Children at Play, Patrons at Debate

Jessica’s Statsky’s criticism on youth sports organizations, “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” states her dislike for several aspects of the practice such as competition among the parents and children’s psychological development after competing. Christine Romano evaluates her logic and reasoning in “Jessica Statsky’s ‘Children Need to Play, Not Compete’: An Evaluation.” Although Romano raises good points about Statsky’s strengths and weaknesses, she also misses some points to her logic. So what exactly did Romano hit and miss about both Statsky’s strong and weak logic?

According to Romano, Statsky uses several methods to strengthen the thesis of her article. For example, she appropriately and believably cites several sources in many different mediums in order to verify her arguments (Romano 317-18), such as statements from Thomas Tutko’s book Winning is Everything and Other American Myths and quotes from Rich Tosche’s article “Peewee Football: Is it Time to Blow the Whistle?” from The L.A. Times (Statsky 389). This indeed strengthens Statsky’s arguments in that several of both professionals and nonprofessionals are concerned about the subjects at hand. In addition, Statsky applies examples in each paragraph to portray the nature of what she argues against, application which Romano describes as “believeable” and “appropriate” (318). Romano unwontedly repeats herself constantly, including on this point, when she lists within two paragraphs how Statsky’s sources are appropriate (318-19), when it could have been summarized in at least one half of a paragraph.

Romano also touches upon Statsky’s weaknesses. She states that Statsky’s argument, while it does have consistency, is incomplete because of two main reasons: Her neglect to mention noncontact sports and to arouse questions likely to be asked by certain demographics (Romano 319-20). Statsky refers to several sports such as Peewee Football and Baseball (Statsky 388), but never mentions examples of noncontact sports such as track running or swimming (Romano 320). This is indeed a large weakness of Statsky’s logic, but Romano, even within two unnecessarily repeated paragraphs about the point (319-20), perhaps may not entirely embrace her point. Although there are alternative sports, this doesn’t change the fact that competitive team sports need to ease up on children’s minds and bodies. Parents reading Statsky’s article perhaps already know of these alternative options, but still agree that other sports should be less torturous on their children. As for answering questions asked by certain demographics, Romano is absolutely correct, in that Statsky barely, if ever, tries to answer possible questions. Romano states that Statsky overlooks parents who believe mainstream sports teach children teamwork, social skills and sense of community (320). Statsky indeed doesn’t press upon these questions, seemingly ignoring their arguments in order to press upon her own points, a logical fallacy.

Statsky’s logic indeed has strengths and weaknesses, but so does Romano’s evaluation. No matter who is doing the aguing, evaluating, or reviewing the argument’s evaluation, there is no escaping how many people will find holes in anybody’s statements. One can only hope that the debate about competitive team sports will eventually be resolved.