Meet Joe • Recent Press

2007

January 28

Joe Ehrmann: Parents Have Lost Perspective

Look at sports in this culture and there's not another thing that engages people, family, communities, as much as sporting events. The sheer number of kids playing sports and parents behind those kids is staggering.

The reality is, you can address just about any social problem in this country through the vehicle of sports when the messengers are coaches.

My belief is that sports is co-curricular, it's not an extracurricular activity. Sports is the last classroom of the day.

A coach is one of the most significant adults in the lives of a kid. I preach in a church of nearly 4,000 people. I don't have nearly the influence in that pulpit as when I put a whistle around my neck.

Sixty years from now every kid I coached will remember what I told them. No one will remember a single sermon I gave. That's just the reality of sports.

But we're missing the opportunity.

These sports that are supposed to be for kids are driven by adults for adults.

Organizations like Little League were created to serve and guide and train and nurture children through adolescence and into adulthood. But they've been taken over by adults.

So we need to help adults understand, what is it in their makeup that is driving and pushing this?

The chance of your kid ever playing Division I sports is less than 2 percent. The chance of your kid ever getting money to play Division I sports is less than 1 percent. The chance of making it to the pros is almost nil.

So the question parents need to ask themselves is why then are they investing all of this money and time into their kid's sports? We've got to force them to answer those kinds of questions. If it's not about fun and if it's not about developing character, then what is it about?

Some of these parents have so lost perspective, they live in some kind of fantasy world at the expense of their kids. Part of it is the parents' own need for identity by having their kids being validated by this sports thing. It's just an awful situation. It's lose-lose for kids.

Of the 20 million to 30 million children playing recreational sports, 70 percent are going to drop out by age 13. They're going to say it's not fun and leave that sport with a sense that somehow they didn't measure up to the false expectation.

Why do we have high school sports? Is it connected to the educational philosophy? What are the things that kids educationally ought to be learning from some kind of healthy competition?

Just imagine if you had one coherent, consistent message that all the coaches were teaching. Then you would really make a change in the lives of kids.

Joe Ehrmann is a former NFL All-Pro lineman who is an ordained minister and assistant high school football coach in Baltimore. He is founder of the Building Men & Women for Life program, and his philosophy on coaching and mentoring is being adopted as a pilot initiative throughout the state. Ehrmann recently made an appearance in West Hartford.

Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant