Friday, January 16, 2009

Where Does It Stop? NCAA Gets It Wrong! Eleven Reasons Why NCAA Should Not Have Lowered Prospect Age to Seventh Grade

By Todd M. Kays, Ph.D.

?Giving in to the young-and-younger movement in college basketball recruiting, the NCAA has decreed that seventh-graders are now officially classified as prospects. The organization voted Thursday to change the definition of a prospect from ninth grade to seventh grade ? for men's basketball only ? to nip a trend in which some college coaches were working at private, elite camps and clinics for seventh- and eighth-graders. The NCAA couldn't regulate those camps because those youngsters fell below the current cutoff.? Fox Sports, January 16, 2009

The NCAA made the wrong decision. The youth sports movement is already out of hand and this decision does not help. As a sport psychologist, I spend my time everyday with athletes and coaches from all levels of sport, but I find it hard to see the justification for lowering this age limit to seventh graders. There are numerous reasons for this being the wrong decision:

1. Seventh graders are not intellectually or emotionally able to manage this type of pressure. They may have advanced physical skills, but not emotional ones.

2. Parents will push their kids in unhealthy ways too early, leaving more potential for mental and emotional problems among kids and families.

3. Parents are uneducated and already stressed - parents have a difficult enough time managing the college recruiting process during the high school years, let alone in middle school.

4. High school student-athletes are more confused and stressed today handling the college recruiting process.

5. ?Giving in to the young- and-younger movement? may be smart, but not wise.

6. Pressure to perform at young ages can lead to higher rates of anxiety and mental illness both in and out of sports.

7. College recruiting will continue to become more out of control, leading to increased number of recruiting violations, both discovered and undiscovered.

8. College coaches feel enough stress around recruiting. They will spend more time on recruiting and less on developing their actual student-athletes.

9. The vast majority of scholarship money is academic, not athletic. Athletics need to be kept in perspective.

10. Stress and burnout are more common among young athletes today and this decision will not help.

11. This decision can lead to earlier sport-specialization, and as a result, more burnout.