Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America
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Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am · Oct 1998
ReviewA developmental and psychoeducational approach to reducing conflict and abuse in little league and youth sports. The sport psychiatrist's role.
To stress a point made earlier, whether backyard or Little League, the tone of the youth sports experience is greatly influenced by the player and team selection process. All possible steps should therefore be taken to ensure that the draft is held on high moral ground, and that the adult participants, even on the Major Little League level, behave cooperatively rather than competitively. If it is the community's hope that Little League will "build character, and not characters," it must embrace Shields and Bredemeier's work and flood the Draft Room with the four virtues of compassion, fairness, sportspersonship, and integrity. ⋯ Baseball is no longer the national pasttime and, as we approach the millennium, American children have too many other attractive, competing interests and time demands to spontaneously organize a pick-up game. One coach shared with the author that his saddest moment in CAP League came when he arrived at 6 PM at a field that had been "reserved" for his team, and found a group of boys who were playing a pick-up game. The coach's impulse was to set his boys fre