Sports Gift Should Include This Label: Pressure Not Included

You gave your 5-year-old a Nintendo set, a New Kids on the Block video, and a slew of Bart Simpson paraphernalia this Christmas. For tradition’s sake, you included a catcher’s mitt, thinking now is a good time to get him or her started on the path to athletics.

That’s wonderful.

But watch yourself.

Sports can do strange things to people. Especially parents. So much so, there should be a special warning attached to every football, basketball, baseball or soccer ball given to a child this Christmas.

“Warning: Use of this product has been linked to parental freak-outs. Proceed with caution.”

Like a mood ring, the warning would turn colors when trouble starts brewing.

The intention here is not to make fun. It’s just that in the past five years, there has been a significant increase in parent hysteria in high school sports.

It would be nice if the next decade brought about a kinder, gentler, less sports-stressed parent in the stands and on the sidelines.

Unfortunately, in the past few years we’ve seen:

--A parent cursing his own son for missing a tackle;

--Parents of players from one team making fun of players from another during a soccer match;

--A father who wouldn’t talk to his son after the boy dropped out halfway through a cross-country race.

Stomach-turning instances like these make you wonder why more kids don’t go out for the science club.

Of course, not all parents are this way; in fact, most seem to be caring and supportive, no matter the outcome.

It’s the others who should take a moment each day to sit down, relax, and repeat the all-important mantra of high school sports:

It’s just a game . . . It’s just a game . . . It’s just a game . . .

Sounds easy, but to many parents, it’s not. Especially when they start seeing sports as the ticket to fame and fortune.

It starts something like this:

Father gives his 10-month-old son a baseball. The kid drools a bit, winds up, throws.

The ball bounces off his little Buster Browns, rolls under the TV and over the half-eaten Oreo cookie, smacking the sleeping Fido on the schnoz.

Dreamy-eyed Dad, though, just saw his kid pitch a no-hitter in the World Series. Next stop, the Tonight Show.

A parent’s unrealistic expectations, sports psychologists say, are among the leading cause of burnout in young athletes. Some kids will work hard for years developing athletic talents, hoping to live up to parents’ dreams, then gradually--or abruptly--become apathetic or even resentful.

Parents might not say, “You’re going to quarterback a team to the Super Bowl some day,” but subtle cues convey the message.

Consider the parent who arranges for the transfer of his child from one school to another, hoping to better his child’s chances of becoming the starting quarterback. Or the parent who continually badgers the basketball coach to give his kid more playing time.

Or the parent who continually sends letters and faxes to newspapers, hoping for more publicity for his or her future star.

A man moved his family into my neighborhood specifically because the local Little League team made it to the Little League World Series a few years ago. His 11-year-old son pitches to the father daily.

“Throw harder, throw harder!” his father says repeatedly. “You’re not concentrating!”

It’s difficult to say whether the boy wants to be out there at all.

I’m not knocking parental involvement; I can’t wait to play catch with my kids.

It’s just when you’re giving the gift of sports, you shouldn’t wrap it in expectations.