Daily Hampshire Gazette
Published: 01/31/2005
Page: A1
By NICK GRABBE, Staff Writer

AMHERST, MA   A new group of parents and educators is looking for ways to make sports fun for children again. 

"It's gotten away from the neighborhood feel and the idea that everyone can participate," said Cliff McCarthy of Belchertown, who is participating in discussion groups hosted by the Ultimate Hall of Fame & Center for Cultural Change through Sport, a new organization based at Hampshire College. 

McCarthy, co-founder of the region's over-30 baseball league, says "fairness and enjoyment should be the main goals rather than winning."

But that's been lost in an era of highly competitive, and at times combative, professional sports, he said.

The organization hopes to help children's sports programs come up with ways to emphasize fun, teamwork and other cooperative elements of sports, and toning down what it sees as an obsession with winning.

"Our goal is to give tools to parents and teachers that they can use to make sports positive and transformative for young people and not just let the greater culture happen to them," said James Pitts, 62, of Amherst, who formed the organization last year.

Coaches can create an environment conducive to learning by making practices fun and reminding young people that "it's only a game," Pitts said.

Sports culture, which he defines as "what people value about the games and the rewards they come away with," emphasizes performance over the enjoyment of participation, he said.

"By gathering data, we're going to learn what we truly want to get out of our play and sports activities at all levels," Pitts said. "We want to be able to take a look at our communities, and the practices our children take part in, and ask, 'Is this meeting the goals of what I want to do?"

Billy McBride, the women's basketball coach at Amherst College, also participated in discussions. There isn't enough parental involvement in the sports programs of most children today, he said.

"Jim Pitts is trying to tie in the coaches from the community to talk about the root problems," he said. "We're coming together to discuss how we can do better and see if this is something we can pass out to other communities."

Paul Wiley, the principal of Crocker Farm Elementary School in Amherst, participated in Pitts' discussion on parental involvement with sports.

"We want to instill in young children an enjoyment for what they do in sports, and we want them to have a healthy approach to sports," he said."And we want adults to be aware and vigilant."

Sports culture
Despite the triumph of the Red Sox and Patriots, 2004 wasn't a very good year for sports culture. Basketball players got into a fight with fans, and it became clear that some baseball stars use steroids. The Olympics were again marred by a judging scandal, and the Notre Dame football coach was fired because his 21-15 record wasn't good enough.

Some parents of young athletes have gotten combative. In 2002, a resident of a Boston suburb was convicted of manslaughter after he beat another man to death at a youth hockey practice. Closer to home, parents of youth soccer players used to get into fistfights at state tournaments held at the University of Massachusetts fields, said James Patulak, the former UMass associate athletics director, who has been participating in the discussion groups.

Patulak, who has coached locally and seen his athletic son move from baseball and soccer to Ultimate Frisbee and snowboarding, has joined Pitts' effort.

"I've seen fathers on the sidelines of a soccer game tell their sons they'd buy them dinner if they got a yellow card" (a warning after a foul), he said. "I've seen kids crying after a game. If you tried your hardest and got beat by a great group of kids, there's nothing to be ashamed of."

Discussion groups
Pitts has arranged five discussion groups, with a total of 25 participants, to identify problems with competitive sports and brainstorm potential solutions. One analyzed what's wrong with sports today, while the others looked at coaching, parents' roles and race. A fifth group due to meet Sunday on gender issues will be composed of women and gay men.

Here are some of their findings:

* Playing organized sports promotes health, creates social bonds, and builds self-confidence in young people. However, it can also promote divisiveness, because of the practice of denigrating the opposition, because teams typically break up boys and girls, emphasizes differences in gender, and sometimes have the effect of separating athletes from their peers.

* Competitive play has replaced "unorganized" sports. "It's unheard of to find sandlot baseball these days," notes Pitts.

* Children would benefit if coaches focused less on winning, and more on values such as fair play, humility in victory and graciousness in defeat, while promoting trust and courage.

Hampshire has provided the center with office space and the ability to seek tax-exempt donations, Pitts said. The center has received a $20,000 loan from a resident wishing to remain anonymous that has allowed it to design a Web site, join local chambers of commerce and hire a full-time director, he said.