Children Lose in Parents’ Push to Win

While visiting friends over the Fourth of July weekend, I witnessed a stunning sight in an Irvine park: their 5-year-old son swinging a plastic baseball bat. My jaw dropped. Now I know what it must have been like when people watched Mozart compose at 5. Or, at the very least, Junior Griffey swinging a bat at age 5.

This was not a kid making occasional contact with underhand pitches lollipopped across the plate. Rather, he was consistently whacking pitches his dad was throwing overhand, at pretty good speed, from 15 to 20 feet away.

“He’s a natural,” I told his father, who nodded knowingly. He said he’d first detected what he thought was an unusual level of ability when his son was 2.

I considered myself a pretty good ballplayer as a kid, but I’m not sure I could tie my shoes at 5. Accordingly, I jokingly told my friend as we played in the park that day that he’d found his meal ticket. I asked if I could buy stock in his son. Give him another 12 years or so, and I picture baseball scouts and dollar signs in this boy’s future.

Life goes on, and I hadn’t thought much more about his son’s exhibition until seeing the cover of this week’s Time magazine. Under the headline, “Sports Crazed Kids,” the story depicted a culture where “a growing number of American families have succumbed to the mania of kids’ athletics as they are conceived in the late 1990s: hyper-organized, hyper-competitive, all consuming and often expensive.”

The article largely was about kids with ordinary ability and what a sports-crazy culture can do to them. But it also touched on the more gifted, noting that coaches recruit promising “athletes” as young as 8.

As much as I like sports, I wonder if I’d want to be the parent of a prodigy.

To my friends’ credit, they don’t have their heads in the sand about their son. They’ve discussed at length the possibility he may be a gifted athlete, with all the opportunities and pitfalls that could bring, and are determined not to let events control them.

Their plan, my friend says, is to nurture their son’s athletic talent but to let him know from an early age that admirable personal traits and a good education are greater priorities.

My friend, a huge sports fan, knows only too well that the life of a talented athlete--even one still in school--can be skewed. Just as they can feel undue pressure, so can gifted athletes be pampered by others in awe of their athleticism. My friend says he’s determined that his son grow up well-balanced.

Michael Kelly of Cypress has coached Little Leaguers from 6 to 15 over the last 23 years. For the last several years, he’s coached autistic children. But he’s also seen his share of “normal” Little League players, and he’s not thrilled with the direction things are going.

“Parents don’t realize how much they are to blame for the adverse effects on kids,” he says. “I’m famous for kicking parents off the field.” He remembers ejecting one father from the stands who was haranguing his son. “I said, ‘Off this damn field,’ ” Kelly says. “ ‘They’re here to play ball and have fun.’ ”

The age-old problem of winning at all costs is getting worse, Kelly says. Unfortunately, the bugaboo can surface in both parents and coaches.

What’s sad, Kelly says, is that sports can be of great benefit to youngsters.

“I wouldn’t give a nickel for the kid who laughed when he lost, but you don’t have to cry when you do either,” he says. “Pick up and go on. Sports teaches you there are two sides to this life.”

I ask Kelly if he’s seen many prodigies. “Sometimes you look at a kid and say, ‘That kid’s got it.’ There’s something about the way he swings, the way he goes after the ball, the way he moves and you say, ‘This kid’s got the mark on him.’ And three years down the line, he’s as clumsy as can be.”

I tell my friend this, and he says he and his wife have discussed that possibility. That’s among the reasons, he says, they’ll stress education and character with their son.

Looks to me like the kid has the talent.

Now, as he grows up in this sports-crazy society, comes the hard part.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers can reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.