Analysis Of Greg Bach's Article: The Parents Association For Youth Sports

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Baseball is a sport intended to be enjoyed by children and adults alike. However, parents have managed to take away the enjoyment of the sport from children participating in little league and make it stressful by being too competitive (Brower 40). According to Dr. Preston, Dr. House, and Dr. Vangsness, pitching is the most common position to be played by little league players, nearly twenty-five percent of all little league participants pitch. Since pitching is very popular, pitching has more injuries than any other position in baseball (Preston, House, and Vangsness 1). Contradictory to the most common belief amongst parents who are not familiar with baseball, even though baseball is not a contact sport does not conclude that baseball has …show more content…

Greg Bach, the author of the article “The Parents Association for Youth Sports,” is the communications director for the National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS) in West Palm Beach, Florida. This organization’s goal is to increase awareness of the negative impacts parents’ actions have on children competing in sports and aims to make youth sports more enjoyable. According to Greg Bach’s article, parents whose competitiveness is out of control can cause emotional trauma to their child (Bach 16). The emotional trauma evoked is a result of the parents yelling at the pitcher, coaches, and umpires child (Bach 16). Often when the child is put in this situation they feel uncomfortable, scared, embarrassed, and pressured to meet the expectations of his or her parents (Bach 17). If the child does not meet the parents’ expectation, he or she may become depressed. Greg Bach claims that the hypercompetitive parents transform what should be a rewarding and an enjoyable experience into a negative experience. Because of the negative experience they had in little league baseball, for example, the little league pitcher may not have any future intentions of playing in organized sports (Bach 16). Therefore, the children are deprived of the enriching childhood experiences of friendly competition and the skills sports may give such as teamwork, leadership, and responsibility. Parents need to apply less pressure on their young pitchers in order to make little league baseball as fun as they experienced, instead of hurting him or her

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