Youth Sport Verses Hunting
There is no doubt Hunting and fishing is loosing it’s appeal for the younger generation. Blame broken homes, sedentary youngsters, video games, whatever. I put the bulk of the problem with youth sports. Welcome to today’s OpenRange, I’m Susan Allen back after the break. The blog on the Pheasant Forever website that caught my eye was titled Hockey vs Hunting, discussing the value of youth sports. The author stated she’d participated in a focus group where she asked kids why they liked to hunt or fish, most answered that it gave them time with their dads. Think about that! Not shooting a trophy buck, dad time. What are we doing to children by taking away unstructured play time, when ten year olds suit up for traveling teams and elite sports are year round and cost more a month than most car payments. According to a recent Wall Street Journal piece titled Kids Quit the Team For More Family Time, less than one percent of kids in youth sports will make it pro. Two percent of all high school athletes receive scholarships. Yet we sacrifice so much for those statistics. All three of my sons played youth and high school sports, two went on to play at the college level yet we still made time to fish and hunt together and it’s those memories(not countless little league innings) my boys treasure and talk about to this day. Granted in the matter of a few years since I’ve been involved with youth sports it has grown into a behemoth gobbling up kids and families. With hunting and fall sports right around the corner it might be time to rethink what is important in life.
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