It would have been nice to get this article up here in time for the event, but here it is anyay. I hope the event went well for Mark.
suburban.gmnews.com/news/2009/0423/front_page/057.htmlAuthor will discuss perils of youth sports
Freehold Borough native learned tough lesson watching his own son
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer
Sometimes too much of a good thing really can hurt you, especially if you are young and involved in sports.
Mark Hyman
That is the message author and journalist Mark Hyman will bring to Barnes & Noble, Route 9, Freehold Township, on April 23 at 7 p.m. when he speaks about his new book "Until It Hurts: America's Obsession With Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids."
Hyman, who grew up in Freehold Borough and played baseball in the Freehold Little League, will be bringing an important message to parents and coaches.
The message is this: Your child's health and welfare come before the game, and your child's protection is your responsibility.
Hyman admits he learned his lesson the hard way from personal experience when his son sustained an elbow injury while playing baseball.
Hyman, who said he has been writing about the business of sports for years for newspapers in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Dallas, said that over the years he noticed the dynamics of youth sports changing in ways that seemed to be more about the interests of parents than about the development of the interests of the children.
Mark Hyman, the author of "Until It Hurts: America's Obsession with Youth Sports," played Little League baseball in Freehold Borough in the 1960s. In this team photo from 1968, Hyman is the second player from left in the back. His late father, Jack "Doc" Hyman, is standing at left. Michael Beierschmitt, now a retired chief of police in Freehold Borough, is second from the right in the back, wearing his catcher's gear. Hyman was also able to identify teammate Gregory Higley (kneeling second from left). Richard Kerrigan, another coach, is standing on the right.
He said research indicates that many young people drop out of organized sports
by the age of 13.
"They're telling us, 'We're not having fun. We're tired of getting yelled at. We're under too much pressure,' " Hyman said.
He noted that 50 percent of injuries sustained by children playing sports are attributed to overuse and specialization in one sport.
"These injuries are 100 percent avoidable," Hyman said. He explained that years ago, youngsters would play one sport for two or three months and then move on to something else. What he sees now are parents who identify one sport their child is good at and then work to turn the child into a specialist at that sport, and in turn, make the child vulnerable to injuries.
"When I was a kid the parents really cared about the Little League, and they were invested emotionally. But they didn't see playing Little League (baseball) as a stepping-stone to something else. When the season ended, it ended and kids went on to something else," Hyman said.
"Today, kids are joining summer leagues, elite leagues and other kinds of leagues that allow them to play all year long and therefore become very vulnerable from overuse. This is a whole different approach to youth sports," he added.
And because of it, according to Hyman, children are getting hurt.
In his book, Hyman discusses his experiences with his son, Ben, who played Little League baseball for many years.
He gives a vivid example of the year-long play cycle when he references a photo taken of Ben, then 4, standing next to a tree "bundled up behind layers of fleece and goose down" surrounded by fresh snow.
Hyman describes the picture as a perfect holiday greeting, "except for one unsettling feature: Ben is posed beside a batting tee." In the photo, the child is seen holding a plastic bat.
"The freezing weather would have been suitable for photos taken while ice fishing," Hyman said, and added, "Whose idea was it to hone the swing of a toddler in the dead of winter? Mine."
Hyman writes about how he became extremely involved in his two sons' baseball games, becoming a coach and then commissioner of a youth league. He had written numerous articles about youth sports and for 11 years has worked for BusinessWeek as a contributing editor.
He writes about how he found a story that described high school ballplayers who had been showing up in doctors' offices with a "devastating" elbow injury — a rupture of the ulnar ligament.
"The players, many of them just 15 or 16 years old, came to the surgeon's office in the hope of having … a ghoulish operation in which a tendon from the patient's wrist or leg is used to take the place of a useless elbow ligament," he said.
Hyman's book describes Ben's elbow injury, his surgery, and the 18 months of rehabilitation Ben had to endure to get better.
By this time, after writing about the business of youth sports and seeing all of the problems that could occur, Hyman said he "saw this issue through a far different lens."
"I had become the overzealous parent and the accuser had become the accused," he explained. "I got caught up in all of that. When your kid is striking out all the others, it is a validation of the parent. You cannot escape that. And I felt that as deeply as any parent did. But when you are feeling that way, you cannot make the best parenting decisions."
He described how at one point when Ben complained about his elbow hurting during a game, Hyman allowed him to continue playing.
"I allowed it (the injury) to happen," he said. "I was the adult and I should have understood the physical limits of my child. I should have protected him. This was a result of my failure to do my job as a parent."
Hyman advises that it "may be a lot of fun when your kid is striking out the other kids, but the lesson that is more important is that the game should be a season and parents must protect their children for their long-term health."
Ben currently attends George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and plays baseball on a recreational level.
Hyman recalled the time he spent playing in the Freehold Little League as one of his fondest memories of growing up in Freehold Borough. His dad, Jack Hyman, was his coach.
Jack Hyman was a local dentist who was better known as "Doc" on the field and was a well-known presence in the league from 1964 to the mid-1970s, according to his son.
"Doc" was such a large presence in that era that when he passed away in 2003, some of the players he had coached years before came to pay their respects.
"They hadn't seen him in decades, but they came to his funeral," Hyman said.
A plaque that honors Jack Hyman hangs on the scoreboard at the Freehold Borough Little League complex.
Contact Clare Marie Celano
at ccelano@gmnews.com.
