Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, April 8, 2005, Washington Post

Old Frogs, New Tricks

KidsPost turns 5 this weekend. I have been writing a sports column for KidsPost every Friday from the very beginning.

Okay, I missed a couple Fridays. There was Christmas Eve last year and the sad day when Mr. Rogers died. And one Friday, years ago, my editor decided to publish a bunch of entries from a frog-drawing contest instead of my column.

Still, I have written more than 250 columns. I have learned a few things about sports and kids from writing all those columns. Here are the most important things I have learned.

Kids just want to play: Last year, a study of 4,200 high school athletes by the Character Counts! Coalition found that 72 percent of the surveyed athletes -- male and female -- would rather play on a team with a losing record than sit on the bench for a winning team. I'll bet an even higher percentage of grade school kids would rather play than win.

That means that coaches who play the best athletes more, because they think that all the kids want to win, are just plain wrong. On every team before high school, the rule should be that every kid who comes to practice and hustles should play the same amount as any other kid.

Some kids play too much: More kids are playing one sport all the time. For example, some kids play fall and spring soccer, indoor soccer in the winter and go to soccer camps in the summer. Or they play baseball, tennis or basketball 12 months a year.

Kids (and their parents) think that playing one sport year-round will make them the next Tiger Woods or Mia Hamm. But specializing in one sport just increases the chances that a kid will get hurt or become tired of that sport.

One of the coolest things that I did in the last five years was to interview baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. He said he didn't play baseball year-round until he became a professional baseball player. Before that, Cal played basketball and soccer in the fall and winter. If playing different sports in different seasons was good enough for Cal Ripken, it should be good for kids today.

Some kids don't play enough: These days, too many kids spend too much time watching television and playing video games and not enough time playing real games and sports. All these kids sitting around is a BIG problem. Studies show that the percentage of overweight kids 6 to 11 has doubled in the last 20 years, and the percentage of overweight teenagers has tripled.

Everyone needs to help more kids get off the couch and get on the field. That means coaches, parents and kids should stop worrying about finding the best athletes for their teams and try to get the most kids to play.

So get out there and play more sports. And I'll keep writing about them every Friday.

Unless we have another frog-drawing contest.