The Balance of Competition and Fun

At the professional level, sports are all about winning and making a good living. The top athletes in the world desire championships and, on their way to the mountaintop, proper compensation.

That’s not the case for youth athletics, a level that calls for both competition and good old fashioned fun. However, in the heat of activity and strategy, coaches and players alike sometimes forget that sports are supposed to offer a certain level of enjoyment. When handled in the right way, youth sports strike a balance between intensity and entertainment.

Dedication to the game

Fourteen-year-old Jack Woods of the Mass Elite travel basketball team has been putting a lot of time into his game, WGBH News reported. He practices with the squad at least once a week after school and spends his Saturdays traveling around Massachusetts to participate in tournaments with the state’s best.

Woods said that he has significantly improved his jump shot and hopes to play for a college team when the time comes. But despite the potential opportunities offered by a team like Mass Elite, former NBA player Bob Bigelow sees an issue with too much seriousness in youth sports. He said that early training can lead to a number of injuries and psychological issues.

“Adults want to win; kids want to play,” he told the news source. “That’s the difference. The more adult needs you add to these sports, the more adult vision, the more adult needs have to be met.”

An important balance

To make sure that players like Woods enjoy their time on the court and benefit from competition, Alex Diaz, a PhD in sports psychology, recommends teaching young athletes to manage their emotions, according to Westchester Magazine.

Diaz told the publication that winning can lead players to focus exclusively on the end result, rather than the process that leads to the success. This can pressure kids and turn an activity into a kind of job.

Sports psychology focuses on helping athletes learn how to deal with the emotional and atmospheric variables of competition. Proper guidance can help a youngster develop a short-term memory for athletic shortcomings that are best forgotten. For example, a basketball player like Woods shouldn’t remember his most recent miss. He should develop a consistent technique for shooting and simply focus on execution.

Coaches play a key role in establishing the environment of an athletic event. They can use sports team websites to further explain the importance of a true emotional balance. Everybody wants to win, but sometimes the greatest and happiest athletes are the ones who know how to lose.