Abigail Susec

English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
22 November 2020

Sports Just Aren’t As Great As We Thought

Imagine it is your very first game as a college athlete. You are mere seconds into the

starting play or the first practice when you are tripped by the kid across from you. You go down

hard, feeling your knee bend a way it is not quite supposed to as you fall. You are carted off the

field, and a week of doctor’s visits and testing ends with a diagnosis of a torn ACL and PCL.

Your cartilage was already shredded from years of high impact activity. Your entire college

career has been ended in less than a minute, and years and years of hard work and sacrifice have

been wasted. You will have limited mobility in your knee for the rest of your life and likely

never be able to enjoy the same physical activity you once did. This is the story of many a

college athlete, kids who committed themselves to a life of sports without a second thought with

only light shining in their eyes. Sadly, athletic grandeur is not in the books for most of them.

The long term effects of this athletic competition from a young age can become more negative

than we have been led to believe through potential for future injuries, loss of opportunities

unrelated to sports, and emotional stressors that will effect participants for the rest of their lives. 

While a dream is a powerful motivator, it can often push people too far. Athletes with

lofty goals will often go to any extreme to achieve them. While this could result in high levels of

success, that is often not the case. Athletes fall down many dark rabbit holes chasing these lofty

goals. Professional athletes are caught everyday doping, driving under the influence, or

committing other crimes or violations of their sporting agencies codes in order to either achieve

their goals or eliminate stress. Michael Phelps’ 2014 DUI was a result of mental illness

associated with his swimming career and the pressure he and his coaches put on himself to

achieve the near impossible. Phelps himself cited this incident as a wake-up call to the severity
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of his obsession with competition, and used it as an opportunity to create a healthier relationship

with sports and competition (“Phelps Given Probation In Guilty Plea to DUI.”) Many athletes

never come to this realization, and their careers are ended by huge scandals or even their own

deaths at the hands of drugs or unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Injury during sport competition is no new idea. It is an understood risk that all athletes

take, but when the risk begins to outweigh the rewards associated with athletic participation then

athletes need to reevaluate their decisions. Sunset Sport’s article on the long-term effects of

college athletics interviews Stanley Doughty, a former University of South Carolina football

player. They learned that “growing up in poverty, the scholarship was the only way [Stanley]

could attend a college. But after being drafted by the Chiefs 12 credits short from graduation, the

team found an injury in his spine that could leave Doughty paralyzed after an unfortunate hit.

The injury was caused by two major hits during his career at South Carolina but was never

treated because of decisions by the team doctor. The contract with the Chiefs was terminated and

Doughty was left hanging without a job and a degree. After the incident, the University denied

his request to pay for surgery and the NCAA’s insurance could not cover this case because it was

not attended to during his career at South Carolina. The University also did not offer him a re-

entrance into the school to finish the 12 credits for graduation because he was not on the

scholarship anymore” (“The Long-Term Effects of College Athletics.”) A sports injury left

Doughty without an income and a need to be extremely careful with his spine for the rest of his

life. He will be forever hindered by this injury, both in a personal and career setting. This is not

an uncommon occurrence in athletics, many athletes get injured and lose scholarship money or

athletic offers. When their whole lives are based off such a huge commitment, loss of support

like that can derail their entire future.

Simply participating in a sport can change the way your body grows and develops.

Azahara Fort- Vanmeerhaeghe conducted a study on how athletic participation can lead to

asymmetries in muscle growth of young athletes. Even the most meticulous people cannot

prevent slight imbalances between limbs as they move in their day to day lives, one leg or arm

will always be stronger than the other. Athletics only accentuate that difference. Children who

often do not adequately demonstrate correct form participating in daily activities with the

purpose of building muscle creates huge disparities in strength and injury. Fort-

Vanmeerhaeghe’s study reported “a higher ankle and knee joint injury incidence

in women [50,51]. With respect to the latter, women show a greater number of specific injuries

such as anterior knee pain [52], the ACL rupture [5] and ankle sprains [53]. This greater number

of injuries in female athletes has been related to neuromuscular factors, including the physical

capacity predominance of one leg over the other [22,54]” (Fort-Vanmeerhaeghe.) As one side of

our body becomes stronger we, the other side often struggles to keep up. When one side is

weaker than the other, activities that may be possible for the stronger side have the ability to

injure the weaker side.

For women, youth athletics have a whole other set of possible consequences. Brown fat is

a type of fat tissue found in humans that helps us to regulate heat and hormones, along with

contributing to energy expenditure. It is very prevalent in our bodies during gestation, and as we

grow and develop it helps to keep us warm and helps us to function most efficiently. As an adult,

most of this brown fat is gone, but women generally retain a higher percentage than men. This is

important in their hormonal cycles and in regulating body temperature and energy expenditure

during pregnancies. “Lower BAT activity in adult women with anorexia nervosa (a state of

severe energy deficit and hypogonadism associated with physiological changes in many other
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endocrine axes including the growth hormone-IGF-1 axis and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal

axis), suggesting an adaptive response to conserve energy” (Singhal.) This result was mirrored in

women competing in intense athletic activity from a young age. The lower BAT (brown fat)

activity levels were predicted to have a negative effect on hormone regulation as they grew older.

Physical injuries are not the only possible negative impact a life of sports could have on a

participant. Exposure to the highly competitive environment of sports from a young age can have

hugely negative impacts on the athlete’s psyche. Jeremy Engle’s article for the New York Times

discusses the idea that sports un America may be becoming too competitive, and children are

losing any desire to be active or spend time outside. He discusses the fact that children exposed

to competition at a national level before the age of 13 can feel overwhelmed by that intense

environment and lose confidence in their own abilities entirely. Many countries, such as the

Netherlands, are imposing bans on national level competition for children under the age of 13

that should help to stop this problem. In addition to being disheartening for these underage kids,

national level competition like this keeps children from just being children. When they have

constant deadlines, practices, or competition to stress about, they do not get to enjoy the lack of

responsibility that should come with childhood. Children who don’t know how to relax or take

time for themselves can become stressed adults who become overwhelmed with high workloads

instead of being able to separate themselves from it when they need to take care of their own

mental health. They were never given that option as children, so can not be expected to take it as

an adult.

While the relationships formed between coaches and athletes can be healthy and mutually

beneficial, they can also create an opportunity for easy predation on young athletes by coaches.

The US Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit governing body aimed to protect minor athletes from
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predatory coaches and adults, has received 4,899 reports of harassment since its formation in

2017, according to its 2019 review (Allan.) This is 4,899 lives of athletes that have been forever

touched by a predatory adult. This is absolutely not the norm for coaches or adults in positions of

leadership, but it is a still a reasonable concern for parents and athletes everywhere. Aside from

any abuse of power on a coach’s part, these children become so attached to and dependent upon

the validation of these coaches that they will push themselves to extreme limits for praise or

approval. While some see this as a healthy motivation for an athlete, children must learn a

confidence in themselves before they should seek confidence from other people. According to

Hunhyuk Choi’s study into the relationship between athletes and coaches and the psychological

needs of athletes, those athletes who had a long term coach from a young age that they became

significantly attached to and reliant upon for praise and motivation had issues outside of their

athletic career with self confidence (Choi.) While a healthy athlete coach relationship leads to

mutual respect and understanding of personal ability versus shared goals, an unhealthy

relationship can lead to future insecurity for a young athlete.

In a discussion about the different effects of youth athletics, nationally acclaimed swim

coach Ken Heis stated that “athletes who do not look towards the future and base their entire

being off of an athletic identity have a hard time succeeding once they pass the prime of their

sports.” He continued on to say that athletes, whether they be high school or college aged, must

always put emphasis on their academic careers over their athletic ones. Education will give them

jobs as they grow older, athletics may be enjoyable and create for them great friend groups and

meaningful connections or experiences, but it is very unlikely to earn them a livable wage. On

his team, as with most others, athletes are expected to attend all practices. They have made a

commitment to compete at a high level, but he has one exception. Athletes will never face any
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backlash for missing a competition or practice for school event. He encourages his younger

athletes with more flexible practice times to explore other hobbies and not feel committed to a

single sport. He says of this encouragement, “I’m aware of the high chance of burning out of

such a competitive sport when you’ve been doing it for so long. I have kids now who have been

swimming for 13 or more years. I know it gets boring but giving them the opportunity to go out

and explore other activities when they are young gives them the ability to know for sure that this

is how they want to spend their time… I don’t pressure any athletes who decide to quit either.

They know what is best for them and I can’t keep them here past that. They have to make

decisions focusing on their future careers and families instead of a sport that will likely end after

high school or college at best.” Coaches at his level are aware that extreme levels of stress put on

children in competitive sports can impact their lives negatively. He himself has been a coach for

over 25 years, and has seen his athletes grown through their own lives. “I have seen the mistakes

that I made early on, like pushing the kids too hard or being too strict, and I know now how to

make sure my athletes have the brightest future possible.”

The movie Trophy Kids is a documentary about the extreme limits that parents of youth

athletes go to in order to “support” their children. According to this film, this “support” is often

just thinly veiled emotional and verbal abuse. Parents refuse to see their children as anything

other than pro athletes, setting goals that are unrealistic, and often simply ignoring the desires of

the child themselves. The children depicted in this documentary resent their athletic childhood

and the sports involved. They find no joy in it and often resent their parents for forcing them to

partake in something they do not enjoy. This is not something made up for cinematography or

just to entertain the audience. Many children live this truth every day, being forced to go to

practices, grumbling about something that should be a fun activity. When forced into sports from
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a young age, children can grow to resent the sport, activity, or even their parents. This can ruin

relationships and lead to a sedentary and overall unhealthy lifestyle for these children in the

future.

There are undoubtedly still some positive effects of sports on youth athletes. The physical

aspects of athletics lead to long term increased physical fitness in those who stay active through

their formative years. Kewei Zhao’s study A 2-year longitudinal follow-up of performance

characteristics in Chinese male elite youth athletes from swimming and racket sports specifies

some of these characteristics in relation to specific sports. In this study, swimmers showed

increases in characteristics such as muscle tone, decreased resting heart rate, and increased

metabolic rate, while racket sports showed increased in hand eye coordination and reaction times

(Zhao.) Mentally, athletes show an increased ability to remain calm in stressful situations, they

respond well to adrenalin and exhibit good time management in response to years spent juggling

schoolwork and practice times. For some, athletic scholarships are their only chance to pay for a

college education. Athletics may open doors but they can close them just as quickly. But do these

positives outweigh the risks of injuries or mental setbacks later in life? What good is a lower

resting heart rate if the former athlete cannot comfortably move their shoulders. What good is

time management if the former athlete did not complete college and can’t get a steady job? These

are all questions that athletes and parents of children who want to participate in a competitive

sport need to ask themselves before making a true commitment.

Our society holds athletics in a high regard, but an overall positive outcome isn’t as much

of a landslide victory as we have been led to believe. While athletics from a young age can

improve the physical fitness of a child and encourage activity in an otherwise majorly sedentary

lifestyle of schoolwork and video games, they can also expose children to a multitude of negative
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opportunities that could affect them for the rest of their lives. Injury based remnants of athletics

follows almost every former athlete for the rest of their lives. People exposed to highly

competitive sports from a young age often lost a major part of their childhood, missing

opportunities with friends or people around them because of practices or competitions. Having

grown up with the all or nothing, success or failure mentality of an athlete, they often struggle

disproportionately with even the smallest failure in school or career paths. They can end up

overly dependent on the external validation of those around them, putting themselves below their

counterparts as they seek the same relationship with peers that they had with their coaches. This

is not to say that sports are not enjoyable and an activity that many remember fondly, but

competing in highly competitive sports from a young age can lead to many negative results

outside of the widely held belief that sports and athletics should be widely proliferated and have

no non-positive effects on the athletes who participate in them.

Works Cited
Allan, Andrew. "U.S. Center For Safesport 2019 Annual Report". Flipsnack, 2020,

https://www.flipsnack.com/safesport/u-s-center-for-safesport-2019-annual-report.html.

Accessed Nov 2020.

Bell, Christopher. Trophy Kids. HBO, 2020.

Choi, Hunhyuk, et al. "The association between the perceived coach-athlete relationship and athletes'

basic psychological needs." Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, vol. 41,

no. 9, 2013, p. 1547+. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A352491008/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=127ae6d7. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

Engle, Jeremy. "Are Youth Sports Too Competitive?". The New York Times, 2020,

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/learning/are-youth-sports-too-competitive.html. Accessed

13 Nov 2020.

Fort-Vanmeerhaeghe, Azahara, et al. "Inter-limb asymmetries are associated with decrements in

physical performance in youth elite team sports athletes." PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 3, 2020, p.

e0229440. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A616129527/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=13a39cbf. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

Heis, Ken. "Effects Of Sports On Children". 2020.

“How Do Sports Affect Our Bodies Long Term - BackFit Health." 17 May. 2019,

https://www.backfithealth.com/how-do-sports-affect-our-bodies-long-term. Accessed 13 Nov.

2020.

Powell, Mark A. Physical Fitness. Nova Science, 2011.

"Phelps Given Probation In Guilty Plea To DUI". ESPN.Com, 2014,

https://www.espn.com/olympics/swimming/story/_/id/12052498/gold-medalist-michael-

phelps-pleads-guilty-dui. Accessed 19 Nov 2020.

Singhal, Vibha, et al. "Effect of Chronic Athletic Activity on Brown Fat in Young Women." PLoS ONE,

vol. 11, no. 5, 2016. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A453786587/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=609bc6af. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

“The Long Term Effects of College Athletics – Sunset Sports." 05 Nov. 2020,

http://sunsetsportsworldwide.com/posts/the-real-price-of-student-athletics/joey-and-charles-look-

into-some-of-the-negative-lasting-effects-college-sports-can-have/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020

Zhao, Kewei, et al. "A 2-year longitudinal follow-up of performance characteristics in Chinese male

elite youth athletes from swimming and racket sports." PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 10, 2020, p.

e0239155. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A638185326/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=0d38da6d. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.