Pay-to-play, cont.'

By Ed Piper

Our pay-to-play system for youth athletics in the United States is segregating our sports more and more. This is not new--it has been going on for a while.

I was thinking of this as I processed photos of La Jolla High's successful boys lacrosse team from its opening playoff game in the Open Division May 10. No knock on the coaches or program. It's just one of many sports in which a young person whose family has means can play for a club or travel team, gain the skills necessary to become a proficient player, then also play for the school's team.

If your family doesn't have the means to pay for club team fees, travel team expenses, and so forth, you're out of luck.

More power to the Vikings. May they continue in their march to another CIF Open Division title this month, with the semifinal game Wed., May 15.

A volleyball coach at a high school I substitute teach at in the Poway Unified School District was giving me a rundown of the reality of pay-for-play and its attendant effects on programs. He listed the various sports in which fees inhibit a family of more humble means from having their son or daughter participate on a non-school team.

This coach, whose team advanced far into the Open Division playoffs this past week, was sympathetic to the harsh reality this all means. He's a teacher, and he cares about young people.

Among the sports he listed were volleyball and soccer. There are others. He did name, or could have named, baseball and softball. I remember Gary Sinkeldam, the father of all-star Viking shortstop Josie Sinkeldam, Class of 2018, remarking that if he had all the money it took to send his slick-fielding, solid-hitting daughter to all the showcases around the nation, he could have paid two years of expenses at Cal State Dominguez Hills--where she is presently playing on a half athletic scholarship.

When my brother Steve and I played youth baseball, everyone in Camarillo played, rich and poor, white and Latino. Marty Ortiz ended up being our high school varsity's starting shortstop. His cousin Angel was an outfielder. Marty's brother Joe was our American Legion coach. To play in these non-school leagues, the fees were nominal, not prohibitive.

Since then, five decades ago, youth athletics have evolved into big business. Fees for teams are no longer nominal. At least, the expensive system of traveling around the country to showcases in baseball has sprouted and become a necessary element for future Bryce Harpers and the like. I remember the story of star outfielder Jason Heyward, whom the Atlanta Braves originally drafted in the annual June amateur selection process largely because their scouts followed his club/travel ball. Other organizations let him slip under their radar because their scouts only attended his high school games, which were fewer and in which he failed to stand out.

I don't really favor the government coming in and subsidizing youth sports. Jurgen Klinsmann, the former head coach of the U.S. men's soccer program, favored an approach like the one he grew up in in Germany, with an academy apart from any school providing training for young athletes and bringing them up in the national system to groom them for the national team.

Walk-on coaches of school teams, and coaches of non-school teams are essentially professional coaches. What I have seen is that they are great coaches technically, but that is what they do--coach--they don't have anything to do with a student athlete's academic studies. When an athlete's parents pay for that coach to mentor their son or daughter, they're aren't paying a campus teacher who coaches and also is aware of the athlete's academic side.

As a school teacher, I don't like that aspect. I admire the pro coaches' expertise. But there is the accompanying disadvantage of a student's studies being put on the sidelines, since grades are not the pro coach's concern.