There is a recent article about youth sports that caught my attention and a second article that was just shared on Facebook by one of my friends. One article discusses the recommended development path for young athletes and the other discusses commercialization of youth athletics. It seems that America is going in the wrong direction when comes to youth sports in general. The two articles got me thinking about the path junior skiing is headed.

The cover article of the Sept 4, 2017 Time magazine is How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry. The article tells a remarkable story of how kids are specializing in particular sports at an ever decreasing age. The article cites families that are spending $20-$30k a year on children who are 8 and 9 years old, and this by families that don’t have that kind of disposable income. Jim Taylor, the sports psychologist who writes regularly for skiracing.com, is quoted as saying “It’s hard not to get sucked in” to the commercial sports complex because we’re parents and want the best for our children. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that is pushing the agenda of early specialization, perhaps to our kid’s detriment.

According to an article from Huffington Post in August 2016 participating in a wide variety of sports is actually best. The article Why Kids Shouldn’t Specialize in One Sport goes on to cite studies and statistics that highlight that professional athletes tend to come from those that didn’t specialize too early. One study they cite is that for a group of 700 minor league baseball players the mean age of specialization was 15 and only 25% of them specialized before age 12.

So here I am wanting the best for my son wondering if there is something more I can do or provide for his ski racing development. Something specialized like a camp at Mt. Hood or intensive winter camps. Fortunately, skiing is a seasonal sport. It’s difficult to ski year round, so a break is usually forced upon the kids and parents alike. That seasonality has diminished in part by the far flung camps that I see kids attending these days. In the early summer they are jetting off to Mt. Hood to ski and come late August or early September people are traveling to New Zealand or Chile to take advantage of the southern hemisphere’s winter. Is that really healthy for our kids? It would appear based upon science that playing baseball, soccer, lacrosse, tennis or any other sport would actually be the better path, particularly for our younger children. When I feel the pressure to enroll him in the next fancy camp, I’ll remember the best summer camp for him at this age is the one where he runs around plays a variety of sports, jumps in a lake and cooks s’mores for dessert.

I’ve created a directory of ski camps, starting with summer ski camps. I found that there wasn’t a comprehensive listing of camps anywhere so I set out to create one. I’ve added my commentary where I could based on public sources. If anyone has feed back on the summer ski camp please send it to me. The directory can be found on it’s own page here. (It is also listed as a main menu item now.)

I had such high hopes this year. Not for The Son, but for me and this blog. I had all these great ideas about content and features. Things that all 2 of my readers would love. Between running around to races, helping with the ski club’s business and dealing with some family issues, I haven’t been as active with the blog as I wanted at the outset of the season. I have some great ideas for content and just didn’t follow through. There is still time to redeem myself. I’ve got ideas about the age group championship races that just took place across the U.S. as well as some resources for people looking for ski camps and other items. Let’s hope I can follow through.

The Son, The Wife and I all went to Killington after Thanksgiving to watch the women’s World Cup races and ski a bit too. It’s been quite awhile since the last world cup race I attended. So long ago that there was no such thing as B-netting or other safety equipment. Back then, I was able to hike up the side of the hill and watch from a prime viewing location at the top of a knoll.

On both days we watched primarily from the side of the course, just slightly above the finish line. We got a great view of the course and had a good time doing it. The crowds were amazing and I loved seeing all of the ski clubs represented. I also got to see one of my teammates from my college ski team and met his daughter for the first time. She is a very accomplished ski racer herself. We also ran into several families from our home ski club and said hello. The fun was as much in the atmosphere as the ski racing itself. In the US one often thinks of Baseball, Basketball, Football as the major spectator sports. Skiing certainly doesn’t compare with those sports from a spectator perspective, but on the World Cup level it really is a spectator sport and it was nice for me, The Son and The Wife to see. Hopefully the World Cup will be back in the coming years. Considering that there was around 15,000 attendees each day, I suspect that they will schedule other early season races on the east coast in the coming years.

While the racing was top notch, the skiing was so so. On Saturday the top of the mountain was in the clouds and visibility was near zero. That coupled with thin snow cover and crowded slopes made for a less enjoyable time skiing. The Son and I did some early season drills and basically just tried to get our ski legs back as well as get accustomed to the new boots that both of us got this fall. Sunday was a bit better from a visibility perspective the conditions continued to deteriorate due to the warm temperatures and the larger crowds skiing. Still it was nice to work on getting the form back in November as opposed to last year when the first day skiing was on Dec 31.

As we truly head into the season I’ll write more frequently and I intend on covering the junior races going on around the region as well as covering specific athletes for all to learn about. If you have any suggestions feel free to contact me via a reply or the contact form in the sidebar to the right.

The son had the opportunity to train this fall with Doug Lewis and his Eliteam program. Our ski club hired Doug to come to our mountain for a day, train a number of kids as well as design a training program for the remainder of the fall. From a grown-up’s perspective it was a lot of fun. I may have had a different perspective if I endured the grueling workout. 

The Son and I have been using some of the exercises this fall during our weekend workouts. The big take away for me, based on watching Doug and listening to his talks with the kids, is keep it fun. If the kid enjoys what he is doing then they’ll continue to do it. 

If you have the chance to send a kid to one of Doug’s camps or have him come to your mountain, I highly recommend it. His program is called Eliteam and has sessions during the summer. 

The Fall is winding down and we’ll be on snow real soon so hopefully our training has helped us out.