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."

Before Painted Babies, JonBenet, and Swan Brooner there was... Blaire Pancake

To outsiders it might seem like there are lots of links between the world of child beauty pageants and the world of adult beauty pageants (which do not exclusively include the Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World systems, but those are certainly the most prestigious and well-known). But that isn't quite right. Lots of child beauty girls say that they want to grow up to be Miss America or Miss Universe, but they often drop-out long before they are age eligible.  Or, they are seen as being "Pageant Patties" who are too programmed/robotic to succeed in the adult pageants that place more value on spontaneity and "natural"-ness, so those who stick with pageants over the years often aren't successful in their pursuit of the "big crowns." Outsiders also often wonder what becomes of child beauty pageant contestants as they age. Are they successful? Happy? Married? It's usually difficult to answer these questions as it's hard to track down contestants and keep track of them over the years.  One exception are the two girls featured in the 1996 documentary Painted Babies. This BBC-produced special focused on five-year-olds Asia Mansour and Brooke Breedwell as they squared off in a Georgia child beauty pageant-- long before the world ever heard of JonBenet Ramsey. The filmmaker, Jane Treays, visited the girls again, twelve years late, in Painted Babies at 17, which came out in 2008 and was shown on TLC (FYI- Asia was still doing pageants).

But even before Painted Babies, there was Blaire Pancake. Blaire was eleven-years-old when she and her family were featured in a nine-page spread in Life in 1994 (click here for a link to my own copy of the piece, which unfortunately does not reproduce the pictures well; to read the text of the article, click here). Even with shocking revelations for the time—like the fact that Blaire had competed in over 100 pageants, that she wore glue-on nails, and that she had been accused of wearing hair extensions and having plastic surgery performed by her father (a plastic surgeon)—there was little public outcry about this American subculture.

I have always found this Life piece, by sports journalist Pat Jordan, quite powerful. If you read it now, seventeen years later, you'll be struck by how little has changed in many ways in the world of child beauty pageants. There's clearly continuity in the tensions and practices (flippers, coaches, rumors and accusations, involved parents, etc.). And then there is the memorable Blaire Pancake. The images of her are striking, and the name, for me, has always been unforgettable.

Recently Bloomberg Businessweek ran a story on US beauty queens who have gone on to pursue MBAs.  They tracked down 14 state title holders from Miss America and Miss USA who had worn the crown in the past decade. The article highlights how the women's experiences as state beauty queens helped prepare them for the business world, highlighting networking and marketing skills.

Well, guess who number 12 was in the slideshow that accompanied the article? You guessed it-- Blaire Pancake. Pancake competed as Miss Tennessee in the 2007 Miss America Pageant.  While she didn't place in the Top 15, or win any special awards, she did compete at the Miss America Pageant, which is no easy feat.  True, she didn't fulfill her stated childhood dream of becoming Miss America (per the Life piece from 1994), but she got pretty close.

Pancake apparently stopped doing pageants in high school, and didn't compete in college.  But at 23, at risk of "aging out" of the Miss America system, she decided to try for the Miss Tennessee title. And she won on her first attempt. All those years of pageant prep had paid off.

I was really delighted to read about Blaire Pancake's success. She received her MBA in 2009 and is now working as a "marketing and business development director." A quick Google search revealed that she is married as well. While Blaire Pancake (thankfully) never become a household pageant name like JonBenet, she does show that even child beauty pageant contestants thrust into the national spotlight at a young age can go on to lead successful adult lives. So, there is hope for girls like Swan Brooner (from HBO's critically acclaimed 2001 Living Dolls [and my favorite child beauty pageant documentary]) and for the pint-sized princesses from today's Toddlers & Tiaras. Only time will tell if they can pull off a Blaire Pancake.

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?