Play ball!

By DAVE SCHEIBER

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 14, 2001

Sports psychologist Jack Llewellyn often makes a little-league pitch to his big-league clients on the Atlanta Braves.

"I work with guys making $15-million a year, and I have to remind them a lot of times," he says, "it's just a game."

More and more these days, Llewellyn thinks youth baseball participants need to hear that as much as the pros do.

The 57-year-old consultant and author, who has made a career out of studying sports behavior, has written a book called Let 'em Play: What Parents, Coaches & Kids Need to Know about Youth Baseball, just out from Longstreet Press. The book asserts that something is wrong in Mudville -- too many kid Caseys have dropped out rather than deal with pushy parents, hard-driving coaches and controversies that have marred the sport.

"What so many people have lost sight of," Llewellyn says by phone from Atlanta, "is that youth baseball is supposed to be fun."

Llewellyn's book includes guidelines for parents: select the right program; try to evaluate the coach; learn about the game in order to appreciate how difficult it can be; know when a child is ready to start playing; don't be an absentee -- show up not just at games, but at practices.

And to athletes he urges: play baseball because you like it; keep a healthy perspective on winning and losing; encourage your parents to watch you practice and play; learn to recover from adversity.

For coaches, his main rules of thumb are: be a role model; honestly examine your own attitudes and motivations as a coach; know the game well to teach it well to young players; deal with your emotions to help kids deal with their emotions.

According to the book's jacket, "While the kids are making plays on the field, their parents and coaches are making headlines in the newspaper -- for violence, verbal abuse, threats, taunts, incident after incident of shockingly inappropriate behavior. Largely as a result of the actions of their elders, 75 percent of the kids have dropped out of baseball by age 13."

To Llewellyn, the hefty attrition rate -- which he says comes from a study at Michigan State University -- is no surprise for a pastime that continually makes news for the wrong reasons. The term "battery" no longer refers simply to the pitcher-catcher combo.

His promotional literature provides a scorecard of troubling incidents: In Pennsylvania, a man was convicted for corrupting a minor after giving $2 to a 10-year-old Little Leaguer to hit a batter with a pitch. In Hollywood, Fla., a youth baseball coach was charged with aggravated battery after he was accused of breaking an umpire's jaw when the ump ejected him. In Jupiter, 2,000 parents had to sign a pledge to behave themselves at youth league games; in April 1999, a Sacramento man coaching his son's Little League team pummeled the manager of the other team and was convicted of felony assault.

Llewellyn says he wants to help make youth baseball a more enjoyable experience for all involved, and to address and correct the problems that can lead to counterproductive or destructive behavior.

Llewellyn's 187-page book includes a dozen short interviews with major league ballplayers and managers. Marquee names such as Tom Glavine, Paul O'Neill, Chipper Jones, Chuck Knoblauch and Bobby Cox reflect on their formative baseball experiences, offering advice and insight to parents and youth league coaches. (Former Tampa Bay Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild is in the book's lineup as well; the Rays dismissed him in April, showing no respect for publishing deadlines.)

Virtually all of the big leaguers cite level-headed coaches and supportive parents who didn't push them into baseball, but instead let the future stars' passion for the game blossom without pressure.

Llewellyn's own passion for the subject developed some 30 years ago. He taught a "children in sport" graduate course at Florida International University, where he created the International Institute for the Study of Youth Sport.

"I started speaking to parent groups and coach groups as far back as 1979," he says. "I kept seeing the same things year after year. We tend . . . to say, 'Well, 99 percent of the people do a great job, and only a few who do a bad job get the publicity.' Well, I think, if one kid in a million is getting treated badly, then it's wrong -- especially if it's your kid."

Though his book deals with youth baseball, Llewellyn has strong thoughts on girls softball. "You're seeing similar things there now as with baseball," he says. "It's happening because girls are playing at the college level, and more parents are seeing scholarship possibilities, and they have pro leagues now. I'm afraid that girls' softball is going to fall into that trap of ice-skating, gymnastics and AAU swimming, where -- and this is a very strong thing to say -- they're almost child-abuse sports because parents and coaches push so hard."

His bottom line in either sport: parents should not tolerate a youth coach who is win-at-all-costs, even if it means pulling the child off the team and petitioning for a change of teams. Coaches should communicate their philosophies to parents before the season starts, he says.

"The most fun I ever had coaching was a 5-year-old T-ball team, and I had a meeting with the parents at the start and said, 'We're not going to recommend anyone to all-stars; a parent or relative needs to be at every practice; and I want the parents throwing the ball to the kids in the back yard.' I said, 'If you don't like this, today's the day to take your child to another team.' We ended with a great environment."

So what leads exuberant 5-year-olds to drop out of the sport eight years later? Llewellyn chalks it up mostly to burnout -- to kids ages 10-12 playing 70 to 80 games on traveling teams, to excessive, high-level competition, to teens feeling more comfortable saying no to their parents.

Others disagree -- not with the 75 percent dropout figure, but with Llewellyn's interpretation of it.

"When you get up to 13 and above, the game becomes much more competitive -- all of a sudden, base paths are 90 feet instead of 60, the pitcher goes from 46 feet to 60, and the kids playing are all-stars," says Robert Luker, a father of five sons, all of whom play or have played Little League ball, and a coach in St. Petersburg's Northeast Little League. "Some kids at that point might feel they want to go to soccer or something else. It's not that kids lose interest at 13. Many just can't compete with the better ones."

Luker doesn't agree that an emphasis on winning is always detrimental. "You certainly want to have fun, but nobody likes to lose," he says. "Because of that, you have two divisions -- the majors with the Little League World Series, and the minors for kids who are younger or not as skilled. Competition is part of why kids do this."

Dan Moeller, Northeast's president, says his league has not had serious problems with high-pressure parents, and does not tolerate coaches whose styles are deemed too intense:

"Our biggest problem is trying to get volunteers, even coaches. We do hear from parents from time to time who say, 'Why isn't Joey playing more, he's better than Frankie.' Some parents are blinded by how good their kids are, or are not. I even had one parent who wanted to manage a team because he felt his boy ought to be pitching more. Guess what? He didn't get the job."

Ed McCloskey, who managed Little League teams in Tampa in the early '80s and has umpired there since 1987, makes this call:

"Little League truthfully has nothing to do with playing ball," says McCloskey, the voice of the New York Yankees at Legends Field. "It has everything to do with learning to get along, learning to follow directions, learning to deal with things that maybe don't seem fair, and be ready to take instruction if you gave it your best shot but it wasn't enough."

McCloskey believes Little Leaguers should get into every game. "Unless you're talking about leagues where the coaches are getting paid -- like high school or college ball -- every kid should play," he says. "Little League is meant to be fun."

Score one for Dr. Jack Llewellyn.

Reality check

Here are some tips from Let 'em Play by Jack H. Llewellyn.

FOR PARENTS:"Look for a coach who gives the kids a positive experience. . . . It might be a pizza to reward a hard practice or a simple comment like 'That's the best we've hit all year.' "

"Keep winning in perspective. . . . You should be talking about 'winning effort.' "

FOR COACHES:"Check your own attitude. . . . Kids don't care whether or not you made the big sale, or that your boss yelled at you."

"Know how kids learn baseball skills. . . . Kids see what you have to offer. They hear what you are saying. And they touch whatever it is about which they are learning. Then they experience information from their muscles and joints about how to position their bodies to catch, throw, run and hit."

FOR PLAYERS:"Look forward to competition. . . . After a game, you should feel good about knowing that you competed hard (and) that you competed fairly."

"Play baseball because you like it. . . . Fun is the name of the game."

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