Youngster Likes the Future

As an 18-year-old high school senior and fan of the four major sports, I enjoyed the article regarding age 12-17 viewers [May 7]. I will say not as many of my friends follow sports as religiously as I do, but I don’t think you have to worry a whole lot about the interest of today’s youth having a serious effect on sports in the near future. I can think of a couple of reasons why it’s not as intriguing these days.

I believe it starts with playing sports. Once, Little League was fun. Now parents think that their kid is the next $70-million athlete, so there’s added pressure given by the parents to be studs when you’re 10 or 11. You don’t need that. Skateboarding and extreme sports, we can do by ourselves for fun.

All of the four major sports have their flaws. Baseball is slow and when there’s 162 games a year, it’s not exactly a high priority to catch game No. 38 when I have a couple of math assignments to do. Football is not intriguing to watch when you’re a Denver fan and you’re forced to watch Arizona-Atlanta. I don’t think many people would sit in front of a TV for three hours when you can get a Denver score every 30 seconds on the Internet. The NBA regular season is a joke. Teams don’t try until the second half and the game is always tied in the fourth quarter, regardless of the quality level of either team. Why watch until the last two minutes? Hockey has to be seen live. It’s just not as exciting on TV.

If you want some hope, I will say that all of my friends have skateboarded in the past, but I can think of only two who still do it. Kids grow up. We all realize at some point that the WWF is fake, skateboarding gets old, and “Jackasses” lose their humor. Sports will be OK, we just have to mature.

Travis Burns

Laguna Niguel