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Robert Cobb, Dean of the
college of Education and Human Development: "This is an attempt on the part
of a lot of interested people across Maine, in trying to identify what's
good about sports for youth, how does it contribute to their well being, are
there things that need to be improved upon, are their things that need to be
reaffirmed about their experience. Many adults are believing its their child
that is going to make that trip from youth sports to the professional level.
the realities are that 99 point something percent aren't going to do that
and yet we make decisions and choices along the way that result in
overspecialization- early overspecialization which is not a good thing.
Student-athletes are expressing to us that they want to play for fun- that
they're just high school of middle school kids and that the pressure that
they're feeling today to win, to play and to specialize is something they're
very uncomfortable with. Our next steps in the implemention of this report,
involved inviting all the schools in Maine to apply to be pilot sites for
those who are ready to move on this. So we have gone through that process,
we've identified 12 pilot sites. We are now beginning to meet with those
school systems preparing them to work with their communities, their coaches
and their student-athletes, parents and others to adopt and if necessary
adapt these principles and create a compact. We're hearing people- they come
up to us and say ' Boy this report is overdue. We're so pleased that someone
has taken the initiative to bring this information all together because
we've been asking for years- what do the experts think about how sports
ought to be conducted.' No one has taken the time and made the effort to
show what sports- when they're really done properly- what they look like."
