Children start their athletic ‘careers’ earlier than ever
“Just the time alone spent on skating made for a little more pressure … just the fact that we were there for skating,” Lindsey said.
n The parents of Davenport’s Randi Jensen drove her to Chicago several nights a week last year so she could play for the Team Illinois 16-under hockey team. She spent this past school year at the North American Hockey Academy in Stowe, Vt.
n Former Quad-City Mallards icon Garry Gulash and his wife, Cheryl, drive their 9-year-old son, Gavin, to Minnesota three weekends a month in the summer and took him to Chicago two nights a week in the spring so he could play for hockey teams in those locales. Gavin played for a U.S. team in an international tournament in Winnipeg earlier this month. It’s the second year in a row he has done so.
“If he didn’t love it, we wouldn’t do it,” Cheryl Gulash said. “If he didn’t have such a passion for it, with gas prices the way they are, I think I could think of other ways to spend my weekend.”
Early, early starts
Gavin Gulash got his first pair of skates when he was 11 months old, although he couldn’t skate well until he was 3.
It’s an indication of just how young kids are starting their sports careers.
Madison Keys was swatting tennis balls at the age of 4.
Most local gymnastics academies say it’s normal for aspiring Shawn Johnsons and Carly Pattersons to begin taking classes at the age of 3, although some facilities will accept pupils before they turn 2.
John Doak of the Alleman Jr. Pioneers Wrestling Club said many wrestlers now get started at the age of 5, although several top collegiate wrestlers claim to have started when they were 4. Every local high school of any size has a youth wrestling program to feed it.
While Davenport’s First Tee golf program typically does not take golfers younger than the age of 7, players as young as 5 are taking lessons from private instructors such as DeNike.
Ian and Connor Bedell of Davenport were hitting live pitching (albeit with a plastic ball from a short distance) from their father, Daniel, before they reached the age of 3. Now 8, they already have played hundreds of organized baseball games for travel teams and in various youth leagues.
They play more than 50 games each summer, and in the winter months, they spend two nights a week at the K Zone in Bettendorf, keeping their batting eyes and pitching arms fine-tuned. Both have had their fastballs clocked at more than 50 mph.
The twins have dabbled in other sports. They took karate classes when they were 4, and they’ve played YMCA basketball and soccer. They were introduced to football in the Rising Knights program last fall.
“But we play baseball the year round,” Daniel Bedell said.
Competitive necessity
Whether or not the modern trend toward very early starts and specialization is good or bad is highly debatable. What seems beyond dispute is that it has become necessary in order to compete at a high level in the current athletic arena.
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/06/29/sports/doc48670d96dd33e957501875.txt
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