Sports are not inherently character building, despite the old adage “sports build character.”
“Friday Night Tykes,” a children’s reality show on Esquire Network, seeks to offer viewers a glimpse of what life is like for competitors in two independent youth football leagues in Texas and Pennsylvania.
The critically acclaimed show gives us a glimpse into everything that is wrong with the worst of youth sports: helicopter parents and over-the-top coaches living vicariously through children.
Simply put, it’s a masculinized version of those ridiculous child pageant shows. Swap the obsession over pre-teen tanning beds and teeth bleaching procedures with running faster and getting stronger; it’s pretty much the same thing.
Because of parental and coaching over-involvement, developing athletes in the show are subconsciously encouraged to seek out hypermasculinity to prove their worth. What else could we assume to be the intent of adults covertly questioning the manhood of prepubescent boys because they miss a tackle in youth football?
If parents aren’t taking the competition too seriously and pushing their children to “man up” and play through their injuries, overzealous coaches are encouraging violence and yelling profanities at their players.
Three years ago, a coach in the series was suspended after he instructed his players to hit their opponents in the head, knowing the likelihood of injury. Another coach was suspended for inappropriate language.
In 2015, a player named “JuJu” suffered what appeared to be a head injury following a tackle. Coaches rushed the field and without stabilizing his neck or head to ensure spinal stability, carried his limp body to the sidelines. They proceeded to give him scalp massages to alleviate the symptoms of the likely concussion as he struggled to recite his date of birth.
Head injuries are a serious matter. The Sports Concussion Institute estimates that 36 percent of collegiate athletes have been concussed more than once and 53 percent of high school athletes have been concussed prior to participating in prep sports.
So alarming is the causal relationship between contact football and head trauma that the NFL recently earmarked $100 million to be dedicated to research and development of safer player technology. The league has also promoted the comprehensive “Heads Up Football” program which, among other safety measures, teaches players at the youth level to tackle in ways that reduce helmet contact.
It’s no secret our youth’s participation in football is dwindling. According to a study conducted by USA Football, enrollment for children ages 6-14 was down approximately 27% from 2010-2015.
Concern over concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive head trauma is assumed to be a primary cause. Boston University, which houses the world’s largest CTE tissue repository, has autopsied the brains of 94 former NFL players and found the debilitating disease in 90 of them.
Change starts at the top and the NFL is finally moving in the right direction, only after previously concealing studied links between concussions and mental illness. If the carelessness evident in “Tykes” is any indication, it appears the change has not yet reached the bottom.
One could argue sports hurt character when kids are entrusted to man-children, like most of the “Tykes” coaches are. The show is documented proof that sports don’t build character in our youth — high character coaches and parents do.
Christopher Godail is a 27-year-old interdisciplinary studies junior from Kenner, Louisiana.