Ex-Celtic Player Bob Bigelow Talks Youth Sports

Former Boston Celtics player and youth sports speaker Bob Bigelow proclaimed during a lecture at Avon High School last Thursday that he was losing to the battle for the soul of youth sports in America.

Yet, his powerful arguement gained converts to his cause during his return to Avon after six years as he captivated the audience with his mighty voice and seldom stationary body language, all without the benefit of a microphone.

Bigelow framed his issue using the stories of two of the most famous athletes in history. He first told the story of Michael Jordan, who was cut as a sophomore from the varsity basketball team in high school, and went on to become one of the greatest players in college basketball and NBA history. And he contrasted it with the tale of Tiger Woods, whose famous video as a three year old driving a golf ball one hundred yards quickly followed his victory in the Masters Tournament, which propelled him to superstardom.

Using the two stories as the opposite sides of a spectrum, Bigelow explained how the United States was the only country in the world with youth sports programs to be falling in with the Tiger Woods model. He explained how the concept of Long Term Athlete Development (LATD) had become the standard in most countries. LATD is the idea that being able to identify and judge athletic ability in anyone under the age of 16 or 17 was a nebulous exercise at best, and dark magic at worst. He said that the practices in youth sports in America of picking stars at a very young age and cutting kids from sports teams as young as eight or ten years old was madness and not supported by any empirical research.

Bigelow recounted a lecture he gave in his home town to the middle school basketball coaches. The team had 37 kids try out, and 30 spots on the team. Bigelow railed against not every child play.

He told them, “There's a good chance you might have cut me. The single greatest player in the history of this town. In 1965 as a sixth grade basketball player, I would have been cut by a real estate agent.”

Bigelow explained how children under the age of twelve were developmentally incapable of understanding the strategy, tactics, and concepts of positional play and individual roles in team sports. The practice of coaching kids in these areas was useless if not detrimental to their development as athletes and as people.

He was very critical of the concept of travel teams for younger children. He said classifying athletic ability before puberty was scientifically without basis. He told the story of Australia, which in all sports but tennis embraces the LTAD model. Their competitive tennis program tries to identify prodigies and devotes resources to the younger children, and they have been unsuccessful in replicating the past successes of Australian tennis. He explained the only competitive sports where younger athletes held an advantage was female gymnastics and figure skating, because of the limits of flexibility and body shape after puberty.

Next Bigelow spoke about coaching children, and the expectations and goals the youngsters had while playing sports. In general, the top reason children cited for participating was to have fun, make friends, and exercise. Winning came in twelfth on the list for the under twelve age group surveyed. Even at the high school level, most respondent said they would prefer to play every game on a losing team that sit on the bench of a winning team. Bigelow insisted competitiveness had a place in sports, but only in the later years, and even then not with the primacy that it enjoys now.

He pointed out the standard behavior of coaches, yelling from the sidelines, micro-managing the kids in games was not only ineffective, but probably detrimental to the development of the athletes. He made the distinction between information, bits of advice shouted in a haphazard manner, and knowledge, advice given with the aim of understanding the reasons behind the desired behaviors.

Bigelow mentioned in inefficacy of the classic sideline phrases shouted by excited parents. Things like, “play harder Johnny!” or “Johnny, focus!” All but meaningless phraseology that is nonetheless ubiquitous at most sporting events. He explained that for thousands of hours a year, children are being talked at by teachers, parents, and coaches, and he believed that the time they got to play on that field should be left for them without this kind of mindless instruction. They can learn by doing, not by being lectured.

He shared an anecdote about trying to give a lecture on the “pick and roll” to a group of 100 third and fourth grade children. After five torturous minutes, he turned them loose on the basketball court and let them throw balls at the hoops and at each other, and just let them play. The time for learning skills was much later in development, and it was foolish to try to impart that kind of information to kids that young.

 In the current competitive environment, where even T-ball has national championships, Bigelow's gospel seems to fall on deaf ears. A parent in the audience lamented, “this place should be full!” But far from a defeatist, Bigelow called on the people in the room to help spread the word. If challenged by hyper-achievement driven parents, he said ask for them to quote the research. He said he has never seen a study that supports challenging younger kids to adult levels at the younger ages.

 “Our fiduciary responsibility to these kids is to keep them passionate, keep them interested, and keep them going.”

 Bigelow served as an inspiration to those in the audience who believe that youth sports should serve the needs of the kids, not the needs of parents, or coaches, or those seeking the fleeting possibility of stardom.

 “Youth sports has nothing to do with sports. Youth sports is developing better children through the medium called sports,” he said.

 He quoted Michael Jordan, who said about his own childrens' athletic endeavors, “My advice would be to tell them to learn to love the game, once they develop that, the mental part will be easier. I didn't get any instruction in basketball until I was a junior in high school. First I just love the game, and develop the skills after. I believe in playing early, and learning late.”