PipemanRadio Wants to Know Why Johnny Hates Sports

Do you like sports?  Find out Why Johnny Hates Sports with Fred Engh, founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports, America’s leading advocate for positive and safe sports for over 30 million youth involved in organized sports. 

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More than 30 Million children in America play what is called “little league” in sports year-round. Those 30 million children are coached, for the most part, by parents, who, in far too many instances, lose perspective as they berate children for failing to live up to their expectations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, you love done to thissu? Why great Young?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures of
Pipe Man W four C Y Radio, and I'm here
with man. This is gonna be a good one because
this is a show host on our network that talks
about something that's not talked about a lot. And I
know I've experienced it. I know you the listeners have
probably experienced it. And now we're going to find out

(00:43):
why Johnny Hates Sports with Fred eng How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Good morning, pipe Man, And it's great to be with
you this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh great to have you. And so tell me, let's
let's start off right off the get go. What was
the what was the impetus that made you come up
with the concept of talking about why Johnny hates sports?
What does that represent?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, the whole idea of you know, people have asked
me after the fact of you know, I wrote the
book Why Johnny Hates Sports, and because of my background,
I had seven kids that played and I saw all
the things I didn't want to see happen out there.
But the whole reason why Johnny hates sports is you

(01:32):
know what happens is kids are six years old, they
hardly know how to tie their shoes, and yet we
expect them to play like they play baseball or whatever
in the major leagues. So that's what starts out with kids.
And then all of a sudden, the league says, hey,

(01:52):
we got to have somebody to come out here to coach,
and it's got to be you, dad, you know, because
we don't have coaches. So here you got what I
call Billy Jones's father or Johnny Jones's father, or Mary
Whatever's mother, and somebody's out there in the field trying
to coach them. They may not have ever played this sport.

(02:13):
They don't know anything about the sport at all of catching, throwing, kicking,
hitting skills. So they're out there as a coach. So
can you imagine the kid trying to be, you know,
having fun with somebody trying to show them to do that.
And then the next thing that you have is you've
got the league itself. And this league has made up

(02:36):
a group of guys or plumbers, truck drivers, pharmacists, care
you mean.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
They don't actually play in the sport that they're running.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, no, no, So so you got them out there
and they're organizing all of this, and so the main thing.
They say, well, what is our goal here? Well, well,
what is every sports goal? It's winning, And so get
it back to the idea of kids starting out at

(03:08):
six years old, and the statistics show amazing, isn't that
they started six years old and by the age of
thirteen seventy percent of them we will equit. And when
I asked why they quit, they say that it ceased
to be fun because of the pressure put on parents.
You know, parents are out there screaming, yelling because they

(03:31):
dropped the fly ball. I was doing an interview one
time TV in Tampa. Never forget right. Here's a guy
in a hockey program kids about eight, nine years old whatever,
same thing. He misses a goal and the camera catches
him and he's yelling and screaming. He says, you bum billy,

(03:52):
you can never do anything right. I say, how would
you like to be that age and your father calling
you a bum? You missed the goal in a hockey.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
And hockey is the worst, because I have all of
them because I coached a bunch of sports, but I
coached hockey and that was the worst. You know, And
like to your point, I played baseball for nine years.
By the time I got to high school, I was
over it, and and I originally I wanted to go
to major leagues originally, but then it was just like

(04:27):
I was over it by then. But then in coaching,
I know there's other coaches that like, what are how
are they teaching these kids how to play baseball? They
never played themselves. That's what ended up me coaching, because
like I would have my kid on a team that
the coach didn't even know what they were talking about

(04:49):
or or anything about the game.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah. Well, the funny thing is about you know what
I mentioned before, that bother is out there at times,
kid up and they say, well, the line's over here
for you. You know it, signed up to coach it.
Why kidding me? I'm not coaching. I got work to
do and I get home and okay, well then uh next,

(05:13):
because Billy, your son can't play. What do you mean
he can't play? Well, if we don't have a coach,
then he can't play. We don't have a team. So
there you go, and you got you got people out
there doing it and trying to do it. But the
worst part about it, I mean, you know, you can
be a baseball coach and and just sit there in

(05:34):
the dugout and watch what goes on. But that's not
what happens. Now they get all excited, you know, the
scores two to two and now it's fifth or seventh
thing and whatever. And now that everybody starts to get nervous,
the people in the stands start yelling at the coach,
put him in there, put him in there, Scott saying

(05:55):
wait a minute, and so get it's just bedlam. And
that's like I could say, seventy of the kids drop out.
And that's evident of why. You know, it's it's such
a bad situation for so many kids.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, and and you know it's a bad situation for
the parents too. I find for multiple reasons. You can
tell me what your opinion is, but number one, because
you know they they first of all, they don't know
what they're doing. So if there's parents that are seeing

(06:33):
their kids that could have potential that aren't being taught
the right way, and how those parents react to those
coaches or you have, you know, like the typical coach
happens a lot in hockey where you know, they think
their kids should play all the time, and they're a
bully and so ergo they're going to bully the coach

(06:56):
and you know all the things that go on that
these kids have to see. Now it's bad enough to
you know, they're put under pressure to you know, play
like their professionals instead of in a rec league. But
now they're seeing their parents act ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned they're playing in the rec
league and what is in the last several years that's
come along as the travel teams, and so what happens
with the travel teams, it's really really hurting the rec programs.
You got kids in communities, you know, no matter where
you live in the country, there's parts of w rec

(07:35):
departments and they've got fields all over town Northwest Park,
Southwest Park, East whatever. And on those parks they got
ball fields that they built with the idea that kids
would play baseball. Well, the w REC Department doesn't organize it.
They allow the permits for Billy Jones, It's father and

(07:56):
whoever come in and say hey, we've got to have
a baseball for our kids. And that's how it starts.
So you got the tune of millions of kids across
the country that are now playing in ret programs. And
then in the last few years. What happens is they
going to try to get a permit that's a uh

(08:17):
sorry that it's not available. What do you mean it's
not available? Well, we have travel teams that have paid
money to lease the field, and it's so the travel teams,
you know, they appeal to the parents' ego and they say, yeah, look,

(08:38):
you know if you sign up, and who's doing this,
this is a code or excuse me, the organizer of
the travel team who's getting paid, and the coaches are
getting paid. And so they say to the parent, looke,
your kid doesn't sign up for this. I mean, he's
a good ballplayer and he's gonna make it in the

(08:59):
major leagues or he's going to get his college scholarship.
So you don't want to miss out on this. You
know how much these people are paying for a year
for the kid to go out there and play in
travel Oh, I'm.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Sure the listeners don't know unless they're paying it, because
it's a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Fifteen thousand dollars. I was on somebody one of the
interviews the other day. He said, you know, it must
cost you about five thousand dollars and it's lady left.
He said, yeah, I wish he was five thousand, fifteen thousand.
We paid last year. I said, what's for? Well, when
you go to the tournament, you got to take the kids,

(09:41):
you got to say the hotel, you got to pay
the coaches, you got to pay everything. And the worst
part about it is now these guys that are calling
themselves professional coaches, they're saying, you know, if your kid Doug,
you out there and play all year long, yeah, it

(10:02):
guess what happens. Just like you were talking before, you
get to a certain age and you get burnt out
and say, oh this, how about out of here? And
because its just too much.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I find where we are too in Florida. It's even
more prevalent because like I'm from New Jersey, And what
was cool about in New Jersey when I was raising
my kids is that they could play a different sport
for different seasons, because there was you know, it only
was certain seasons. Here. What I really didn't like is, oh,
if you take a season off of this sport to

(10:34):
go play another sport, well you're not in the end anymore,
Like you're not part of the click anymore. It's like
you have to you can't miss one season or else
you fall to the bottom of the heap.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. You know the worst part of that whole deal
is you got the kid that you know, he's got
friends and he's got other things that he made you
want to do, but he eats. And so I don't
want to disappoint my parents because they're spending all this money.
So I'll just stick with it and stay out there.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I'll tell you tell him that, right, Like the parents
are like, no, you know, if you want to quit
after the season, you can, but you have to stick with.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
It no matter what.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Or they don't even give the option of quitting after
the season. It's like, nope, you need to do this.
And I think kids want to try different sports too.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah. The funny thing with a show that I do
is you kind of well know called why Johnny a Sports,
which a little promo here is on Friday morning at
eleven am for anybody that's listening here. But you know,
talking about it the other day one of the shows
that the woman was saying, yeah, we spent fifteen thousand

(11:52):
dollars for a year. You know, I said, well why
you spend that money? He said, well, you know, my
kid can get a scholarship. They don't do this, They're
not going to get a scholarship. I said, well, what
if you just forgot about all that and started saving
all that money, because you're not going to be guaranteed

(12:12):
to get a scholarship, but if you put the money aside,
you'll have money for them to go to college. Because
you know, the statistics will show. It's amazing that parents,
even though they know this, they don't give it. Damn
he can make it. But less than two percent of
any kid that goes out in a baseball program and

(12:36):
signs a major league contract will ever play in the
major leagues. You're not amazing. So you know, some of
the people that have had on the show, a guy
that actually, you're going to have you back next week.
He went through the whole process of that, and I
asked him about it, said, you know your parents push
you into that because it's oh yeah, absolutely, they knew

(12:59):
I was going to making to the major leagues. And
he signed the contract, played for the Cardinals in the
minor leagues, and he said, I rode around a bus
all around the Carolina's worst experience in my life. Never
played a day in the major leagues.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Wow, Wow, and then you know you're talking about parents before.
Like I was at one of my grandson's football games,
a tournament, one of those tournaments, and this guy brought
his kid into the bathroom and the whole place could
hear him screaming at the kid, like and just totally

(13:37):
belittling the kid because maybe he made a mistake in
the game. In the game, you.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Know, Yeah, you talk about hockey. Hockey and football are
the two wors for kids and sports. I'll tell you
a quick story, but mother, Mother was telling me one
time in one of the talks I was getting somewhere.
She came up afterwards and she said, I gotta tell
you what happened to my son in the football program.

(14:06):
He was gonna go to a dental appointment and I
had to go over to practice and pick him up.
And I got there and when I got there, I
couldn't find him. And I went over the coach. I said,
where's my son. He said, he's over the car, over there,
he said. She said, I said, what's he doing in
the car? She said, well, he's over there. Get She

(14:28):
goes over, opens the door of the car. And this
is in summer and it's hot and the car's running,
the heats turned on high, and he's wrapped in plastic wrap.
Oh yeah, I know about that. And see, so what
happens is the league says, all right, now, we got

(14:50):
this real good quarterback and he's got a weigh one
hundred and fifteen pounds. He weighs anymore or not, they're
gonna have weigh in tomorrow. You gotta lose it. And
then Tommy, you got to get in there and lose
all his weight. So he gets hit there and it's
you know, heat exhaustion. I mean, could the poor kid

(15:12):
could die from that? And then the mother knew it
and she ended up suing the coach. So you couldn't
realize that. I mean, there's so many ugly, ugly stories
about you football coaches because and I can say this
because I was a head football coach in Wilmington, Delaware

(15:33):
in high school, and so I knew about football. And
one thing is football is a tough game, tough game
for tough kids. And if you're not that, then you
shouldn't be playing it. And when the parents get their
kids out there and they're gonna be trying to play football,
and they shouldn't even be out in the field because

(15:53):
they don't want to be they don't like to get hit,
and it's it's it's just a rat race. But I'll
tell you the biggest fallacy of youth sports. It's called
the maturing level. You got a kid that comes out
and then let's see we get back to it seven

(16:14):
year old. Well, maturation wise, there can be four year
difference between that age group. So now you got a
seven year old who managed to receive that kid is
twelve years old or what he's not seven years old?
Well he is because he matured early. So now you
got him and gets what the coach does. Oh man,

(16:37):
let's get baseball. It's gonna be my picture football, it's
gonna be my quarterback because they think of him as
his big kid. So now you got the other seven
year old who is a reverse and now he can
be a seven year old and give the body of
a four year old. And so now you have those

(16:59):
two in the league. Care how old are your son?
Seven years old? You're in his group seven year old
and so you know he used to watch the Little
League World Series and you're looking at a kid on
the mountain. He say what the kid old six one,
and and I'm not kidding that you've probably seen it.

(17:21):
The kid in the Little League World Series six one
throwing the ball, you know, eighty miles an hour.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
And how my ten year old grandson is almost my
size height wise, and he's definitely stockier than me. So
in football he goes through that like he you know,
if he's in the ten ten, you then there's a
bunch of kids that are like up to his knee
and stomachs he's playing with and getting it.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Gets what the uncle and the parents and everybody else says.
My boy out there, you know, it looks a big
and he's going to dominate in his whole thing. And
you never know what's in the kid's mind. I mean,
you know, he may be bigger and whatnot, but inside
he's not, and he maybe doesn't even want to be

(18:14):
out there. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to
paint the picture that all youth sports are not good
because for the overwhelming majority, it's a great learning experience
and to develop self confidence, self esteem, self work because
you just developed that. Not to even mention the physical

(18:37):
benefits of starting out learning how exercise, you know, is important.
So like I said, I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Take it keeps him out of trouble too. Like, if
you don't have your kids in those kind of activities,
they're going to be doing other activities they are much
more dangerous.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Oh yeah, I live right across the street from park
here and in Big Park, and every afternoon Sundays it's
just packed with kids playing soccer and I think, you know,
they didn't have it. What of those kids going to
be doing?

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, I'm probably going to be doing drugs and alcohol
in that park.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, you got it. And so you know, that's the
good part about with sports and what it does for kids.
But we've got to get rid of the ugly part
and we've been trying to do it with our organization
for several years.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, tell everybody a little bit more about your organization,
how they can reach out to you, how they can
help all that good stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah. The the organization is the National Alliance for Youth Sports.
I started the organization way back in the before the
two thousand and what happened is based on all of that.
I was saying that coaches need to be trained and

(20:04):
then started the organization. Would you believe today that throughout
the country four million plus coaches and communities across the
country have gone through the program and been conducted by
local recreation professionals. So there are about two thousand recreation

(20:26):
departments that have a certified Youth Sport administrator who conducts
training for parents and coaches and administrators of the program.
So yeah, that has been going on and it's a
nonprofit organization that has just been helping educate because that's

(20:48):
the only thing you can do. You can educate people.
And then in communities they make it mandatory. You like
the story in Jupiter a few years back that they
decided they was going to make it mandatory that if
you're a parent, you'd have to go through our parent

(21:09):
program that teaches parents how to behave in the importance
of what means the kids, and the parent didn't give
to the program, their kid couldn't play. So it I
like that. It caught national news and I was on
everything from Good Morning America to ESPN or whatever, and

(21:32):
people say, well, you can't do that to parents. They
did it, and now many programs across the country do it,
and it should be done so parents can come in
and you know, sit there and say you can't misbehave.
This is about kids, it's not about you exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I think it's a brilliant idea, and I think it
should be required because two main parents don't know how
to act. And that's what I was referring to before
the kids are seeing this, you know, and like I
think of the kid that their parent is the one misbehaving,
how embarrassing it is because then they have to go

(22:13):
back to school with these kids that are playing with
or and play with them on the team. And you know,
kids sometimes aren't nice to other kids, especially in those
embarrassing situations.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Oh, there's no question. I mean, there's so many stories
that people have told me over the years of you know,
how the kids here. I've Judge telling telling me one
time is to Judge in Alabama and he said, we
were riding home in the car and my son was

(22:46):
riding in the back seat. My wife's next to me.
He said, my wife turns to him and just rates
him the whole way home, telling him what he did
wrong in the game, and he costs them to lose
the game because of what he did. And he said,
that was my wife saying that. And so I's say

(23:09):
if people, you know it. I don'tkay, really, you're a psychologists,
psychiatrists of judge or whoever it is. People are all
the same and they need to understand their words have
such an impact on kids.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah. Yeah, it's fine because my oldest daughter, she was
in gymnastics and stuff like gymnastics and cheerleading. Oh man,
those parents get serious.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, that's right, I'd say to people though.
You know when when we talk about parent behavior and sports,
it's so different that that's parent can be up in
the stands and the kid strikes out and parent yells,

(23:59):
you dom a barb strikeout. Can you imagine the same
thing happens in the school and they're having a spelling
bee and the parents are in the room watching the
spelling bee and the kid misspells a word. The parent
jumps up and yells, can you be so stupid? Sam

(24:20):
that we've been working with, here's everybody in the room
and looking, who is this cdiot? But they don't do
it in baseball. It's just part of it, and people
will look, well, that's part of the game, the parents,
But it's not anymore. I mean, it's boy the game.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
So we're thankful that we have an organization like yours
that can help the kids, the parents, the coaches, everybody.
One last time before we go, give out all your
information for your organization, how people can help, how they
can contact you, but also information on your show right
here on W four c Y Radio Why Johnny Hates Sports.

(25:02):
They can tune in every Friday, eleven a m. Eastern
time and take it away.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Fred. Yeah, if you think about doing it would be
great because the organization is na y S dot org.
That's the national lines for U sports. And all you'd
have to do is say, oh, clicking there at ays
dot org and just say wow, and you'll see all

(25:33):
the things that the organization does and how you can
get involved in one way or another. And then, of
course is what Dane is saying is every Friday morning
at eleven am. I've been able to have some really
interesting people, recreation people, and the last few weeks we

(25:56):
talked about you know, travel teams and as recreation and
people what they see in their communities about it. And
then other people have had our her Kirk Street who's ESPN,
he's a broadcaster and talking about kids in sports and
so people at different levels sports psychologists psychology talking about

(26:20):
all these important things, and you know parents that are
there and listeners that are listening to this. You got kids.
I think he's really important for you to hear what
other people are saying, because then you can begin to
look inside yourself to say, oh, yeah, he's talking about me.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah right, So sometimes you do have to hear that
outside voice.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
You got it. So it's Friday morning at eleven am,
and we look forward to seeing you.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Well, thanks a lot for all you do. And your
show is amazing. So everybody's got to tune in or
they can't listen to my show. And and it's same
same BAT channel right here on W four c Y Radio,
W four c Y dot com. And Fred, thank you
for being on the Adventures of pipe Man.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Uh you got a being and uh I like seeing
your Pipeman shows from time to time talking about different
different categories.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh yeah, you never know what pipemin personality is gonna
show up.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Alright here ready get up. Thank you for listening to
the Adventures of Pipemin on w for c u I Radio.