IPlay! gets kids into sports, off gaming consoles
Growing up in rural Alabama and Mississippi, playing outside always meant doing different things every day. There was the rope swing — which was attached to a platform 10 feet off the ground and not remotely safe — the fort in the woods and playing G.I. Joe’s down by the stream.
For today’s children, though, playing mostly involves sitting in front of the television and playing Fortnite or League of Legends. Heck, even though gaming is about as athletically challenging as bowling, they are apparently E-sports now.
Don’t get me wrong. I played as much Galaga, Legend of Zelda and Street Fighter II as anyone else in Generation X. It’s one reason I didn’t get into organized sports and realized their benefit until high school. I was too busy saving Princess Peach.
It was a problem in the generation of Atari and Nintendo, and it’s only getting worse.
“We live in an age where kids don’t get out,” said Bruce Bowen, who won three championships with the Spurs. “I was born in the ’70s, back when we went out and played. Now, it is Fortnite and a host of video games.”
Bowen isn’t wrong. A shift from the gaming chair to the great outdoors is needed. Due to increased costs, sport specialization and poorly trained coaches, youth sports are in decline, according to data published in September of 2017 by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Aspen Institute.
That’s why Daryl Johnston, who won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys during the 1990s, and Bowen, have teamed up with San Antonio Sports for their “Power of Sport” campaign.
The campaign is an effort to demonstrate the benefits of youth sports participation through expansion of San Antonio Sport’s iPlay! afterschool
program for underserved children in the community.
“We need to do everything we can do make sure opportunities are being provided. If it wasn’t for iPlay! after school a lot of children would not have the opportunity to learn the values of teamwork,” said Johnston, who is now the San Antonio Commanders general manager. “And I think the biggest thing is you are getting children outside and getting them moving.”
The program, which already serves 1,200 children in 48 elementary campuses across the San Antonio and Harlandale school districts, is focused on delivering a creative and formative sports curriculum, recruiting strong coaches and providing important resources for children in the program.
“Kids don’t walk anywhere now,” Bowen said. “If I told my kids to walk, I would have to follow them because I would be scared something would happen. My generation, we had to do something in a certain way, and I think it went a little south. By taking kids to play, you are encouraging your kids to go outside, instead of chauffeuring them around to each other’s houses.”
Youth sports participation for children ages 6 through 12 is down almost 8 percent during the past decade, according to SFIA and Aspen data. Worse yet,
children from low-income households are 50 percent less likely to participate — even for a day — in team sports than children from households earning at least $100,000. The increased cost of youth sports goes hand in hand with sport specialization, which has seen costs increase as the popularity and importance of travel leagues has grown by players who are seeking an athletic scholarship.
“For me, baseball was something that I excelled at early on, but basketball eventually chose me,” Bowen said. “It is just a matter of time, stats show that. Children don’t decide until freshman or sophomore year of high school what sport they want to pursue. You learn the value of working hard and then the passion kicks in. If you specialize, you are moving forward in a way that you might never find such joy (like I did).”
Johnston attributed some of that downturn of youth sports participation to the “war on football.” Yes, he understands that safety and concussions are a problem. And he understands that football is believed to be one of the leading causes of CTE. But he also knows the importance of getting children involved in athletics. And football is still — by a wide margin — the most played sport among youth in the country.
However, in the past decade, even football enrollment declined, falling by 6.6 percent, according to data released from the National Federation of State High School Associations.
“You are never going to eliminate concussions. Anything that says it eliminates them isn’t accurate. Concussions will always be a part of youth sports,” Johnston said. “We have to come to terms with that fact you risk having a concussion at some point if you play athletics. So, the goal is to prevent them and reduce them on the backside — have proper rules for return to play and create a dialogue with coaches and players. We can’t let anyone have that tough-man mentality. We are getting away from what that used to be like, though.
“Football is so much safer when I used to play as a young boy.”
A lot has changed since the 1980s.
A lot of it for the better. Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PS4 is spectacular. And youth sports are safer and more vital than ever before.
According to a recent San Antonio Sports online survey that was conducted by Core Research Inc., 62 percent of business leaders in this community played youth sports.
The evidence is right there. Turning off the gaming system every now and then and letting your child play and letting participate in youth sports will help them develop, mature and succeed.
Just don’t let them pretend to be Spider-Man from a wildly unsafe rope swing. Trust me, that never turns out well.