Ever see a picture in your local paper of a summer "all-star" baseball team of 10 and 11 year olds and find it odd that nearly every kid in the picture is either the son or daughter of one of the coaches or of one of the coaches of a team during the regular season or the best friend of the coaches kid?
Ever wonder how it was that all the coaches' sons or daughters are so much more "talented" than the other kids that they get to continue playing all summer, sharpening their skills, getting the advantage of playing three, four, even five times a week under the lights or in the hot summer sun, while other kids, eager to play, stand on the outside looking in, already stigmatized by having been deemed "not good enough" to play.
Fast forward to the time when those same kids are juniors and seniors in high school and come across stories in the local paper about the high school varsity baseball team and, lo and behold, they are filled with the names of the same players who were so-called "all stars" six or seven years earlier. Surprised that they are the same kids, when experts say that abilities change significantly in children from year to year, sometimes within the same season.
Because the current relative athletic ability of a young child, particularly a child who has not reached the onset of puberty, is not an accurate predictor of his or her athletic talent, how is it that those who select the summer all-star teams are able to predict with such a degree of accuracy the players at age ten or eleven who will be the most athletically talented six or seven years later? They can't!
What's wrong is a structure that, instead of serving the interests of our children, feeds adult egos; a flawed, slanted and, yes, rigged all-star selection process that virtually guarantees that the players picked aren't the "best" (and remember, there is no such thing as "best" at this age; for the vast majority of kids the differences in athletic ability are small; far too small to start labeling and eliminating), but are simply the ones who are fortunate enough to be the sons or daughters of the coaches, league administrators, or Board members. Occasionally, the inequities in this system are there for all to see: I remember there was one boy my kids' age who made the summer all-star team year after year, not because he was a good player, but because his father was a coach. When, several years later, he tried out for the middle school baseball team, and he couldn't even make the roster! The person that it hurt the most was Tommy, and boy did he take the heat from all of the other kids who had been wise to this game for years.
If there are going to be summer all-star teams in your community at all (the wisdom of which, especially before grade seven, is questionable at best), what can be done to make the selection process fairer?
I believe that there are a number of steps parents can take to take the politics out of the selection process system and to make summer all-star teams more inclusive and about having fun and learning new skills and less about winning and cutting kids (many of whom will be so discouraged that they will drop out of sports, never to play again):
Parents Should Not Vote. Period. If there is one rule that should be followed in all cases in which select or all-star teams are put assembled, it is that the parents of players should under no circumstances have a say in who is picked. My experience, and I am sure that of countless other parents across the country, is that giving the coaches a chance to vote on which players get selected inevitably results - surprise, surprise - in their own kids being selected. It is a rare coach who can resist the powerful temptation to pick his or her own child and who can be objective about their own child compares to his or her peers. In fact, I would bet that, if you asked 100 parents, 95 out of 100 would, if pressed, admit that the chance to dramatically increase the chances that their kid gets a spot on an all-star or select team (as well as getting more playing time or, at the very least, getting to play the "glamour" positions, such as pitcher and shortstop in youth baseball) is one of the principal reasons they are coaching their own kids year after year after year, in the first place. Eliminate their ability to advance their own personal agenda and the selection process is bound to be fairer and, just as importantly, perceived by all the parents to be fairer.
Teams Should Be Comprised Of Children Of The Same Age And Be Of Mixed Abilities. All too often, a player who the powers that be believe to be exceptionally precocious will be asked to "play up" on a team of older kids. All that this does is deny a roster spot to a player in the older age group and throw the younger child in with kids who he or she doesn't know, that aren't his classmates in school, and feeds not only the kids' ego, but his parents' as well. In response to those who say that "forcing" the more "talented" players to play with players perceived as less talented, point out that asking them to play with kids their own ages, of mixed abilities, won't dilute the competition, hold them back, prevent them from being a high school, college or pro star. Ask them what is more important: winning or ensuring that the kids have fun?
Are these changes going to be met with resistance? Absolutely. Anyone for whom the existing system works just fine, for those interested in preserving the status quo, holding on to the reigns of power, feeding their egos, and preserving their ability to provide places for their own sons or daughters on the all-star teams is likely to resist reform and trot out every excuse in the book for why the current system should be left as it is. Will it take courage to fight for meaningful change, for a more equitable, fairer selection system? You bet. But if you are convinced that something has to be done, that the all-star selection process in your town or city is fatally flawed, and that fundamental changes need to be made for the good of the kids, you owe it to the kids to at least try.
If you get knocked down, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep the children in your focus. If you keep fighting long enough, hopefully it will be you that will eventually be the one left standing. And imagine how good you will feel when you see the picture in the paper, not of a single all-star team of coach's children, but of three or four teams. How you will feel when six years later, you turn to the sports section in the local paper and see that many of the kids on the high school varsity are not the children of coaches!