Pint-Sized Phenoms: A New Blog Series

Back in March I started a monthly feature on my blog: Shrinking and Pinking. This series focuses on female athletes, who often have to fight against the literally shrinking and pinking of their sports, uniforms, and professional lives/opportunities. The past few months a different definition of "shrinking" has been creeping into my posts-- child athletes. After 16-year-old Lexi Thompson's impressive, record-setting performance at an LPGA tournament, which has since earned her tour membership, I realized that women and kids deserved their own separate series.  Hence, the new Pint-Sized Phenoms. This month I focus on kids (all 18 and under), like Lexi Thompson, who have performed remarkable physical feats, usually in the context of organized sports.

• At 16 Zach Veach is on track to become a champion race car driver. Last year he finished fifth in the USF2000 National Championship, which is the feeder system for IndyCar. He's only been driving since he was 12 (all the more remarkable when most of his competitors have been driving go-karts since they were four), and has only legally been able to drive on the roads for the past eight months. Of course it's a particularly sad moment for racing, with the death of Dan Wheldon, but I'm sure racers like Zach give many hope for the future. If you're interested in learning more about the kiddie race car circuit, I recommend the 2009 documentary Racing Dreams.

• Another impressive 16-year-old is Sami Stoner. Sami is a cross country runner in Ohio. She also happens to be legally blind. Sami is the first athlete to be cleared to use a guide dog by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Read more of her inspirational story here.

• Like Sami Stoner, 15-year-old Doug Wells is an inspirational blind athlete. And he recently pitched a no hitter on the baseball diamond! In addition to playing baseball Doug also plays basketball and football.

• Speaking of football, three pint-sized football players have been in the news of late.

1. Demias Jimerson is quite the pint-sized phenom. At only 11-years-old he made national news this fall when he was told that he was too good of a football player. His Arkansas school has a rule that stops a player from scoring more than three touchdowns if his team is ahead by at least 14 points. His story brought up issues of limiting talented children versus allowing others the opportunity to enjoy physical fitness. Will be interesting to see what this young man accomplishes both on and off the field as he develops.  Perhaps he can "play up" on a another team so he can continue to develop his talents and others can enjoy a sporting activity with those who have similar skill sets.
2. The New York Times article on 18-year-old Brianna Amat (the joint winning field-goal kicking and homecoming queen) definitely made the rounds. In case you missed it, click here to read about this Michigander who experienced two major events in her young life within an hour.
3. In an anti-phenom moment, another Ohio athlete, a 16-year-old football player, exhibited one of the worst cases of poor sportsmanship in recent memory. This young man placed a metal tack in his glove which he used to poke his opponents during the after-game handshakes. But, get this: not only did his team win, he didn't even play in the game (he had been benched due to eligibility concerns). I'm hoping he has been benched indefinitely, especially after 20 fellow high school football players had to endure Tetanus shots as a result of the incident.

• To end on a more positive note, last month 17-year-old Kristen Kelliher broke a record. She became the youngest female (at 17 years, 4 months, and 13 days) to climb the highest point in each of the 48 contiguous states. Kelliher broke this 'highpointing" record (previously 18 years and 4 days) in her home state of Vermont.  She soon hopes to break the record for all 50 states, with climbs planned for Hawaii and Alaska (the most dangerous).  A few quotes from Kristin in yesterday's Boston Globe article on her accomplishment reveal the mindset of a pint-sized phenom: "I've wanted to do this since I was 9... I'm kind of competitive. Ok, a lot."

Bingo-Bango-Bongo: A Review of Meg Wolitzer's The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman

I admit that I am a Scrabble tournament virgin. I've only ever seen a Scrabble tournament while watching the documentary Word Wars, and I've read about this particular subculture in Stefan Fatsis' delighful Word Freak.  But in many ways the Scrabble tournament world doesn't seem to differ too much from its intellectual cousins, or "sports of the brain"-- the spelling/geography bee (if you haven't seen Spellbound, one of my favorite documentaries of all time, add it to your Netflix queue immediately!) and the chess tournament. This was one of my biggest take-aways after reading Meg Wolitzer's delightful foray into children's literature, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman.

Wolitzer, best-known for literary fiction like The Ten-Year Nap and this year's popular The Uncoupling, tries her hand at children's fiction here. This novel, directed at readers aged 9-12, has elements kids will love-- like a whiff of romance and a touch of magical realism. It also contains tips for aspiring Scrabble players including a list of two-letter words, "vowel dump" words, etc.  The main characters embody particular archetypes of competitive childhoods (the father who lost this Scrabble tournament as a kid and now wants his son to win, the girl who doesn't fit into her jock family, the homeschooled boy) while also capturing the sense of camaraderie that often develops between kid competitors.

As I said I have never attended a Scrabble tournament, but I did attend over 15 scholastic chess tournaments while doing research for Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture. The biggest tournament I attended was the grade Nationals, where over 1300 kids converge each November/December.  These grade national decide who the top chess player is in each grade (K-12). Wolitzer's description of the fictional Youth Scrabble Tournament (modeled on the real National School Scrabble Championship, down to the $10,000 prize) resonated with my observations at chess nationals. She writes beautifully: "Players hunched over their Scrabble boards in intense, aching silence." (159).

Surrounding this intense, aching silence are the parents, roped off from the tournament floor (true for both chess and Scrabble).  As with chess, some Scrabble parents want their kids to be in the Scrabble Club thinking it might help their children get into college someday.  Since I wrote about some of my original research recently, I thought I would share this quote from a lawyer mom whose fourth-grade son plays tournament chess: It’s that ability to keep your concentration focused, while there’s stuff going on around you. As you go into older age groups, where people are coming in and out, the ability to maintain that concentration, a connection with what’s going on, on the board in front of you, and still be functional in a room of people, it’s a big thing. I mean to see those large tournaments, in the convention centers, I know it is hard. I did that to take the bar exam, and the LSAT I took for law school, and GREs. You do that in a large setting, but some people are thrown by that, just by being in such a setting. Well that’s a skill, and it’s an ability to transfer that skill. It’s not just a chess skill. It’s a coping with your environment skill. Playing in large, timed events-- whether they be Scrabble, chess, or something else-- is seen as having tangible, transferable long-term benefits for kids (note that this perspective even goes beyond college to graduate/professional school achievement).

Still the kids are at the heart of The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman just as they are at the heart of their own experiences in the real world.  Kids become part of the culture of their chosen activity, picking up lingo (like "coffeehousing" in Scrabble and "skittling" in chess). They worry about the costs of competition (both financial and social), but embrace the friendships that develop in a place where they feel they fit in and belong.  They also figure out how these competitive activities really work.  Wolitzer explains: “With Scrabble, Duncan saw, you didn’t need to be a genius. You didn’t even have to know what the words meant, though it could be more interesting—and sometimes useful—if you knew the meanings of some of the strange ones… You mostly had to know which ones were good, and which ones weren’t.” (101)

It's true that don't have to be a genius to be the best Scrabble player, speller, or chess player in your age division.  But you do need to be a genius to write like Wolitzer and have her level of insight not only about childhood, but also about parenting and relationships. For this reason, this book is worth a read by any adults with kids involved in competitive academic activities, or by any adults who themselves love Scrabble tournaments.

From Captain to CEO: Young Girls and Sports

Earlier this week Forbes ran an article entitled "The Secret to Being a Power Woman: Play Team Sports." The piece has certainly struck a chord with many women-- and it struck a chord with me as it dovetails nicely with some of my research on girls and competitive afterschool activities. In my work I find that many parents, especially those from the upper-middle class, realize how important it is for girls to play competitive sports. Why? Precisely for the reasons suggested by Jenna Godreau in her article: Parents perceive that there are numerous long-term benefits in terms of adult professional achievement.

What might these benefits be? I'll highlight three here (but soon you will be able to read a whole chapter on this topic in my book, Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, called "Pink Girls and Ball Guys?: Gender and Competitive Children's Activities"). Note: As part of this research I interviewed parents from 95 families with elementary school-age kids involved in chess, dance, and soccer. I was especially interested in understanding how parents of girls chose between the two physical activities (dance and soccer) for their daughters.

1) Learning how to be part of a team- The team element of competitive youth sports was especially important to many parents.  Here's an illustrative quote from one Ivy-League educated soccer mom:

We have no illusions that our children are going to be great athletes. But the team element (is important). I worked for Morgan Stanley for 10 years, and I interviewed applicants, and that ability to work on a team was a crucial part of our hiring process. So it’s a skill that comes into play much later. It’s not just about ball skills or hand-eye coordination.

2) Learning how to strive to win, be the best, and be aggressive- This same mother went on to explain why she thought ice hockey was such a good choice for her daughter. Her girl actually played two travel sports-- soccer and ice hockey.  Her comments also highlight what additional lessons can come when a child makes the jump from recreational participation in team sports to competitive youth sports. The emphasis on winning and being aggressive becomes amplified.

When I was interviewing [job candidates] at Morgan Stanley, if I got a female candidate—because it’s banking and you need to be aggressive, you need to be tough—if she played, like, ice hockey, done. My daughter’s playing, and I’m just a big believer in kids learning to be confidently aggressive, and I think that plays out in life assertiveness.

Learning how to be aggressive/assertive was a skill highlighted by all the parents I met who had daughters playing travel soccer.  Here is another evocative quote from a father, who is an Ivy-League educated attorney:

I encourage her to be more aggressive because she’s a cute little girl, but I don’t like her to be a girly girl… You know, I don’t want her to be a cheerleader—nothing against that—but I want her to prepare to have the option, if she wants to be an executive in a company, that she can play on that turf. And if she’s kind of a girly girl, maybe she’ll be a secretary… There’s nothing wrong with that, but let her have the option of doing something else if she wants.

[I could write pages on this quote alone-- from "play on that turf" to girly-girls being secretaries to stereotypes about cheerleaders (who can in fact be tremendously competitive and athletic), but I'll let you wait for the book to see all that!]

3) Learning to use sports to connect across social boundaries (like sex and class)- You may notice that both of these parents (and most of the soccer parents I met) are highly credentialed and successful professionals. We can think of them as part of the upper-middle class.  Sports are quite important in American upper-middle class culture because they celebrate some of the values that are activated in professional work environments-- though note that this used to apply to men more than women.  But today parents expect the same sort of achievement from their sons and daughters, and see sports as a way to teach this lesson to their daughters.

They seem to be on the right track. For example, economist Betsey Stevenson’s work on Title IX finds that participation in high school sports increases the likelihood that a girl attends college, enters the labor market, and enters previously male-dominated occupations.  Stevenson suggests that sports develop skills, like learning how to compete and function as a team, which are especially important as women navigate the traditionally male-dominated labor market. Other researchers (like Bonnie Erickson) find that the ability to converse intelligently about sports can also be an advantage in the workplace, helping connect individuals across classes and social networks (this last point was also highlighted in the Forbes article-- given hope to un-athletic women, like yours truly!).

Historically, elite women were charged with mastery of the arts, and similar forms of cultural capital, so it is a change that at least certain kinds of women are focusing more on athletics. But change is a good thing and we should expect to see more and more female CEO's and high achievers, like those highlighted in the article as this generation of young, competitive, athletic women age.

It's the Great Pumpkin: Competitive/Extreme Gardening

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: In the US, we can make anything into a competition.  The competitive activity de jour? Extreme gardening. Or, the race to grow the the one-ton pumpkin. These are not the kinds of pumpkins Charlie Brown and Linus saw in the pumpkin patch.

In fact, you can't even eat these super-sized pumpkins (according to last week's New York Times story, their rinds are too thick and their sugar content too low).

So what are these over-sized gourd-like fruits good for? Competing and winning. Men and women compete to grow the largest, intact pumpkin that they can.  They are now turning to science to try to beat the odds, as the Times article highlights.

Others turn to more nefarious methods-- patch sabotage. In the 2007 PBS documentary, Lords of the Gourd, growers tell stories about competitors smashing their pumpkins or spraying them with weed killer.  Some of these self-described extreme gardeners have installed video cameras in their fields to catch the culprits (human culprits, that is; they have traps and guns to stop four-legged culprits like mice and woodchucks). They have to fight against "pumpkin envy."

Lords of the Gourd is part of the excellent four-episode "The Pursuit of Excellence" documentary series produced by PBS. My favorite remains Ferrets, and I've written before about the synchronized swimming episode (the last in the series is about hair competitions).  What The Pursuit of Excellence series highlights is how ordinary people get "addicted" to hobbies through competition.  This is similar to language people use when explaining to me why they do child beauty pageants with their daughters-- use of terms like "getting sucked in" and addicted to winning like "it is a drug" is quite common.

Understanding competition as a form of addiction helps explain why people act the way they do in other competitive activities, like sports (where parents have physically attacked/murdered other parents, for example) and dance (one commenter wrote that he was horrified and shocked by the behavior shown on Dance Moms,  when I wrote about it last week). The introduction of competition, whether for major prizes or just a ribbon and some public recognition, can make people behave in ways they would not normally act.  When a very strict hierarchy and structure exists, without proper oversight and guidance by others with some experience and expertise, people can turn obsessive, nasty, and even criminal.

Thank goodness these pumpkin growers are working with their inanimate gourds, and not children.

Do you have a favorite competitive/extreme hobby?

Dance Studio Dynamics: Reflections on Season One of Dance Moms (from orgtheory.net)

During the summer of stage mothers, Lifetime’s Dance Moms emerged as a breakout hit for the network.  From its debut in mid-July 2011 to its season finale this past week, the show steadily attracted more viewers (up 62% since its premiere).  With about 1.6 million watching each episode, it’s not surprising that the network has given the green light to a 13-episode long second season. After the first episode, which I found quite shocking (even in the context of my previous research and experience with competitive dance), I had doubts that a second season would be possible. I couldn’t imagine the studio owner, Abby Lee Miller, agreeing to it, or many of the moms, given how negatively they were portrayed. But as the series has progressed I actually think Miller has emerged as more sympathetic; if I had to deal with some of these moms’ antics, I might be a bit brusque and stand-offish too.

The intra-studio competition is actually far more intense than the inter-studio competition.  And this is mainly because of the dance moms who jockey for attention from the teachers and choreographers within their small group.  Certainly, this type of behavior occurs in many kids’ activities, especially sports. I’m not sure it is typical of other small-group dynamics, like in firms and research groups? Perhaps others who study companies and firms know this research better and could share any insights. I found it especially interesting that whenever an outside threat to the core group emerged (like Crazy Cathy from Candy Apples), the moms banded together to defend one another and their studio. But they could easily, nastily turn on one another, including other kids in the group.

These highly charged competitive intra-studio dynamics are heightened on Dance Moms by the use of the dancer’s pyramid, which openly ranks the girls against their teammates each week.  While most competitive activities have some understood hierarchy of top achievers, the show makes this internal, usually invisible, ranking clear.  It’s emerged that Miller does not normally operate in this way, instead using this pyramid to (successfully) add extra drama to the show (thank goodness given the ages of the kids she works with).  Nonetheless it captures how moms don’t just want their girls to succeed in the bigger pond of dance competitions, but also to be “the star” in the smaller pond of their Pittsburgh dance studio.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING AT ORGTHEORY, OR KEEP READING BELOW!

This week’s season finale, “There Can Only Be One Star,” plopped the girls into the even bigger pond of Hollywood. They tried out, and were featured, in a music video.  It was a good opportunity for Abby to emphasize why her sometimes draconian teaching techniques produce successful, working dancers.  For example, the moms who had complained about their daughters learning new routines each week admitted that they had to eat crow after they saw how quickly their girls picked up the choreography at the audition.  The girls themselves commented that dance competitions helped prepare them to be evaluated at auditions, even though now there were forty judges as opposed to just three or four.  And the youngest company member, adorable seven-year-old Makenzie, remarked: “Directors [of the music video] are kind of like Abby. They yell a lot.”  While in Hollywood the girls also learned the very real, but tough, lesson that sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are—being successful means looking right at the right moment, which includes quite a bit of luck.

I’m curious to see if any other redemption arcs emerge in the second season… which might be hard given that the show has likely exacerbated many of the long-simmering group tensions by revealing not only how people act in their frontstage personas, but also backstage (it’s always amazing what people choose to reveal in one-on-one interviews knowing that those comments might be seen by millions, including those they have been talking about).  I do hope that the second season features more of Abby’s senior dancers and her now-professional students, along with more backstory on the families (like, where are most of their husbands, and other children, and what do they think?), while dropping unrealistic touches like the pyramid and leading viewers to believe that the girls only compete a subset of their routines at each competition.  The show is revealing not just for the dancing and the glimpse into the subculture of children’s dance competitions, but also for its insight into small-group dynamics in highly-charged, emotional situations.