Burnout

[Nutsforsoccer]

Wiht today's competitive environment for players, ODP, college recruiting, parental pressures, how have any of you seen burnout of players.

I am familiar with the tale of 4 players that were very talented at U12 through U16. All involved in ODP at the early ages. They all played Maple, Club, Town, and High School and trained year-round. All 4 came from over-obsessed parents, one of whom was the club coach. The berating these players took from their parents from the sideline was horrible.

Sadly none of these players are still playing today.

Re: Burnout

Wiht today's competitive environment for players, ODP, college recruiting, parental pressures, how have any of you seen burnout of players.

I am familiar with the tale of 4 players that were very talented at U12 through U16. All involved in ODP at the early ages. They all played Maple, Club, Town, and High School and trained year-round. All 4 came from over-obsessed parents, one of whom was the club coach. The berating these players took from their parents from the sideline was horrible.

Sadly none of these players are still playing today.

Kids quit all different sports for all kinds of reasons.
Obnoxious parents berate their kids in hockey, baseball, and other activities.

It's not right to suggest that every kid who quits soccer does so because you think the parents treated them a certain way.

[FSM]

I can't comment on the parents, but the schedule is in part the reason (in theory) USSF is attempting to bypass the youth branch of USSF and form the development academy system. Too many organizations are competing for our top players to the detriment of those players.

http://images.ussoccer.com/Documents/cm ... 7-2014.pdf

[MASC]

As children mature their immediate interests change.

On the boys side, it is said that getting their driver's license creates a whole new set of priorities. Add to that increased interest in girls.

These boys need to have money to support their cars, dating and just being a teenager.

It is very easy to see that club soccer might become less of a priority.

They probably will want to earn money -- Too bad adults make being a referee so unpleasant that they avoid that avenue.

They might even come to the realization that soccer is an avocation and not their vocation. It is remotely possible that adding other substantive items to their HS resume might be more important than the single item of playing club soccer, no matter at how high a level.

Maybe it is no longer fun.

interesting article on another forum:


Missing the First Pitch; Ugly Commutes Have Parents, Coaches Scrambling to Get to the Field on Time
Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
1,440 words
8 June 2007
The Washington Post
FINAL
A01
English
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved


The ball came fast at shortstop Michael Kennedy. He fielded it cleanly, stepped on second, pivoted and fired to first base, a 6-3 beauty of a double play.

The early inning crowd in Ashburn cheered, but to Kennedy's 12-year-old ears, something was missing. His big sister, Colleen, whom he wants at every game because she yells the loudest, wasn't in her usual place in the stands. She was stuck in traffic on the Dulles Toll Road.

"After the game, he came out of the dugout and told me he knew I had missed the play," said Colleen Kennedy, 24. "I felt sad."

For Colleen Kennedy and countless others in the Washington region, where commuters suffer through some of the longest trips in the country, worsening congestion is claiming another victim: the Little League experience.

What was once a special occasion that bound young ballplayers, their families and communities, Little League games have taken on a different look and feel.

Late-arriving parents and coaches show up in suits instead of shorts, their hands clutching BlackBerrys instead of mitts. Kids, who wear their uniforms to school and can imagine nothing as terrible as a rainy day, are robbed of pregame practices and must wait to play until as late as 7:30 at night -- almost a half-hour after the first pitch is thrown out for Nationals games at RFK Stadium. The children's games end at or past bedtime, leaving little room for homework and -- worse to Little Leaguers -- the traditional after-game trip for pizza or ice cream. And leagues struggle to sign up coaches, volunteers and umpires who can commit to arriving on time.

"When I was growing up, you would ride your bike to the field with your glove on the handlebar and coaches worked in town or owned local businesses," said Andy Braumann, who commutes from the District to coach a team in Loudoun County. "It's a different world."

For parents such as Rich Rossman, whose father played in the minor leagues for the Boston Red Sox, missing or being late to a game because of traffic means something very different from missing a dentist's appointment. Making the games is one of the ways parents judge themselves and their commitment to their kids. Missing that diving catch can haunt a family member for years.

"It's all about being there so my son can see I'm at his practice," said Rossman, who recently moved from Gainesville to Herndon to be closer to his son, who lives with his ex-wife. "It kills me to miss a game -- it kills me."

Rossman added that the region's chronic traffic "is what makes living in what could be a nice place to live unpalatable."

Just before a recent game at Greg Crittenden Memorial Park in Ashburn, the parking lot was filled with sport-utility vehicles and minivans. Out popped tots in junior-size Oakland Athletics and Chicago White Sox uniforms carrying well-oiled gloves. The players, ages 9 to 12, were quickly followed by multitasking parents, some still in work clothes, keys in one hand and bags of fast food in the other.

The parents settled into metal stands or elaborate beach chairs with beverage holders. There were plenty of empty seats.

As the game progressed, more dads and moms filtered in, some with the players' siblings in tow. They kissed their spouses and received game updates in return. Some yelled words of encouragement to their children on the field, letting them know that mom or dad had finally arrived.

The parking lot at Crittenden was designed to accommodate one car for every player. Officials didn't account for so many parents having to travel separately -- one from work and one from home -- and now the lot is frequently overwhelmed, with some vehicles shoehorned into corners or parked on the grass.

The ruckus of arrival time disappears after the first pitch, when the sounds, smells and rhythms of baseball take over. The aroma of freshly cut outfield grass fills the air. Kids yell support for nervous teammates at bat. A jumbo jet hangs lazily in the air behind left field. Cheers erupt when the only girl in the game hits a grand slam.

Little League depends entirely on volunteers. And coaching used to require little more than time and desire. Now it demands a flexible work schedule, the ability to change clothes in the car and almost superhuman determination.

Jim Klock, president of the Dulles Little League and a bomb technician with the U.S. Secret Service, works the night shift so he doesn't have to worry about making games. Another Dulles coach, Jeff Kraus, who commutes to Rockville, works from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Others use vacation time, work at home or otherwise rejigger schedules.

Peter Ruiz, president of the Laurel Little League, leaves his office in Falls Church three hours before game time. Although Falls Church is not three hours away -- it's 33 miles from office to home -- in case of delays, he builds in extra time. Lots of extra time.

"Just in case," he said inside the league's snack shack as he filled a pot with water to boil hot dogs.

In order for Braumann to make it from his office, at 13th and I streets NW, to Ashburn for his team's first pitch, he tries to schedule his last meeting of the day for somewhere in Northern Virginia.

His strategy doesn't always work. On a recent day, Braumann pulled up moments before game time. He was still in a white dress shirt, tie, suit pants and polished shoes. He continued to talk on his BlackBerry as he fetched a bucket of baseballs and an equipment bag from his trunk. He quickly pulled on a green and yellow A's cap and headed to the dugout, his wingtips duller with every dusty step.

Braumann has backup plans to outwit the ever-present traffic jams. If he can't get to the field on time, fellow coach Dan Sutherland, a Homeland Security Department official, takes over. If both are delayed, their first-base coach steps in. In a real predicament, one of the players' moms supervises the team.

Braumann, whose commute is an hour and forty-five minutes, had to pitch the annual home run derby in a suit and tie last year because he didn't have time to change. "It's all worth it for the kid who gets his first hit," Braumann said.

To help such parents as Braumann and to compensate for the vicissitudes of Washington area traffic, which also affects soccer and other sports leagues, starting times for Little League games have been pushed later across the region.

In Ashburn, the earliest start time is 6 p.m., a half-hour hour later than a few years ago. Friday games don't start until 7:30 p.m.

In Laurel, Friday night games were scrapped two years ago because of overwhelming traffic from local commuters and people headed to the beach. Around that time, Fort Washington officials began asking that games against other leagues start at 7 p.m. to give parents and coaches a fighting chance against congestion, league president Stephanie Majette said. This year, she said, other leagues followed suit.

Little League officials from elsewhere echo complaints about the difficulty of finding coaches and volunteers in a region where few can show up by 5:30 or 6 p.m. on a regular basis. "They can't get home in time," said Melvin Barlow, president of the Dumfries-Triangle-Quantico Little League, which has begun paying umpires because it couldn't scrape together enough volunteers.

And it's not just long-distance drives that cause headaches. Former country lanes overwhelmed by traffic generated by newcomers have left some suburbs in gridlock.

At Crittenden, Dave Delaney can usually be found behind the White Sox dugout, cheering on his boy. He used to coach Little League when his family lived in Lorton. Now, his commute from Ashburn to his job in Arlington County makes it impossible.

"I just couldn't do it," Delaney said. "If you're going to commit, you have to commit."

So why do people do it?

"Because it is an oasis," said Braumann, seeming to answer a larger question about suburban life. "And if we win, everything is great."

[keeper]

Overuse Injuries And Burnout

Avoiding Overuse Injuries And Burnout: Taking A Break Is A Winning Move For Young Athletes
06 Jun 2007

Too much of a good thing can be harmful, especially when it comes to children playing sports. As more children and adolescents participate in organized and recreational sports, pediatricians are seeing an increasing number of children and adolescents with overuse injuries caused by too much training and not enough rest.

A new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical report entitled "Overuse Injuries, Overtraining, and Burnout in Child and Adolescent Athletes,"defines an overuse injury as a micro traumatic injury to a bone, muscle or tendon that has been subjected to repetitive stress without sufficient time to heal or undergo the natural healing process. The risks of overuse are more serious in the pediatric/adolescent athlete because the growing bone of the young athlete cannot handle as much stress as the mature bones of adults.

The report recommends young athletes limit training in one sport to no more than five days a week, with at least one day off from any organized physical activity. In addition, athletes should take time off from one sport for two to three months each year. Taking a break from a sport allows injuries to heal and the opportunity to work on strength training and conditioning to reduce the risk of future injuries. It also helps kids take a psychological break, which is necessary to avoid burnout, or overtraining syndrome.

Symptoms of burnout include chronic muscle or joint pain, personality changes, elevated resting heart rate, decreased sport performance, fatigue, lack of enthusiasm about practice or competition, or difficulty completing ordinary activities. It's imperative that youth athletes are educated about appropriate nutrition and fluids, and how to avoid hypothermia, hyperthermia, overtraining, overuse injuries, and burnout. Additional recommendations the report suggests include:

-- Weekly training time, number of repetitions, or total distance should not increase by more than 10 percent weekly.

-- Focus of sports should be on fun, skill acquisition, safety and sportsmanship.

-- Join only one team per season.

-- Be aware of risks associated with weekend tournaments (soccer, baseball, tennis), such as heat-related illness, nutritional deficiencies, overuse injuries and burnout.

-- Multi-sport athletes who use the same body parts for different sports especially need to take a break between seasons to avoid overuse injuries.

-- Getting caught up in making the professional leagues or Olympics is unrealistic. Children and adolescents train year-round on multiple teams of one sport often with the hope of earning a college scholarship in that sport or becoming a professional athlete, but less than 1 percent of high school athletes make it to the professional level.

The report also addresses youth participation in endurance events such as triathlons, marathons and half-marathons. Triathlons are reasonably safe as long as the events are modified to be age appropriate. Specifically, such events should be of shorter duration/length, and careful attention should be given to safety and environment conditions. It is fine for youth athletes to run marathons as long as training involves gradually increasing total weekly mileage, and they enjoy it. The report concludes that lifelong fitness and enjoyment of physical activity should be the overall goal of participating in athletics.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.

http://www.aap.org



.