Analysis Of Friday Night Tykes: Youth Sports Stereotypes

Choosing a specific piece of popular culture to apply to this section of sports psychology was not an easy choice. The amount of information covered throughout the course of this semester was extensive and it left a lot of room for choosing something to write about. Many options were considered but eventually the youth sports TV series Friday Night Tykes was settled on. This is a great series for applying sports psychology to because it deals with children-coach relationships and with many of the topics covered as well. The overall youth sport climate that is portrayed in the show is very controversial and will be interesting to analyze. The show challenges the youth sports stereotypes that it is easy and lacks competition. On the same note,

The series has been going on for a few seasons now and gives viewers a good look into why Texas youth football is just different than other youth programs. Although youth football programs are not a rarity across the country, it is clear from the first episode why Texas youth football players have their own television show devoted to them. The show is based off of a specific league in the San Antonio area of Texas. The league is the Texas Youth Football Association, and it is considered to be top of the line when it comes to youth football in Texas. Although every team in the league is not covered, there is enough footage and information from the teams portrayed to understand the dynamic that is in place there. Football is everything, plain and simple as that. The children are raised under the expectations to not only play football, but to be good at it as well. Coaches in the show are spoken about scouting and recruiting little kids to come and play for their team, which is an unbelievable concept to grasp. Everything about this league and the people involved in it seems to be over-dramatized to seem worse than it might be, but it is not. The standard that has been given to these children is truly one of a kind. The show basically follows along teams as they go throughout their season, from the pre-competition physicals, all the way down to

The overall youth sports climate has been brought up throughout this paper many times and it is clear that this league has some controversial issues regarding it. Everything boils down to deciding what is best for the kid, and if the risk of playing them in such severe circumstances is worth the reward. Some parents in the show believe that through this league and playing football at such a competitive level so young, the kids will learn how to deal with not only the physical pain but also the stress and anxiety that comes along with playing football. There is no doubt that this argument can be made, and yes it is true that every kid will deal with the adversity of coping with sports differently, but there can definitely be extremes. This can be a harmful mindset because throwing kids in to such adverse situations without them knowing how to react or deal with them can leave them not knowing what to do. According to a case study done by the Minnesota Youth Sport Research Consortium, they believe that coaches should be placing developing athletes in ideal situations to nurture their psychological, physical, and emotional development (Weise-Bjornstal, 2009). It is clear that this is just not the case for majority of the athletes that are playing in this youth football league. Dealing with high pressures