Strollerderby : team sports

Study Finds Girls "Prefer Chatting" to Being Physically Active

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

New research has found that women of all ages are less active than men. Observing schoolchildren at play, researchers have concluded that girls would rather socialize than play sports.

While I don't doubt the study’s findings that men are more physically active than women, I have some reservations about the explanation that girls simply like to sit around chatting, while boys like to run around and get dirty.

Until I graduated high school, I considered myself the least athletic person I knew. It was a big joke among my friends that any activity requiring physical exertion was off bounds for me. But once I realized that being active did not have to mean doing Indian sprints at Varsity field hockey practice, I became very athletic. I now bike everywhere, do yoga, dance, hike, surf, and run.

I certainly didn’t shun sports because I “prefer to chat.” But a casual observer could easily have drawn this conclusion from watching me on the sidelines during gym class, laughing with a girlfriend instead of trying to get in on the athletic action. The truth is, I was too intimidated to participate in traditional team sports, since I seem to have inherited a gene which makes me physically incapable of throwing and catching a ball. Even the sports that I did enjoy—gymnastics and track—were unappealing to me because I had no interest in competing. I just wanted to move around and have fun.

Perhaps it’s not girls’ natural inclinations that make them less active than their male counterparts, but rather the way sports are taught in school.

Photo: The Telegraph

Coaches Charged In Drink-Spiking Incident

Kelly Mills — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:03:00 GMT

Sometimes you read a story and think, "Either there's waaay more going on here than anyone is saying, or these people are bizarre idiots." And sometimes you end up right on both counts. Two high school wrestling coaches have been charged with disorderly conduct for spiking a 15-year-old wrestler's Gatorade. And what's the real tragedy here? Why, three days after the coaches were sacked, the wrestling team lost every single match in the quarterfinals, because they were so distracted by the incident and the loss of their great coaches. Mmm hmm.

Okay, now wait until you hear what they spiked the drink with: A chemical that tests show could either have been polyacrylatic acid or polyacrylamide. Both are industrial chemicals used in the absorbtion of water, and if ingested as a powder, they could make a person's throat swell and make it difficult or impossible to breathe. However, if you dilute with water, they become gelatinous and are considered non-toxic. My first thought was that perhaps it was some nutty wrestler way of messing with making weight (some of 'em try and drop weight or add it to wrestle in a particular class.) The coaches lawyers' say it was a prank, but I really, really don't get it. What was supposed to happen when the kid drank it? And would anyone have been amused? Eeeesh.

Kids Under Pressure

Kelly Mills — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:53:00 GMT

I suppose it's hard, as a parent, to find that nice balance between encouraging our kids to excel and grinding their little souls into the dirt with a "BE THE BEST!" set of expectations. But wow, I read this story of anxiety-riddled little kids terrified of letting their parents down and thought, "Ugh." How sad is that, kids faking injuries so they don't risk failure on the sports field? Or having a sport go from fun to frightening just because mom is watching? I guess I'm lucky my kid could give a rat's ass what I think of her t-ball performance, because I'd hate to send her into this kind of panic just because she dropped the ball.

At the risk of getting all afterschool special on y'all, one of the lessons we've worked on as a family is the whole idea of mistakes as an opportunity to learn. And I loved what Jessica had to say on this topic a while back. In my other job as a trainer, I sometimes see adults who have been so traumatized by aggressive coach parents that they are afraid to even attempt anything athletic. I wish these grown ups could have played on my kid's t-ball team, where there is no such thing as keeping score and it's not uncommon for the batter to hug the first base player on the way to home.

Are Sports Too Soft?

Kelly Mills — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:30:00 GMT

We've had lots of interesting discussions on kids and sports, but boy, there's always territory to mine here. One parent on Catholic Answers Forum posted a whole laundry list of questions regarding what sports parents choose and why. ("How important is the possibility of a professional career in the sport?" I'll field that one: unless you have already given your kid steroids or named him Tiger, dreeeeam on.) Some of the questions and answers are pretty good, and then I read this response:

The one thing I hate about kids team sports as of late is the new "we can't be competitive" attitude. I don't understand getting to play positions you haven't worked for (my own kids included) and I don't understand the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. I don't understand telling a kid who's born to play shortstop that they can't play there because we have to let someone who's not qualified play there. It's like it's the worst thing in the world if our kids fail or are disappointed. It's not helpful in preparing them for a world that should work on the merit system. When I was a kid (a most overused phrase) we played where the coach put us and we were happy to be playing. If we wanted to be in a certain spot, we worked harder.

I do think this raises a real interesting point about the current obsession with protecting kids from any kind of disappointment or possible sense of inadequacy. Let's not romanticize the days when some kids were picked last for teams (and it probably still happens, because I don't recall most gym teachers being a forward-thinking, egalitarian bunch) but at the same time, what does it mean to work hard if everyone gets an equal turn regardless of effort? I dunno, as an unathletic kid the whole competitive thing freaked me out so much I was terrified to even attempt most games. But I can also see some validity to this argument, especially for older kids. What do you think?