With the advent of another school, your students not only are heading back into the classroom but also onto the playing field. Fully two-thirds of America’s children and teens play organized team sports.

To lead your students into a deeper understanding of how their faith values relate to their athletics, it’s necessary first to come to terms with the changing place sports hold in our contemporary culture.

Amateurs No More

When was the last time you saw a kid riding through your neighborhood with a baseball glove hanging off his handlebars and bat resting on his shoulder? There’s been a huge shift in youth sports. It used to be that kids hurried home from school, changed into their “play clothes,” and then went outside to wear holes in their knees through, well, play!

For today’s students, the overwhelming reality is they play in a culture where the “professionalization” of youth sports encompasses every minute of play, from the time they are enrolled in 3-year-old soccer leagues all the way through high school graduation. The youngest of the young experience sports that are organized for them complete with regular practices, fancy uniforms, expensive equipment, the best playing fields, arenas, coaches, paid officials, aggressive game schedules, out-of-state-travel, and weekend tournaments. The price they pay for all this “privilege” may be some of the very things that make childhood what it is, such as just being a kid.

Additionally, our kids miss the important opportunities to play, to learn how to make their own fun, and solve conflict. Furthermore, all the running around cuts deeply into time spent together as a family.

Parents: Ugh!

I recently shared a cab ride from the airport with a dad who was more than happy to tell me about his athlete-daughter. He informed me that she was so highly regarded as a soccer player that the family’s summer would be centered around traveling across the country to various showcase tournaments, where she would be able to display her skills. In addition, he said his daughter was a highly successful baseball player. “Baseball? Not softball?” I asked. “Do they let girls play that down in Georgia?” “Yes,” he enthusiastically answered. “She’s leading the league with seven home runs.” I was impressed. I asked, “How old is your daughter?” “Six,” he replied. Ouch. God bless that little girl. The pressure’s even greater when parents live vicariously—trying to find redemption for their own athletic failures, unfulfilled dreams, or empty lives—through their kids. Many pressure and push in the hope their kid will score the college scholarship that will lead to a professional contract.

Characters or Character?

When a culture slowly slides into worshiping the idol of sport, those who have achieved the highest levels of success in their sport are revered as heroes and role models. Looking up to heroes and role models can be a good and positive thing if those individuals exhibit the high standards of character and sportsmanship that we’ve been told are the end result of participation in sports. However, it seems in recent years that high-profile athletes too often are shady characters rather than people of high character. Kids today look up to, and emulate, a growing number of professional athletes who trash-talk, taunt, perform arrogant scoring rituals, fight, spit, bite, cheat and retaliate. Increasingly, the heroes our kids follow embody everything but high ideals of good sportsmanship and fair play. As a result, the American sporting machine is producing fewer and fewer young men and women of high moral character.