But even in this setting, there are qualifiers to an approach of simply dividing playing time up equally.

Most team sports require a certain level of competence in key positions. Without a minimum level of performance in these positions, the play can disintegrate resulting in NO FUN for many of the other players.

For example, a competent point guard in basketball is needed to handle the ball against pressure and make good passes to his or her teammates. Likewise, a good “big-man” is needed to provide a young team with second shot opportunities (there are MANY missed layups). In the pursuit of equal playing time, taking out a key player can ruin the play for others. It also can diminish the self-esteem of a young player who does not yet possess the necessary skills to play a certain position. This is even more evident when teams are not equally matched in terms of talent and age (something that regularly occurs in the real world of organized youth sports programs).

I generally prefer an approach that builds individual paths to success—especially for kids in the 11 to 13 age group. Teach Everyone Everything in practice, but tweak playing time as necessary in games so that everyone is placed in the best position to succeed. (I discuss this approach in several articles on my Inside Youth Sports blog.)

Yes, the emphasis is on equal playing time in each game. But the goal of equal playing time may also be achieved over the course of a season, with better players possibly getting a little more playing time against the tougher opponents, while the weaker and younger players receive more time against lesser opponents. The goal is to challenge players, but not put them in situations where they are destined to fail. Unfortunately, some parents only look at each individual game in judging whether their son or daughter is receiving equal playing time.

Like many other issues in youth sports, the equal playing time one is magnified by today’s youth culture that places so much emphasis on adult-run organized youth sports. Promoting more opportunities for children to engage in self-directed play (e.g., pickup games) would enable kids to naturally get the “equal playing time” they need to develop their skills and have fun.

Men have historically been the predominant athletes based on having the freedom to pursue sports as a career. This ambition drove fathers to train their boys to be athletes younger and younger, driving up the competition so that everyone could achieve sport as a career. Who wouldn’t want to play a game for a living? With the widespread push by fathers to put sons into sports to live vicariously, whether they succeeded or not, anyone who has played any sport, can watch that sport and feel part of it. It’s what drives most fans to go to the games. Without that player/fan connection, there is no emotional investment which is the driving force behind all sport. Without emotion and heart, there is no interest. What I have seen with women is that is beginning to happen as women push more to be seen as athletes, and get into positions of managing those sports in ORDER to push more women into sports. Having watched the WNBA, I can already see the difference in skill and strategy that is taking place during the evolution of the existence of the pro women’s game. I also see it in women’s pro soccer internationally. The more opportunities that occur for women to make it a career, the more that young girls will look at it as something that could be achieved and something to strive for. Or if they don’t make it, they’ve still grown in love with that sport while they did it and continue to follow and support it.

Unfortunately, it is still a minority of opportunities and those ingrained in their own sports is what helps self perpetuate, and trying to intro something different takes some effort. Most sports are far more complex than people give them credit for, because they happen to follow those sports over long periods of time; just look at someone taking their child of any age that can actually pay attention to the game and how much explanation is needed to make them understand what is going on. Sports get refs to explain calls over loud mics because sometimes even the people familiar with a sport will say “I don’t understand what just happened”. So the challenge faced by women is one that involves people growing up, raised ‘into’ a sport, mostly men because of their longstanding history of being the predominant sports players and watchers, and pulling them over to something new, usually is difficult.

Also, a belief which is extremely hard to overcome is the idea of women being the sexy beings they are first and foremost, and persons second. It is so deeply ingrained, that women seem to think it true and cater to and support it. I’ve gone to many a sport function and in discussing the product of women’s sport, the first suggestion of every person I encounter is “why not sex it up just a bit”. If the sport itself does not attract someone, “sexing it up” may sell tickets in the short run, but it makes the sport secondary to how my teammates backsides look in their shorts, as opposed to the points they just scored on an opponent. It is only interesting for a short while before people find another alternative. Beauty fades, athleticism will fade with age, but the game will always remain the same as the players come and go. If we don’t continue to support our sports as sports, we are only selling out for a short term benefit and losing our souls, and eventually the fans will be bored of it and thus we lose the money to pay the rent. In catering to those long held beliefs that ‘sexing it up’ is what benefits us, we only perpetuate that belief for longer and longer. It doesn’t go away until we stop using it. Athletes are sexy as it is because they are athletes. As our daughters are raised into their own sports, to be athletes and fans, their opposite gender counterparts will support it or face being alone and vice versa. Unfortunately, it’s going to take longer than any of us really want because we want it now but, all I can say to all the women athletes is, keep on, keeping on.

The relational aspects of women athletes don’t play so much on the field. It may make us feel good to see it, but that’s because we can do it, too. And that, ironically, is why I watch them. Because they inspire me to try things I might actually be able to so.

I am curious to hear what changed from AIAW to NCAA. Having been a national champion in the AIAW and hearing griping from the girls who followed who now had to compete in NCAA, are there some things that looking back at could help move us forward?