At the high school football game I attended Friday night, a television crew captured the action from a cherry picker positioned behind one of the end zones. At a high school soccer tournament earlier that evening, parents from all six teams set up tripods to record the first games of the year. And it reminded me that last spring, players on my children’s lacrosse teams were given DVDs of every contest of the season.
I suppose our kids will one day enjoy reliving these games, probably more vividly than I recall my high school competitions, since I have to rely on my memory and the half-dozen or so still photos I have from those contests.
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The fast-expanding video phenomenon is changing the face of high school sports. Within hours of the first Maryland public school football games last Friday, game video and statistics were available online. It brought sports to working parents, out-of-town relatives and friends who just couldn’t be there. Most of that is good news flowing through the electronic age.
But there is a dark side as well. This craze to document youth sports fuels the Monday-morning quarterbacking of high schoolers. It also puts more pressure on athletes, raises suspicions about improper use of tape and threatens to erode some of the simple beauty of the high school game. It just makes this level of sports more serious than it should be.
Coaches have long analyzed game film to see what strategies are effective and which players are best (or not) in specific situations. And players have long attended film sessions with coaches, watching tapes exchanged between teams or filmed with permission at opponents’ game. But in past decades, only college and professional game film was readily available to the masses. And never before have so many households owned equipment capable of high-quality recordings.
Today, parents of every high school starting lineman and every third-string running back can second-guess the coaching staff and the players.
It creates a lot more negative chatter in the stands, where parents refer to film to complain about the coach’s calls or decisions to play particular student athletes. Wasn’t it enough just to hear people say they wish their kids played more? Now we have parents who recite other athletes’ stats and refer to blunders as evidence that their own children deserve better.
It has also given parents the opportunity to scout other teams, even if their child’s coach would never do such a thing.
Two years ago, in New Castle, Pa., the parent of the Shenango High School quarterback taped a practice at rival Mars High School. When approached during the taping, he allegedly claimed to be a college scout. It was never determined if the guy’s son watched the tape or gained any advantage from it, but the kid threw for 457 yards in a 41-35 victory against Mars. No official rules were broken, but the incident drew lots of attention to unwritten rules of sportsmanship and ethics.
There have been a number of similar — and also unproven — accusations in several other high school arenas. In western Pennsylvania, before a football game between Beaver Falls and Beaver high schools last year, a never-identified adult with a video camera was chased away from a Beaver Falls practice. Although details are sketchy, coaches for Beaver Falls said they were sure their opponent’s coach had nothing to do with it. They made no such assumption about parents of the other team.
Also last year, in Naples, Fla., a taping brouhaha erupted after a team visiting from Connecticut requested permission to have someone tape an earlier game. Florida high school rules ban such taping unless approved by the high school principal. After the school refused permission, some fans dressed in the opponents’ colors were spotted with a camera.
Ultimately, the enhanced documentation of high school sports requires parents to do a better job of putting athletics in proper perspective. It’s never been acceptable for parents to coach from the bleachers or sideline. It should not be acceptable for them to use video to be unduly critical of teams, coaches or players.
Video should be appreciated for capturing some special moments in our children’s lives. It can also be an educational tool, for coaches to use during practice. But it should not be a way to condemn players or attempt to gain an unfair advantage.
If it is used that way, it will further erode the real education that should be the goal of high school sports — teamwork, dedication and sportsmanship.
