| Where Has Work Ethic Gone? |
This letter originally appeared in the May-June 2008 issue of Soccer Journal.
Regarding the article “Making Demands” (Center Circle, July-August 2007):
While I fully agree that youth players don’t understand what it means to work hard and that playing too many games may contribute to players slowing down, I think you have overlooked the root problem.
I’ve discussed the lack of work ethic with many colleagues who grew up playing and are now coaching. We hate to say it, but “back in the day,” we worked a lot harder, had a more competitive spirit and understood what it meant to play through discomfort.
The number of high school games and college games has not changed substantially in the last 25 years, so one can’t point to a difference there. The club programs definitely have gone overboard with tournaments, but even then, I used to cringe in the middle of summer when I had no games until fall. So is it really too many games or has something else fundamentally changed?
The reality is that this phenomenon is not isolated to soccer players, but rather is indicative of our youth in general. You will find it every sport, in the classroom and in the workforce.
As a high school coach, I have encountered players who are flustered because they did not make all-conference despite playing in every minute of every game and in general being a good person. They don’t even associate the reward of all-conference with being one of the top players in the league.
As a general manager of a business, I have found it a real challenge getting our young employees to work hard and do it for 40 hours a week. You have to give them small rewards, make sure they are comfortable and basically hold their hand to get them through the week. If you ask for another couple hours of work, they expect big rewards. The expectation for them is that if they go through the motions 40 hours a week, they are due promotions and a fast track to success. Where did this come from? Our society – including youth soccer – has taught them this!
The movement toward making sure every child is rewarded for participating and winning or losing doesn’t matter has created entire generations of kids who simply have never been taught that in order to be the best, you have to out-work, out-think or out-will other people.
I have seen this in action with my grade school daughters in past years. The entire reason one of my girls decided to play soccer was to get a trophy. She understood at the age of 6 that if she participated, she would get a trophy regardless of how she performed or her team performed. This set her up for failure because there was no relationship between work and reward, only participation and reward. The result is that she really never tried hard, because she didn’t need to in order to meet her goal of obtaining a trophy.
Another daughter came home from field day this year and I asked how she did. She said it didn’t matter because they pre-tested everyone to make sure that everyone competed in events with people of the same caliber and that they don’t keep track of wins in any events.
Trying to slide around what she has been taught, I asked her how she personally did and how she placed in her group. Her response said it all: she said that she probably could have won her group, but she didn’t try her hardest because there was no point to it. Yes, she was happy to participate and had a fun day, but at the same time the day reinforced the idea that you don’t have to try hard and that it doesn’t even matter – the kids who don’t try will get the same reward as the kids who work their hearts out.
This goes well beyond sports. At science fairs, nobody is judged. Schools design curriculums so that students have varied paths to high school graduation without pushing them beyond their comfort level.
Youth soccer undoubtedly has contributed to the lackluster attitudes of today’s youth. It continually rewards mediocrity and mere participation. It’s more concerned about numbers of players, winning tournaments and the almighty dollar. Although it’s fantastic to see every square inch of grass being consumed by young soccer players on weekends, we have built an unrealistic expectation for the vast majority of our players. A lot of players out there think they are top players and have reached an elite level.
What message do we send to players when they play on a team that comes in seventh place in a league and then turns around and travels out of state for tournaments? The coaches contend that it will help their team achieve new heights, parents start believing their kid has something special going on and the player now has an exciting opportunity and is being rewarded for the team’s effort.
It used to be that travel generally was reserved for the top few teams in each state and they played only against other top teams. The system now is watered down with mediocre teams that travel and kids that aren’t going to try any harder. They know that if they continue doing what they have always done, they still will get the sweet uniforms, travel with their buddies to another state and be recognized by their club, parents and peers as doing something special.
A good coach and club program would let their teams know that in order to travel, they need to finish in the top two or three in the state. The coach should be clear about the changes and improvements the team needs to reach that level. The team then should set a path to reach those goals. That creates discipline, hard work and desire.
Another major problem is found within clubs that build teams to win tournaments in order to keep money rolling in from parents. These goals are shortsighted and end up weakening soccer programs and players.
As youth players go, some grow or mature a lot faster than others. For those fortunate to be on the bigger side, they often can physically gain advantages in a youth game without too much effort. Too many players are chosen for the top teams because of their physical presence and not their skill or team contributions.
The problem is that as everyone gets older, size and speed tend to even out and technique and strategy become more important. A player that was chosen to play on an elite team because of physical capability often becomes lost when confronted with players of the same size and speed. These players were taught to be bullies on the field, which was easy, but when they get older they are being asked to do something hard and they can’t make the transformation.
At the same time, some kids are technically better and have the heart of lion, but are relegated to lower teams and inferior coaching because they physically can’t help the team win a tournament today. The rewards we are giving some of these kids simply are for maturing faster, regardless of skill or work ethic. That makes for a losing proposition for all players. If you want to develop top players, you play for the future and develop individual players for the U-18 level, not tournament teams to win U-12.
So the blame falls on how we treat and pamper our kids in school, sports and other programs. We have developed a generation of kids who don’t care to try their hardest, because we tell them it’s okay and you will be rewarded just for participating. Then we turn around and reward kids not because of what they did, but because of their physical status at a young age.
I believe the new Academy program by U.S. Soccer will help resolve some of the problems I described by truly separating the elite from the masses. It will help overconfident coaches and parents recognize that they and their kids have not reached the top level until they can play in the Academy program. Perhaps this will give kids something to shoot for and work a little harder.
Jim Schuster, Boys Soccer Coach, Holy Family High School, Broomfield, Colo.
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