Bob Bigelow Quotations

I will be speaking in general about balance and perspective in youth sports. It is for parents and coaches who take the game too seriously.

We are there to serve their needs, they are not there to serve ours. That's lost on a lot of adults.

We have become too selective, too elitist, too talent-mongering as I like to say, trying to select the athletic wheat from the athletic chaff.

We should be serving the kids' needs, but there's an interesting dynamic here. There's far too many adults out there who think it's about the kids serving their needs or performing for them.

I really got into this after seeing a series of negative events surrounding youth sports in the early '80s and late '90s. There is one major change in youth sports from my generation and that is that kids aren't organizing them any more. It's done by adults. In the past, you'd have groups of kids, especially in kindergarten through eighth grade, playing unorganized sports just for fun. Things are becoming too organized and too competitive. Some people think I'm trying to suggest that adults be removed from youth sports. I'm not. I'm suggesting the adult ego be removed from youth sports.