Over Aggressive Youth Sports

I started to read this article because I thought it was going to be another bitter piece in favor of the "pussification" of America.

But it's more about obession and the weird cultural pressures put on young athletes to specialize on a single sport and train relentlessly for it. I played tons of sports as a young man and was under constant pressure to participate MORE. It was my laziness and contempt for fascists that often led me away from the path of more participation...soccer teams tried to court me for year round play, which I turned down three or four times to stick with basketball and baseball. But I quit basketball after freshman year in high school because it was the absolutely most grueling sporting experience ever - 6am practices once a week before school, games and practice 6 days a week - little to no social life during the season, other than the bball team.

Baseball was the worst of all, most of the players in my high school playing year round ball, traveling on the weekends to far away places to play in meaningless, bs games, just to be playing. But the weirdest, most fucked up element, was the svengali like influence the coach had on the players...constantly gossiping and digging up dirt on everyone to tease and influence. Freaking homos.

I think I survived in the margins, never becoming too committed to any single group, and getting out what I could...I had a great sophomore year in baseball, but that was it. We won 4 MCAL championships that our coach promised would be one of the highlights of my life. Truth be told, I don't give a flying rats fuck about any of those championships today. Maybe if I knocked up some ghetto bird and didn't finish community college, like some of the other baseball players in Marin County, those days would be my glory years...

Soccer fluctuated from being the sport I was best at, but liked least, to being my favorite overall sport...high school we had a badass muthafucking team that couldn't win a championship because there was another more badass muthafucking team, ranked 2nd in the nation in our league, with national team players. But I loved high school soccer - it was the club soccer that was a nightmare.