Hates Sports with Fred eng How are you?

0:48 Good morning, pipe Man, And it's great to be with you this morning. Oh great to have you. And so tell me, let's let's start off right off the get go. What was the what was the impetus that made you come up with the concept of talking about why Johnny hates sports? What does that represent? Well, the whole idea of you know, people have asked me after the fact of you know, I wrote the book Why Johnny Hates Sports, and because of my background, I had seven kids that played and I saw all the things I didn't want to see happen out there.

1:28 But the whole reason why Johnny hates sports is you know what happens is kids are six years old, they hardly know how to tie their shoes, and yet we expect them to play like they play baseball or whatever in the major leagues. So that's what starts out with kids. And then all of a sudden, the league says, hey, we got to have somebody to come out here to coach, and it's got to be you, dad, you know, because we don't have coaches. So here you got what I call Billy Jones's father or Johnny Jones's father, or Mary Whatever's mother, and somebody's out there in the field trying to coach them. They may not have ever played this sport.

2:13 They don't know anything about the sport at all of catching, throwing, kicking, hitting skills. So they're out there as a coach. So can you imagine the kid trying to be, you know, having fun with somebody trying to show them to do that. And then the next thing that you have is you've got the league itself. And this league has made up a group of guys or plumbers, truck drivers, pharmacists, care you mean. They don't actually play in the sport that they're running. No, no, no, So so you got them out there and they're organizing all of this, and so the main thing.

2:57 They say, well, what is our goal here? Well, well, what is every sports goal? It's winning, And so get it back to the idea of kids starting out at six years old, and the statistics show amazing, isn't that they started six years old and by the age of thirteen seventy percent of them we will equit. And when I asked why they quit, they say that it ceased to be fun because of the pressure put on parents. You know, parents are out there screaming, yelling because they dropped the fly ball. I was doing an interview one time TV in Tampa. Never forget right. Here's a guy in a hockey program kids about eight, nine years old whatever, same thing. He misses a goal and the camera catches him and he's yelling and screaming. He says, you bum billy, you can never do anything right. I say, how would you like to be that age and your father calling you a bum? You missed the goal in a hockey.

4:03 And hockey is the worst, because I have all of them because I coached a bunch of sports, but I coached hockey and that was the worst. You know, And like to your point, I played baseball for nine years. By the time I got to high school, I was over it, and and I originally I wanted to go to major leagues originally, but then it was just like I was over it by then. But then in coaching, I know there's other coaches that like, what are how are they teaching these kids how to play baseball? They never played themselves. That's what ended up me coaching, because like I would have my kid on a team that the coach didn't even know what they were talking about or or anything about the game.

4:52 Yeah. Well, the funny thing is about you know what I mentioned before, that bother is out there at times, kid up and they say, well, the line's over here for you. You know it, signed up to coach it. Why kidding me? I'm not coaching. I got work to do and I get home and okay, well then uh next, because Billy, your son can't play. What do you mean he can't play? Well, if we don't have a coach, then he can't play. We don't have a team. So there you go, and you got you got people out there doing it and trying to do it. But the worst part about it, I mean, you know, you can be a baseball coach and and just sit there in the dugout and watch what goes on. But that's not what happens. Now they get all excited, you know, the scores two to two and now it's fifth or seventh thing and whatever. And now that everybody starts to get nervous, the people in the stands start yelling at the coach, put him in there, put him in there, Scott saying wait a minute, and so get it's just bedlam. And that's like I could say, seventy of the kids drop out.

6:03 And that's evident of why. You know, it's it's such a bad situation for so many kids. Yeah, and and you know it's a bad situation for the parents too. I find for multiple reasons. You can tell me what your opinion is, but number one, because you know they they first of all, they don't know what they're doing. So if there's parents that are seeing their kids that could have potential that aren't being taught the right way, and how those parents react to those coaches or you have, you know, like the typical coach happens a lot in hockey where you know, they think their kids should play all the time, and they're a bully and so ergo they're going to bully the coach and you know all the things that go on that these kids have to see. Now it's bad enough to you know, they're put under pressure to you know, play like their professionals instead of in a rec league. But now they're seeing their parents act ridiculous.

7:15 Yeah, I mean you mentioned they're playing in the rec league and what is in the last several years that's come along as the travel teams, and so what happens with the travel teams, it's really really hurting the rec programs. You got kids in communities, you know, no matter where you live in the country, there's parts of w rec departments and they've got fields all over town Northwest Park, Southwest Park, East whatever. And on those parks they got ball fields that they built with the idea that kids would play baseball. Well, the w REC Department doesn't organize it. They allow the permits for Billy Jones, It's father and whoever come in and say hey, we've got to have a baseball for our kids. And that's how it starts.

8:03 So you got the tune of millions of kids across the country that are now playing in ret programs. And then in the last few years. What happens is they going to try to get a permit that's a uh sorry that it's not available. What do you mean it's not available? Well, we have travel teams that have paid money to lease the field, and it's so the travel teams, you know, they appeal to the parents' ego and they say, yeah, look, you know if you sign up, and who's doing this, this is a code or excuse me, the organizer of the travel team who's getting paid, and the coaches are getting paid. And so they say to the parent, looke, your kid doesn't sign up for this. I mean, he's a good ballplayer and he's gonna make it in the major leagues or he's going to get his college scholarship.

9:04 So you don't want to miss out on this. You know how much these people are paying for a year for the kid to go out there and play in travel Oh, I'm. Sure the listeners don't know unless they're paying it, because it's a lot of money. Fifteen thousand dollars. I was on somebody one of the interviews the other day. He said, you know, it must cost you about five thousand dollars and it's lady left. He said, yeah, I wish he was five thousand, fifteen thousand. We paid last year. I said, what's for? Well, when you go to the tournament, you got to take the kids, you got to say the hotel, you got to pay the coaches, you got to pay everything. And the worst part about it is now these guys that are calling themselves professional coaches, they're saying, you know, if your kid Doug, you out there and play all year long, yeah, it guess what happens. Just like you were talking before, you get to a certain age and you get burnt out and say, oh this, how about out of here? And because its just too much.

10:12 I find where we are too in Florida. It's even more prevalent because like I'm from New Jersey, And what was cool about in New Jersey when I was raising my kids is that they could play a different sport for different seasons, because there was you know, it only was certain seasons. Here. What I really didn't like is, oh, if you take a season off of this sport to go play another sport, well you're not in the end anymore, Like you're not part of the click anymore. It's like you have to you can't miss one season or else you fall to the bottom of the heap. Yeah. You know the worst part of that whole deal is you got the kid that you know, he's got friends and he's got other things that he made you want to do, but he eats. And so I don't want to disappoint my parents because they're spending all this money.

11:07 So I'll just stick with it and stay out there. I'll tell you tell him that, right, Like the parents are like, no, you know, if you want to quit after the season, you can, but you have to stick with. It no matter what. Or they don't even give the option of quitting after the season. It's like, nope, you need to do this. And I think kids want to try different sports too. Yeah. The funny thing with a show that I do is you kind of well know called why Johnny a Sports, which a little promo here is on Friday morning at eleven am for anybody that's listening here. But you know, talking about it the other day one of the shows that the woman was saying, yeah, we spent fifteen thousand dollars for a year. You know, I said, well why you spend that money? He said, well, you know, my kid can get a scholarship. They don't do this, They're not going to get a scholarship. I said, well, what if you just forgot about all that and started saving all that money, because you're not going to be guaranteed to get a scholarship, but if you put the money aside, you'll have money for them to go to college. Because you know, the statistics will show. It's amazing that parents, even though they know this, they don't give it. Damn he can make it. But less than two percent of any kid that goes out in a baseball program and signs a major league contract will ever play in the

12:40 major leagues. You're not amazing. So you know, some of the people that have had on the show, a guy that actually, you're going to have you back next week. He went through the whole process of that, and I asked him about it, said, you know your parents push you into that because it's oh yeah, absolutely, they knew I was going to making to the major leagues. And he signed the contract, played for the Cardinals in the minor leagues, and he said, I rode around a bus all around the Carolina's worst experience in my life. Never played a day in the major leagues. Wow, Wow, and then you know you're talking about parents before.

13:21 Like I was at one of my grandson's football games, a tournament, one of those tournaments, and this guy brought his kid into the bathroom and the whole place could hear him screaming at the kid, like and just totally belittling the kid because maybe he made a mistake in the game. In the game, you. Know, Yeah, you talk about hockey. Hockey and football are the two wors for kids and sports. I'll tell you a quick story, but mother, Mother was telling me one time in one of the talks I was getting somewhere.

14:01 She came up afterwards and she said, I gotta tell you what happened to my son in the football program. He was gonna go to a dental appointment and I had to go over to practice and pick him up. And I got there and when I got there, I couldn't find him. And I went over the coach. I said, where's my son. He said, he's over the car, over there, he said. She said, I said, what's he doing in the car? She said, well, he's over there. Get She goes over, opens the door of the car. And this is in summer and it's hot and the car's running, the heats turned on high, and he's wrapped in plastic wrap.

14:42 Oh yeah, I know about that. And see, so what happens is the league says, all right, now, we got this real good quarterback and he's got a weigh one hundred and fifteen pounds. He weighs anymore or not, they're gonna have weigh in tomorrow. You gotta lose it. And then Tommy, you got to get in there and lose all his weight. So he gets hit there and it's you know, heat exhaustion. I mean, could the poor kid could die from that? And then the mother knew it and she ended up suing the coach. So you couldn't realize that. I mean, there's so many ugly, ugly stories about you football coaches because and I can say this because I was a head football coach in Wilmington, Delaware in high school, and so I knew about football. And one thing is football is a tough game, tough game for tough kids. And if you're not that, then you shouldn't be playing it. And when the parents get their kids out there and they're gonna be trying to play football, and they shouldn't even be out in the field because they don't want to be they don't like to get hit, and it's it's it's just a rat race. But I'll tell you the biggest fallacy of youth sports. It's called the maturing level. You got a kid that comes out and then let's see we get back to it seven

16:14 year old. Well, maturation wise, there can be four year difference between that age group. So now you got a seven year old who managed to receive that kid is twelve years old or what he's not seven years old? Well he is because he matured early. So now you got him and gets what the coach does. Oh man, let's get baseball. It's gonna be my picture football, it's gonna be my quarterback because they think of him as his big kid. So now you got the other seven year old who is a reverse and now he can be a seven year old and give the body of a four year old. And so now you have those two in the league. Care how old are your son?

17:01 Seven years old? You're in his group seven year old and so you know he used to watch the Little League World Series and you're looking at a kid on the mountain. He say what the kid old six one, and and I'm not kidding that you've probably seen it. The kid in the Little League World Series six one throwing the ball, you know, eighty miles an hour. And how my ten year old grandson is almost my size height wise, and he's definitely stockier than me. So in football he goes through that like he you know, if he's in the ten ten, you then there's a bunch of kids that are like up to his knee and stomachs he's playing with and getting it.

17:51 Gets what the uncle and the parents and everybody else says. My boy out there, you know, it looks a big and he's going to dominate in his whole thing. And you never know what's in the kid's mind. I mean, you know, he may be bigger and whatnot, but inside he's not, and he maybe doesn't even want to be out there. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to paint the picture that all youth sports are not good because for the overwhelming majority, it's a great learning experience and to develop self confidence, self esteem, self work because you just developed that. Not to even mention the physical benefits of starting out learning how exercise, you know, is important.

18:43 So like I said, I don't want to. Take it keeps him out of trouble too. Like, if you don't have your kids in those kind of activities, they're going to be doing other activities they are much more dangerous. Oh yeah, I live right across the street from park here and in Big Park, and every afternoon Sundays it's just packed with kids playing soccer and I think, you know, they didn't have it. What of those kids going to be doing? Yeah, I'm probably going to be doing drugs and alcohol in that park. Yeah, you got it. And so you know, that's the good part about with sports and what it does for kids.

19:26 But we've got to get rid of the ugly part and we've been trying to do it with our organization for several years. Yeah, tell everybody a little bit more about your organization, how they can reach out to you, how they can help all that good stuff. Yeah. The the organization is the National Alliance for Youth Sports. I started the organization way back in the before the two thousand and what happened is based on all of that. I was saying that coaches need to be trained and then started the organization. Would you believe today that throughout the country four million plus coaches and communities across the country have gone through the program and been conducted by local recreation professionals. So there are about two thousand recreation departments that have a certified Youth Sport administrator who conducts training for parents and coaches and administrators of the program.

20:37 So yeah, that has been going on and it's a nonprofit organization that has just been helping educate because that's the only thing you can do. You can educate people. And then in communities they make it mandatory. You like the story in Jupiter a few years back that they decided they was going to make it mandatory that if you're a parent, you'd have to go through our parent program that teaches parents how to behave in the importance of what means the kids, and the parent didn't give to the program, their kid couldn't play. So it I like that. It caught national news and I was on everything from Good Morning America to ESPN or whatever, and people say, well, you can't do that to parents. They did it, and now many programs across the country do it, and it should be done so parents can come in and you know, sit there and say you can't misbehave.

21:48 This is about kids, it's not about you exactly. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I think it should be required because two main parents don't know how to act. And that's what I was referring to before the kids are seeing this, you know, and like I think of the kid that their parent is the one misbehaving, how embarrassing it is because then they have to go back to school with these kids that are playing with or and play with them on the team. And you know, kids sometimes aren't nice to other kids, especially in those embarrassing situations. Oh, there's no question. I mean, there's so many stories that people have told me over the years of you know, how the kids here. I've Judge telling telling me one time is to Judge in Alabama and he said, we were riding home in the car and my son was riding in the back seat. My wife's next to me.

22:49 He said, my wife turns to him and just rates him the whole way home, telling him what he did wrong in the game, and he costs them to lose the game because of what he did. And he said, that was my wife saying that. And so I's say if people, you know it. I don'tkay, really, you're a psychologists, psychiatrists of judge or whoever it is. People are all the same and they need to understand their words have such an impact on kids. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine because my oldest daughter, she was in gymnastics and stuff like gymnastics and cheerleading. Oh man, those parents get serious.

23:38 Yeah, it doesn't matter, that's right, I'd say to people though. You know when when we talk about parent behavior and sports, it's so different that that's parent can be up in the stands and the kid strikes out and parent yells, you dom a barb strikeout. Can you imagine the same thing happens in the school and they're having a spelling bee and the parents are in the room watching the spelling bee and the kid misspells a word. The parent jumps up and yells, can you be so stupid? Sam that we've been working with, here's everybody in the room and looking, who is this cdiot? But they don't do it in baseball. It's just part of it, and people will look, well, that's part of the game, the parents, But it's not anymore. I mean, it's boy the game.

24:38 So we're thankful that we have an organization like yours that can help the kids, the parents, the coaches, everybody. One last time before we go, give out all your information for your organization, how people can help, how they can contact you, but also information on your show right here on W four c Y Radio Why Johnny Hates Sports. They can tune in every Friday, eleven a m. Eastern time and take it away. Fred. Yeah, if you think about doing it would be great because the organization is na y S dot org.

25:22 That's the national lines for U sports. And all you'd have to do is say, oh, clicking there at ays dot org and just say wow, and you'll see all the things that the organization does and how you can get involved in one way or another. And then, of course is what Dane is saying is every Friday morning at eleven am. I've been able to have some really interesting people, recreation people, and the last few weeks we talked about you know, travel teams and as recreation and people what they see in their communities about it. And then other people have had our her Kirk Street who's ESPN, he's a broadcaster and talking about kids in sports and so people at different levels sports psychologists psychology talking about all these important things, and you know parents that are there and listeners that are listening to this. You got kids.

26:30 I think he's really important for you to hear what other people are saying, because then you can begin to look inside yourself to say, oh, yeah, he's talking about me. Yeah right, So sometimes you do have to hear that outside voice. You got it. So it's Friday morning at eleven am, and we look forward to seeing you. Well, thanks a lot for all you do. And your show is amazing. So everybody's got to tune in or they can't listen to my show. And and it's same same BAT channel right here on W four c Y Radio, W four c Y dot com. And Fred, thank you for being on the Adventures of pipe Man.

27:17 Uh you got a being and uh I like seeing your Pipeman shows from time to time talking about different different categories. Oh yeah, you never know what pipemin personality is gonna show up. Alright here ready get up. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on w for c u I Radio.