Dubuque, IA

Hampstead High School

Run Time: 65:42 + 2-minute kick

Better choices for running on the east side of Arterial drive. The Chavenelle “Trail” that I ran the last time I was here is actually the Chavenelle “Sidewalk without Shade.” This time I was able to cut through a residential neighborhood to the local high school track, where I could at least have some non-cement to run on.

It’s Youth Football Season in America, which means young middle-class athletes trying to run hard when the overweight coaches are watching, as well as parents in fold-out chairs on the sidelines and up on the path beside the tennis courts, looking at their phones. I counted 16 coaches on the field with what appeared to be 3 different teams, and 11 of the 16 were in what I would call “bad physical condition.”

What if you actually had to be in good physical shape to coach a sport? What if you had to qualify to coach a young athlete by being in good physical, mental, and emotional shape — good enough to be a role model? It might be hard to find enough candidates.

I’m not really one to talk. I was not in great physical shape when I coached youth baseball. I’m in better shape now. I probably was not in good mental or emotional shape, either, and I’m probably a little better in those two areas now as well. I think I did relatively little damage to the psyches of the young athletes I coached. Time will tell. I do get a few things thrown back at me by my youngest son, whom I coached the most, such as my coaching mantra, “Don’t be sorry. Just do it right.”

I actually think that the most qualified youth coaches are kids in college or just out of high school who played the sport in question. Most of them have not been crushed by Life and by being a parent, and they are blissfully unaware of how hard it is to teach proper athletic skills, which means it actually is not as hard for them. They tend to be relatively unbothered by the shenanigans of the parents, which basically triples their effectiveness. And they’re almost still kids themselves, so they have more fun doing it.

And, we should pay those kids to coach. Not a lot, but something, because coaching has value. In fact, whichever parent would be saved the agony of coaching themself should pony up and fund that project in gratitude. Not coaching that one season probably would add two seasons to their life span.

These kids on this afternoon were clearly not enjoying whatever they were doing. It was hot, and their hearts and minds did not appear to be into it, which made me smile as I jogged around the track. Character-building, they call it. Making your kid play a sport you wanted to be good at and fell short is a time-honored American tradition. The young athlete learns how to do not very well what someone else wants them to do.

And then, chances are, when their turn comes around to do the same thing to their kid, they probably will. If we want to break these generational cycles, we have to do something radical, such as taking men completely out of the equation. Maybe those coaches should only be women in college or just out of high school. Think of that. Think how much that would change youth sports.

Let’s make THAT happen.