How's Johnny gonna go to college without a decent fastball?

The NY Times has an article on the rising number of over-use and overtraining injuries among child and teen athletes. The reporter, Bill Pennington, takes the time, however, to address more than just the issue of overbearing parents - a welcome change from some of the other articles of this type. He also takes a look at the technical aspects of injury prevention and sheds some light on the issue of coaches that don't understand proper training techniques and help create the conditions that lead to such childhood injuries. Below are examples of the two separate problems (coaches and parents) from the article:

"I recently had a mother ask me if there isn't some kind of shot or fix-it procedure I could do for her 11-year-old daughter's ankle so she could be ready for an upcoming regional competition," Dr. Smith, the Philadelphia orthopedist, said. "I told her that if it were the Olympic Games coming up, perhaps we could treat this situation differently. But as far as I understood, her upcoming competition wasn't the Olympics.

"At this point, the daughter is giggling but the parent is in the corner crying. I said: 'This isn't Curt Schilling in the World Series. It's not worth not being able to run anymore for a plastic gold-plated medal.' "

[...]

Dr. Micheli, of Boston Children's Hospital, and many of his colleagues said they believed that better coaching would help reduce overuse injuries among children.

"The coaches are volunteers and mean well, but they are not trained," Dr. Micheli said. "And every five years, a new batch comes along and the problems go on unabated. We are vigorously promoting mandatory coaching certification programs where youth coaches can get the education they need to protect the children.

"I think town leaders will eventually say to soccer leagues, 'We'll give you the access to our fields but we want certified coaches.' "

There's another angle to look at here as well - and it makes for an odd dicotomy. On the one hand, we have child and teen athletes developing injuries typically associated with late career pro athletes, and on the other we have rising rates of childhood obesity spurred by inactivity. I think the article (perhaps accidentally) alludes to a bigger problem with this statement:

Doctors lament the loss of what has become a cultural artifact: the playground athlete. Two decades ago, sports for children were often unorganized, with pick-up games common in schoolyards and community parks.

"Children might have played baseball, basketball and football all in the same day," Dr. Micheli said. "This was good for their bodies, which developed in balance. Now young athletes play sports supervised by adults who have them doing the same techniques, the same drills, over and over and over.

The 'playground athlete' was a title available for children on both ends of the spectrum - the serious athlete and the "wanna-have-fun" kinda kids. As the venues for playground athletes slowly disappear, we see diametrically opposed problems emerge from the extremes. On the one hand, the "real athletes" are pushed to focus, train, and specialize too early leading to a surge of over-use injuries. On the other hand, kids without that same sort of drive (whether internal or parentally-induced) are becoming more obese with fewer opportunities to engage in activities that might reverse the trend. From the Times article:

"I agree there are more overuse injuries, but I am still more worried about the high rate of inactivity and obesity in children," said Dr. William O. Roberts, president of the American College of Sports Medicine. "We need more kids to do a lot more and a few kids to do a little less."

The loss of the middle ground has forced us to deal with the dangers of the two extremes. Hey...is that a political analogy or WHAT?

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