Here’s two classic examples of youth sports burnout:
Former tennis star, Jennifer Capriotti, started
training for 6 hours per day…at age four.
Capriotti turned pro at age 13, by age 14 she was a top ten player on
tour competing against hyper-competitive players a decade older than her. At age 17 Capriotti dropped out of
tennis. Biographies on the rise and fall
of this tennis prodigy point to Capriotti’s parents’ divorce and the resulting
turmoil as a contributing cause of her fall.
Imagine being one of the best in world in a chosen
sport, making unbelievable amounts of money to play a game, all the fame and
recognition, endorsements, and you just…walk away. Burnout stole a big chunk of Capriotti’s
career. She came back to the tour years
and achieved more success but she lost several productive, peak years due to
burnout and stressors off the court.
Capriotti lacked a solid foundation to build from and fall back on when
the off court events showed up.
Next, there was Todd Marinovich, aka “Robo
Quarterback.” At age three Marinovich
was working on football strategy with his dad, at age four he was scheduled for
routine practice sessions. All that
singular focus paid off initially – he went on to star at QB for USC. Marinovich’s success made him a first-round
pick by the Oakland Raiders and he completed a promising rookie season.
But burnout caught up with Marinovich. A well-chronicled series of off-field
substance abuse and legal troubles robbed Marinovich of a promising career in
the NFL. Like Capriotti, Marinovich
lacked a solid foundation to build from and fall back on when the inevitable
off field struggles showed up.
These are just two examples of burnout. Of course there are many examples of youth
athletes with singular focus from an early age that experience success without
too much off-field trouble (Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for example). But for every Capriotti, Marinovich or Phelps
there are hundreds of thousands of kids that won’t go pro, kids that just want
to play a game after school. And if a
kid loves sports, but quits at age 13 from “burnout,” then that is a
problem. But it is a fixable problem –
(1) sports parents must first get on the same page, and only then (2) align
those parental goals with the athlete.
Burnout is a thief.
Burnout steals all the great life skills that youth sports can
teach. It is up to the sports-parent to
get on the same page and align their goals with that of the
student-athlete. And it is also up to
the sports-parent to create breathing room and purposefully schedule downtime
from competitive youth sports.
For more tips on student-athlete development & NCAA recruiting see Zero Offseason @ www.amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com/Zero-Offseason-Student-Development-Recruiting-ebook/dp/B00XT6XAEK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1438866729&sr=8-2&keywords=zero+offseason
