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Bastardization of youth sports now available at click of a button

Greg Jayne: Commentary

The Columbian
Published: August 29, 2010, 12:00am

The irony is obvious, and yet it’s rather humorous.

Today on ESPN, St. Xavier of Ohio will play Good Counsel of Maryland in football. High school football. On national TV.

Which makes it relevant here to point out that the full name of the Maryland school is Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, and that you would be hard-pressed to find a more Catholic name than Our Lady of Good Counsel. With a name like that, it’s either a Catholic high school or a conclave of female therapists.

So, with Our Lady of Good Counsel facing off against St. Xavier in a game that apparently is of national importance, we have two Catholic schools giving up their Sundays to play an inter-regional football game.

And that points out the irony — Holy Day of Obligation, indeed. I just never figured we were obligated to have 17- and 18-year-olds play football on national TV.

Such is the current state of youth sports, with this weekend serving as Exhibit A. At their highest level, youth sports have been turned into a commodity, a business venture that is racing away from what once was a noble purpose. And you only need to turn on your TV to buy into a little piece of that ever-growing business.

Saturday featured ESPN broadcasting two high school football games and ABC showing two Little League World Series games. Today, you can find one high school football game and two more Little League games.

All on national TV. All featuring athletes who aren’t old enough to vote. All urging the public to become witnesses to the bastardization of youth sports.

And I can’t help but feel that there’s something slimy about this, like it’s doing for sports what Miley Cyrus has done for music.

Let’s start with the Little League World Series. Not long ago, only the championship game would be shown on TV. It seemed innocent enough, an opportunity to view sports in one of its most pristine settings.

But then they started showing the entire World Series on national TV. And then they expanded the Series so there would be more games. And then they started showing regional finals on national TV. And then they started showing regional semifinals on national TV.

Which makes you wonder when ESPN is going to start an August Madness contest in which you fill out your Little League bracket, NCAA style: “D’oh! I had Trumbull, Conn., beating Springfield, Mass.!”

Because the idea of watching a Little League regional semifinal that doesn’t involve a blood relative is simply beyond comprehension. Are we really that starved for sports?

And yet, in many ways, the idea of televising high school football games is even more disturbing. The Internet Age has fueled a trend in which the best prep athletes become household names, in which recruiting news is a cottage industry trading on the perceived accomplishments of 17-year-olds.

Which brings to mind a quote from Thomas Fuller: “Fame sometimes hath created something out of nothing.”

Well, actually, it didn’t bring the quote to mind. I found it on the Internet.

But it’s appropriate in this situation, because the thought of heaping national attention on high school athletes is disconcerting.

It’s a trend that has given rise to prep basketball factories that attract players from throughout the country, and it’s a trend that has led ESPN to create a basketball tournament to determine a high school “national champion” — as if beating your rival or winning your league or capturing a state championship somehow weren’t enough.

And all of that flies in the face of what is good about kids playing sports. As the old saying goes, the problem with youth sports is adults, and in this case that mantra refers to the TV executives who think it’s a good idea to turn young athletes into commodities.

Because they aren’t commodities. They’re kids, regardless of how reluctant we are these days to let kids be kids. Regardless of whether or not the games they play are deemed worthy of national TV.

Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or by e-mail at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/weblogs/GregJayne

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