When I was a kid, my friends and I were making diving catches on the backyard football field or ridiculous jams on the driveway basketball court that my three kids today only see on Sportscenter. Why? Because in Wisconsin where I grew up, we honed our skills playing endless hours of good old-fashioned pick up games all day, year-round. Our yards were big enough to be football fields in winter and baseball fields in summer. Everyone in our neighborhood could hit a baseball from both sides of the plate because we kids made up rules which required it. My kids, on the other hand, have never played a pickup game of anything in their life (unless you count dodge ball or flashlight tag in our suburban cul de sac).
In fact, I can’t remember the last time I drove past a group of pre-teen kids playing baseball or football in a driveway, a backyard, or a public park in Northern Virginia.
I blame a lot of things, but mostly technology. Kids today don’t simply run out the door looking for a game. They rely on parents to call ahead and arrange a ‘playdate’ that makes a pick up game requiring more than four players a logistical nightmare. How many phone calls does it require to get up a game of 5-on-5? I don’t know, because I have never tried.
Secondly, kids have the option of playing what amounts to pick up games of Halo on the xBox against friends in other neighborhoods, states and countries via online connections. Those games require no parental involvement whatsoever. In my day, we only resorted to a round of ‘pong’ if the tornado watch suddenly changed to a warning and drove us inside.
Thirdly, our Northern Virginia suburban yards aren’t big enough to play sports that require an outfield or two endzones a decent distance apart.
Finally, the neighborhood ethic isn’t what it used to be in rural Wisconsin when I was growing up. My friends and I used to pitch tennis balls against a strike zone on the garage door and the batter, if she/he put some lumber on the ball, would hit a “home run” that could carom off of the neighbor’s dining room window. Nobody said anything about it except a few really mean neighbors.
All is not lost. Today’s child-athlete does have some advantages. My children play full pads tackle football in fall, lacrosse in spring, soccer in fall and spring, and swimming in summer. These leagues come complete with referees, computerized databases, adult coaching, and road games in faraway towns. Permission slips, birth certificates, and game schedules are emailed back and forth and entry fees paid online. Some local football coaches have been known to videotape games of future opponents from neighboring towns. In short, organized youth sports is very organized. They put to shame the YMCA flag fooball league that my brother, my friend Dave, and I played in which each player jammed a white tube sock into their belt loop.
At the end of the day, no matter how much we modern parents spend on all the equipment, private lessons, and registration fees so that our kids can develop their skills under the watchful eye of a knowledgeable coach and a paid ref, nothing is more pure than a bunch of kids organizing and playing a spontaneous game of pick up that lasts until the ball flies deep into the neighbor’s fenced yard with the nasty dogs or until the sun goes down, whichever comes first.
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another comment left at dad-blogs on my pick-up game piece:
i was the only girl on my block that would play those pick up games w the boys. we always had street football, we had a basketball hoop so there would be basketball, and even softball out in the streets. at night we played hiding games. if we weren’t playing these types of games, we were walking to the beach (a total of 4 miles bt walking there and walking back), we road bikes. we did have an atari, but you found us mostly outside. *sigh* i miss those days. i wish my girls would do things like that, but my oldest girl, 12, is addicted to technology read: computers, ipods, tv, etc. aaargh! lol
My post on pick up games appears to have struck a chord at Dad-blogs.com, where I cross-posted this entry. Here’s a look:
1) You are right, much of the “play on the spot” sport has gone. I agree that it is in part because of the amount of organized sports that are out there and more video games that keep children inside (which has an exponential factor because one can’t play with a friend if that friend is inside playing video games). About the only way to get your kids active is through paying a fee of some kind for an organized activity. That’s the truth! -Jason
2)I’m glad you posted this. We spent most of our lives playing kickball, football, basketball, and wiffleball in the street or in our yards. What I loved best was making up our own rules. Two-on-two football was the most fun. To this day, I keep a basketball in my car at all times, and whenever I have 30 minutes of free time, I find a public hoop and take someone on. As a 47-year-old wearing Converse hi-tops, I LOVE defeating the 17-year-old punks, who go easy on me until they’re already 15 points down. I wish my kid could have this experience, but the world is a different place.
I’m glad you posted this. We spent most of our lives playing kickball, football, basketball, and wiffleball in the street or in our yards. What I loved best was making up our own rules. Two-on-two football was the most fun. To this day, I keep a basketball in my car at all times, and whenever I have 30 minutes of free time, I find a public hoop and take someone on. As a 47-year-old wearing Converse hi-tops, I LOVE defeating the 17-year-old punks, who go easy on me until they’re already 15 points down. I wish my kid could have this experience, but the world is a different place.
I continue to get comments at dad-blog on this posting:
We didn’t have huge backyards in Chicago where I grew up (still don’t as a matter of fact), but we had the alley and the street. And the alley is usually where you’d find the neighborhood kids, and there were a lot of them, playing whatever game that struck their mood at the time. I remember baseball, actually it was 16-inch softball, and bicycle races the most. There was tag, where you had two catchers and any number of runners and you were out if you were tagged. I got banged in the face with a baseball bat and stitches in my knee from tumbling from my bike. I had a certain freedom growing up my girls didn’t have and most kids their ages and younger just don’t have anymore. My parents, I should say my mom, NEVER arranged playdates for us and we video games were still a dream in someone’s mind. My backyard also was the nighborhood playground because we had a great swing set and this thing where four kids could sit on it, pump the handle and go round and round . . . and make
themselves sick if they wanted. Later on, we had four-foot pools. It truly was [i][/i]the life[i][/i] and one that is unheard of now. Now parents seem to be very protective, or over protective depending on your viewpoint, and I was, too.
Great post.
I am getting a lot of interesting replies at Dad-blog on this posting. Here they are:
1) I can totally relate. I remember playing football in the street almost daily until sundown, even during the off-season. It was a given that there would be a game in front of someone’s house. Today, that game is still played, but on the web. Meeting place: . I miss those games. And the term “playdate” just sucks. ;D
2) Ahhh, the pick-up game. I remember walking to a park about a mile away, picking up kids all along the way. By the time we got there we had 20 or so players ready for baseball or football. Great post!
3) Absolutely right.
My childhood memories are littered with time spent at my grandmother’s apartment complex where we’d go around yelling up at windows for anyone who wanted to play baseball or football. Even if we only got 5-6 guys we’d still play with just a pitcher, catcher, batter and a couple of fielders. You improvise the rest of the rules.
But I will admit, when I turned about 10 I fell in love with organized sports and never looked back. Sure I’d play a pickup hoops game once in a while and I’d throw the football around the yard, but once kids get a taste for organized sports they seldom go back. And honestly, I can’t blame them. Organized sports is more fun, challenging and competitive.
4) I live in rural PA…. one of the townships has an honest-to-goodness park, complete with nature trail, community hall, a full playground and about half-acre of macadam (asphalt) with basketball hoops adorning the perimeter. You can drive by there almost any hour and find a bunch people – kids by day, adults at night – tearing up the courts with a baseketball.
In short – [i]if you build it ….[/i] you know the rest.
Those dogs WERE nasty.
yes, i wrote that post with you in mind, Dave.
I remember those rural Wisconsin childhood days well. Even the girls were allowed in the pickup softball games. Most of us didn’t have our own gloves and would trade off with the boys when we switched from batting to fielding. Bases were boards, lunch boxes, ‘that tree over there’ or a combination of the above. The layout of the bases wasn’t anywhere close to square, but nobody seemed to care. The game was finally over when it was too dark or too many kids were called home to dinner.
Kids today have a lot of ‘advantages’ that we didn’t have, but I wouldn’t trade the experiences of my youth for anything. Not being much of an athlete, I wouldn’t participate in sports the way things are run today. I was given the chance to be the worst player out there and to take a ribbing with the best of them. Sure, there would be snickers, but it was never too long before someone else looked silly and was the new target. Life went on. We learned some lessons the hard way that kids today might not.
Nice post, Rain Racer. I really enjoyed it.
You are so right about the girls playing with the boys on a level playing field. I remember girls in our neighborhoods being just as good as the boys, switch hitting and the like. Good times.