Participation Epidemic

I agree that things are going through an odd swing. Our school had 5 senior girls quit lacrosse, only 18 tried out for boys baseball, low numbers overall for spring sports in general. Next year we will have on 8 returning senior players on varsity football. I can't believe it when I read/say it....8 boys in a class playing football. We are a school of 1000 students, it just doesn't make sense, other than it has to be these specific groups 2010-11, they just aren't into much overall. The younger grades (2012-16) for us are HUGE in athletes & participation. I also coach JH wrestling and have 61 kids on the team (combined 7/8).

Kids these days (now I feel old) have no work-ethic and their parents don't make them do anything they don't "feel like". They are perfectly happy using their Iphone for everything and not actually having to do anything that requires discipline, hard work, and a little bit of effort. I'm seeing the same situation out here in CA.

Kids that are 6'4" 260 lbs not playing football because they say, "but I would have to like practice everyday and lift weights..." Or the kid who isn't coming out this year because his mom thinks that he should be the QB, but last year didn't come to 1 quarterback meeting the entire season. Didn't know any of the routes and didn't know any of the reads but it was our fault because we apparently "don't like him".

I hope that it changes soon, because there is a serious issue with kids just being "water", and taking the path of least resistance. The school I'm at now will graduate 500 kids this year and only about 25 of them will ever graduate from college. They miss 20+ days of school a semester for anything from "ski-trips" to a "headache". Everything is "excused" by the parents and then they don't understand why the kid doesn't know how to pass the science class that he was only there for 1/2 of. Amazing how he only knows 1/2 of the stuff he was supposed to learn. Don't know how that happened.

I just turned 27 yesterday, and I am exactly 10 years older than the kids that will be our seniors this next year... My friends parents and my parents would have whipped our tails if we did any of this stuff. Feel older each and every day.

I feel exactly like cqmiller, well maybe worse as I graduated high school in 2005! I have noticed that it's somewhat the kids, but more importantly it is us adults that are at fault. We have made it too easy fr kids and have coddled them too much. Kids ae not being held accountable by the administration and by their parents for their behavior in the classroom and the inverse is true on the athleitic field. Often times parents are too ready to blame poor performance in the classroom on teachers (Who are in some cases not blameless) and do not use positve coercion to gt their children to study. A number of my players and kids I know att my school said their parents never question them about their homework, behavior or grades until it becomes a problem with the administration. If the people wh I live with do not value an education or hold me accountable for my behavior why, unless I am an extremely motivated person, would I do otherwise?
On the other hand in many situations the pressure to perform is very high on the athletic field. Often times I believe that parents live through their kid or look at them as a meal ticket. I dont know how often I heard parents of freshmen on our team saing that their kid would entertain a FCS school but most likely will go PAC 10 or SEC as a scholly or walk on. The pressure can be high on back ups an even higher on starters and stars. While the pressure has always been there combine poor parental supprt, peer pressure, and bioligical and psychological turmoil and you're asking for a wild ride. A lot of kids are so used to not having to work hard so when they run into a rough spot in the sport such as being a backup or home pressure it's easy to give up, drink up, or toke/shoot up. Also, you put too much pressure on a kid and the game isn't fun, if you aren't having fun you shouldn't be playing.
Also, the prevelance of hard core narcotics in high schools is amazing, I'm not talking weed, I'm talking about cocaine, percaseth, heroine, and meth. The drug culture has become prevalent at all levels from the mining town to Beverly Hills. The lure of the money from selling lures a lot of kids as well as its glorification through ur music and culture. It's not just a rap thing, listen to top 40 rock,and country music too and drugs are talked about and glorified. It is sadly our job as educators (yes even non teacher coaches can set the example and teach their players things other than this great game). We need to continue to coach discipline, hard work, andwhen we can ethics to our players. We are sadly coming upo a couple of generations of young boys who have no real model for what it means to be a man in the home, so we have to try and do our best to save the ones who want to be saved.

Our kids have to pay to play, but its not a huge chunk of change compared to some districts. JH kids pay 50.00 per sport and high school pays 75.00 per sport.

It seems like (or at least with our football players) the more or higher the expectations we put on them the farther and faster they run away. I think they are afraid of failing?

One of the best books you will read on this subject is the book "Do Hard Things". I found it on here and it has really opened my eyes. I wish there was a digital or interactive way to get it to my players so they could soak it in.

What about the mobility of kids too? We are in a very rural town with the next closest town being 30 miles away and we have had 5 kids leave to go elsewhere, and they have to drive at least 30 min. to get there. We just lost 1 yesterday who was recruited by a kid that should be playing here and they have to drive almost an hour to get to the private school they will be attending. In my day we never had such lack of loyalty, but then again, my parents never questioned the school, if the school said I did it, I did it and got my butt blistered too! Nowadays, it's somehow the "systems" fault, and that's such a copout. What that tells me is, as a parent I can blame my lack of effort and values on the "system" and get away with turning out a "turd" for a kid. Face it, us as coaches and educators have taken over the role of instilling discipline, and work ethic into these kids, as most parents don't feel they have to. Sorry to rant...

The School I was at last year in Riverside County had 89 players for Freshmen football alone. Overall we had about 220 players 9-12 they all pay / Fund-raise over $400.
The Booster Club was down last year and did not meet their goal of over 100 Grand in the past they could raise as much as 120 grand.
The Boosters pay the Salaries of all but 5 of the coaches which are paid by the District.
The School is in an area with a lot of Competition our big rival is less than 2 miles away on the same street and they have more participation.

In my hometown (in Michigan), some kids don't play because their parents can't even afford it! At our school, it's $100 for pay to play. What upsets me is that there are those kids, and then there are the lazy ones that everyone has discussed about in this thread who can afford it.

I graduated high school in 2008, and the amount of players who come out for football at my school has dropped almost by half. Most for bad reasons too. We had an 8th grader (starting 7th grade center last year), not come out because he had to train for a professional CALL OF DUTY TEAM that he was asked to join! Yeah, the video game!

Usually my school has at least one age group who can't field 22 players, but this year we had 3 age groups with under 20 players! Most start off with atleast 30, but everyone quits once they don't get to play their favorite positionm or the position they played in the youth league

My first year of coaching I coached at a school of 1400 students and we had 8 seniors. those 8 seniors also played basketball and baseball. during their 4 years of high school they won exactly 8 football games. 4 of them being their sr year. they had only 20 when they were fr, then 17 as soph, then 11 as jr and 8 as sr. odd thing is in basketball they were very successful and it was those 8 sr.

100% agree on the 20+ absences per marking period and everything is excused THEN the parents (plus at my school the guidance dept. and administration) want to know why I FAILED THE KID and asking me questions on WHAT I CAN DO to "get him over the finish line". I teach 12th grade Government which is a required course for graduation.

I used to get pissed, defend myself, etc... but no matter how well I covered my ass, gave them 100 opportunities, etc... they always won, I would have ridiculous headaches, be up all night pissed, and question why the hell I am even teaching and putting up with that garbage. I would then give them all the make up work then grade it about 20 minutes before graduation because they dropped it on me graduation morning. Most of it was either copied or answered by their "case manager". I'd give them the D-, move on and no one would even give me the "reach around" and at least say thanks for helping them out. Welcome to public education in the 21st century. AND I AM AT A GREAT SUBURBAN SCHOOL WITH DECENT PARENTS ALL-IN-ALL.

About 2 years ago a guidance counselor was sick of me putting up with his crap decided to just forgo the badgering and drop the kid from my class and put him in HIS independent study. I LOVED IT because my name was no longer on his report card and I used it ever since i would suggest that route. I felt at least my integrity was saved and I had beaten them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes I had to give in and give all the make-up work. BUT... I refuse to let it bother me anymore but its tough when guys like all of us coaches are complete perfectionist, Type A people and never like anyone to get the better of us. Its tough.

Guidance and Administration is scared of the parents when they start talking "suing" the school because their summer vacation is going to be wrecked.

Its funny too because I would never see these parents, and OUR guidance dept. or Administrators until {censored} hits the fan and reality sets in that little Johnny isn't going to graduate. For an entire year phone calls went unanswered, e-mailed unanswered, letters, Interims, report cards etc... all went unanswered. I am talking e-mails and phone calls to guidance too. If I did get them, all they would say is "we know, we know, we know" and do squat about it.

But that final letter in May to the parents telling them their kid isn't going to make it and they show up at the door step with their ambulance chasing lawyer they found on the TV commercials during the Jerry Springer and Maury Povich "who's my baby's daddy" shows.

I've been teaching and coaching for for 12 years now the #1 reason kids fail is attendance. Most if not all teachers are pretty accommodating and will "work" with the kids about making up work. But those 20+ absence per marking period make it pretty damned tough to make the numbers work.

Guidance and administration gets tired of dealing with parents so they convince/force/beg the classroom teachers to make it work so they get them out of their office and out of school.

As you can see this is a major problem with me.

My old man would have thrown a bucket of water on me if I tried to take a day off of school. If school called, my {censored} was grass. I used to beg the teacher or Principal to hit me, give me detentions but DON'T suspend me or call my parents. I still hear his belt and my mom's wooden spoon and shoe. 35+ refinery worker who is the son of a WWII marine. Mom too because if the old man found out my mom let me stay home he would have been {censored} at her too.

My parents also made me do something after school. We didn't have all the video games, cell phones, and computers and I am only 38. We all played football, drank beer and lifted weights. That was pretty much it. And I am not condoning drinking just telling it like it was in my neighborhood in the late 80's. Music sucked, the eagles sucked, Phillies sucked, etc... so there was not much to do in SE PA.

Times are different. Just look at whats popular on TV.

PS I am not hammering "guidance counselors" and "Administrators" in general. I am hammering only those at my school not my brethren counselors, principals and deans on this board. I have Master's degrees in both School counselor and Leadership so I know and understand the business besides teaching

I graduated from high school in 2005 so bear with me...

I am seeing a lot of the "kids today..." or "my folks never would have let me..." type of comments on this thread. While it may be true that kids today are soft/spoiled/lazy/criminals/can't spell, isn't most of this stuff the parents' fault (as some here have noted)?

If the current group of 12-20 year olds is a lost generation, whose fault is it really, the kids or their parents? I guess I am saying that maybe current generation of adults aged 45-60 or whatever screwed up raising their kids and we are now seeing the effects of this in low participation and achievement, among other things.

Furthermore, aren't we seeing this rise in stupidity in parents in many other threads like this one: www.coachhuey.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=37047&page=1

Just some food for thought.

I heard a speaker (Tim Elmore) talk about this generation and their response to authority. They basically choose their own authority (Products of a consumer culture). If they don't like their authority, they go to one they like. E.g. I don't like what the football coach is making me do, so I'll quit and go skateboard.

Too bad that really doesn't work in the real world. E.g. I don't like my boss so I'll quit and find a new boss to work for. Might work once or twice, but if you've quit 10 jobs, your resume isn't going to look too good.

Blame it on Leo Buscaglia and the touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy "Self-Esteem" movement.

Let's not be so sure that the "good old days" were so great. Kids aren't necessarily privy to the grumbling and politicking that goes on between adults. Kids are in their own little worls and tend to be oblivious to everything else. I've been amazed to find out some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes when I was in HS. That was 40 years ago so I'd bet that it was going on 10 years ago.

This might help your understanding. Reading the book DO HARD THINGS really opened my eyes. IMO, it should re required reading, not for young people but for adults (parents, teachers, coaches, etc.)

www.therebelution.com/blog/2005/08/myth-of-adolescence-part-1/

It has taken society a long time to devolve to the present state of things, so there is no quick fix.