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Ron Kaplan

November 6, 2008

When it comes to organized youth sports, parents should keep their hopes high but their feet on the ground.

Rick Wolff, host of The Sports Edge, a weekly program on youth sports on WFAN (660 AM), assessed the current state of affairs for a gathering of 40 parents, coaches, and students at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston on Oct. 30.

Among the issues raised were how to keep kids engaged if their team was having a poor season, how to make sure the coaches distribute playing time evenly, and how to be encouraging without turning into the dreaded “Little League parent.”

While he admitted not having all the answers all the time, Wolff has a wealth of experience that most parents can’t claim. He and his son, John, shared a unique bond: they both graduated from Harvard University and played two years of minor league baseball.

Rick Wolff remained in baseball as a psychological consultant for the Cleveland Indians in the early 1990s. It was there he made a startling discovery.

Talking to the players during one spring training, he learned half of them had decidedly unpleasant memories of playing organized sports as kids. Although they loved to play the games, they hated dealing with coaches whose practices they considered unfair.

“If these were the best and brightest [athletes],” Wolff asked, “what about normal kids?”

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