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I turned 79 this year and it’s a good occasion to pay a tribute to all of us who are now septuagenarians. We have lived many experiences that the current and succeeding generations may never know about. So here are a few of our rich (primary school) childhood experiences.
• We played baseball on the streets and hardly ever cried when we skinned our knees on the asphalt. We would play outdoors all day long, and if we suffered injury, our parents found out about it only after the street lights came on.
• When we wanted to visit a park to play, we walked there ourselves. If we had to get to a game across town, we often took the bus or sometimes mom would drive us there in a car without seat belts.
• We often used our old floppy baseball mitts for ten years.
• We played flag football barefoot as we could run faster without shoes. We used old socks and tucked them in our waistbands for flags. If we found more socks, we would cut off the top and use the stretchy part for wrist-bands.
• Basketball games were played outdoors on cement courts in local parks. We would play long into the night until the lights went out. We would even play in the rain without catching colds.
• We used the same shoes for baseball. Slipping and sliding around the base en route to a triple just made the feat more exciting.
• We drank water from a nearby hose. Water bottles were for mothers to feed babies. Despite adverse conditions, obstacles to overcome and strikes against us, we have lived to tell our kids and grandkids about the wonderful world of sport.
Those truly, were the Good ’Ole Days. Eventually, as we moved into middle and high school, sports and games infrastructure and conditions began to change.
Sports became centred in schools. Our teachers were our coaches. It didn’t matter whether they were knowledgeable in a particular sport. But all of them had a foundation in teaching and practice of at least one sport. Today anyone can coach.
Elementary and middle schools had after-school sports. We stayed back in our neighbourhood schools and played. Sometimes it was organised and at other times unsupervised. Today if you pass by an elementary or middle school after school hours, it’s a ghost town.
Liability was not an issue. Climbing ropes, jungle gyms, and peg boards were ubiquitous. But today they have been proscribed for ‘safety’ and ‘liability’ reasons. We were challenged in many ways, but today they aren’t any challenges for kids because too many people are trigger happy about suing someone else.
Coaches were the experts. The high school coach was the expert in his/her sport. There weren’t any special QB (quarterbacks) schools; you were coached by your high school coach. Can this be a shortcoming if the coach is not knowledgeable? Absolutely, but somehow we overcame this.
Daily physical education was mandatory in K-12 schools. This is no longer true. Our PE teachers were also our coaches. They knew how to teach, skill and organise because they did it all day, every day.
Today, youth sports are driven by adults, not kids. Winning has replaced fun, and it is adult motivation, not the kids who are driving this. Youth sports is now all about playing on the ‘best’ team and winning the week’s tournament (five or six games over three days). Unfortu-nately, the current state of youth sports leaves kids without PE experience as they have little, if any, free play time and many schools have entirely unqualified coaches.
We need to recover the many benefits of school-based sports and PE. Here are the huge benefits children can derive from school and youth sports:
Exercise. With an ever increasing number of overweight/obese kids, we need to get all children moving. Not only does exercise help kids, it builds healthy habits for a lifetime.
Friendships. Sports participation is a great way to build relationships and social skills.
Positive self-image. Experiencing good health and learning extra-curricular skills can make children feel really good about themselves and raise their self-esteem.
Involvement in positive activities. Sport offers children a far better alternative to hanging out on street corners. For many children, sport retains them in school and places them on a successful life path.
Time management skills. Sportspersons especially in high schools, learn to get homework and other things done around practice.
Fun. With the right approach, attitude and interaction between athletes and coaches, sports can be great fun.
I hope you appreciate that I am not living in the past, but suggesting what we can learn from the past. From that learning we can incorporate the values and experiences of the past in sports and games children play today.
(Dr. George A. Selleck is a San Francisco-based advisor to EduSports, Bangalore)