OT: Kids and Athleticism

[PooPopsBaldHead]

Weird one here. Figured someone on here's seen this and I would be curious.

Do children that are noticeably more naturally strong/fast/muscular at a young age compared to peers tend to maintain that advantage through adolescence? Is it a genetic thing where they are born predisposed to having athletic advantages (say more fast twitch muscle than most of us) and it maintains through puberty? Or is it more of an early advantage that fades after other kids go through puberty?

I moved around a lot as a kid and don't really recall if the fastest/strongest kid in first grade went on to be the fastest in 6th and 11th as well. I assume there's a bell curve for this whole concept, but generally speaking did any of you SPSers have a or know a kid that you could see early on was athletically gifted and if so, did it sustain through teenage years into adulthood or did it slowly regress to the mean?

 

[aTotal360]

No. I personally think there are 3 phases of athletes in kids K-12.

5-11: kids that are naturally bigger, faster, stronger
11-15: the kids that go through puberty first and start to fill out
15-18: circles back around to first group assuming those kids continue to work

In my days of coaching, I’ve found that about 1 in 10 kids will be “great”. Meaning they could just about walk onto any field or court and make a noticeable impact.

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

No. I personally think there are 3 phases of athletes in kids K-12.

5-11: kids that are naturally bigger, faster, stronger
11-15: the kids that go through puberty first and start to fill out
15-18: circles back around to first group assuming those kids continue to work

In my days of coaching, I’ve found that about 1 in 10 kids will be “great”. Meaning they could just about walk onto any field or court and make a noticeable impact.

So are you saying the first group (born strong/fast) have a long term advantage if they press it... Even if some other kids go through puberty earlier and start eating into the advantage?

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I generally saw the kids who were good when we were young stay good. Probably a mix of raw talent and playing time/coach attention. There was a guy named Trey Johnson who I played baseball with when I was probably 10. He was way better than everyone, but he left the league. I looked him up several years later, and he’d gone on to have a great college basketball career and had several 10 day contracts in the NBA. You certainly get some guys like Charlie Condon and Mike Piazza who might surprise you late, but I do think you can usually see the athleticism early

 

[aTotal360]

So are you saying the first group (born strong/fast) have a long term advantage if they press it... Even if some other kids go through puberty earlier and start eating into the advantage?

Not every time, but I bet 50-75% of those kids end up rising to the top in some sport.

Within the maturation process there will be kids that mature mentally and end up being “high motor” guys. Those you can never really project.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

IN GENERAL, my experience is that the kids who good early on, are the ones who are good later on. Called it learned confidence, call it parents holding them back so they are bigger, whatever, but that’s been my experience. Plus, the ones who are good early on tend to have parents that push them. Very few true late bloomers. I think that whole narrative that you don’t know at 8U or 12U is pushed by people who got frustrated with the process.

That said, you do have to watch out for the kids who hit puberty early…..that often gives a sense of false confidence. I do know a few kids who were like a 7th grade tailback, who ended being a bench warmer as a senior. Not incredibly common, but it happens more than the stuff we talked about in first paragraph.

Athleticism is often evident early on, like 7U/8U level of all sports.

 

[mstateglfr]

Kids with athletic advantages early on are frequently still very good later.
At the same time, I see countless kids who are late bloomers or whatever that pass the early developers in height, strength, effectiveness, etc.

There is an entire section in my state's HS coaching license classes that addresses, in depth, the concept of early developers continuing to have advantages due to them being focuses on early.
It's tough not to focus and dedicate extra time/resources to those kids, but reality is that many peak sooner than others and get the benefit of their reputation from a few years prior.
Meanwhile, kids that develop and improve later in age often struggle to overcome and break past how they were viewed.

 

[mstateglfr]

My first glance at this thread title was 'kids and atheism', which made me groan because a religion thread with really great discussion had just happened. 2 in a row is impossible.

 

[RopeDawg]

Weird one here. Figured someone on here's seen this and I would be curious.

Do children that are noticeably more naturally strong/fast/muscular at a young age compared to peers tend to maintain that advantage through adolescence? Is it a genetic thing where they are born predisposed to having athletic advantages (say more fast twitch muscle than most of us) and it maintains through puberty? Or is it more of an early advantage that fades after other kids go through puberty?

I moved around a lot as a kid and don't really recall if the fastest/strongest kid in first grade went on to be the fastest in 6th and 11th as well. I assume there's a bell curve for this whole concept, but generally speaking did any of you SPSers have a or know a kid that you could see early on was athletically gifted and if so, did it sustain through teenage years into adulthood or did it slowly regress to the mean?

I was the biggest/strongest/fastest from ages 5-16. About my sophomore year of high school I was 6’1 185. About 16/17 is when others caught up and sports didn’t come as easy. It tended to make me not work as hard either because I was always more physically gifted than others. I’ve only grown an inch since then. I went on to play college football but was at a smaller D2 school and only started my senior year. I know a lot of kids who had the ability, but not the size at an early age but then hit a spurt in high school were the ones to go on to do really well.

I thinks it’s a case by case basis though but there a plenty of kids like me.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

My first glance at this thread title was 'kids and atheism', which made me groan because a religion thread with really great discussion had just happened. 2 in a row is impossible.

I read it as that too at first

 

[Boom Boom]

Weird one here. Figured someone on here's seen this and I would be curious.

Do children that are noticeably more naturally strong/fast/muscular at a young age compared to peers tend to maintain that advantage through adolescence? Is it a genetic thing where they are born predisposed to having athletic advantages (say more fast twitch muscle than most of us) and it maintains through puberty? Or is it more of an early advantage that fades after other kids go through puberty?

I moved around a lot as a kid and don't really recall if the fastest/strongest kid in first grade went on to be the fastest in 6th and 11th as well. I assume there's a bell curve for this whole concept, but generally speaking did any of you SPSers have a or know a kid that you could see early on was athletically gifted and if so, did it sustain through teenage years into adulthood or did it slowly regress to the mean?

My experience and observation matches what others said. Age in class matters (there's some crazy stat about NHL draftees, at least twice as likely to be born in the first month of their class calendar). But they disproportionately don't become stars.

NHL Draft has a bias with age

How to deal with it

thibaudchatel.substack.com

When puberty hits matters too. Those kids get the playing time and instruction.

I would guess some kids just develop differently after puberty. I don't know that I'd say athletic or not kids stay that way after puberty, but I have no idea really.

 

[Anon1697564126]

I have seen several that matured early that were great in junior high school but that was as good and big as they ever got. I played with a guy that never even made the high school baseball team until he was a senior but ended up playing at a small D1 school.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

I coached youth baseball for 13 years back in the day and have watched kids play a lot of sports for many, many years. There are no absolutes but the kids that start out at a high level tended to stay that way and the ones that started out slow mostly never came close to catching up. Mostly they just fell further behind and moved on to something else pretty quick. There have been a couple of exceptions. I had one in baseball that couldn’t do much of anything when he was very young but he hung in there and eventually turned into a pretty fair high school athlete. There was one girl that started out so far ahead of every other girl, regardless of the sport, that it was just crazy. Basically a one person scoring machine. As the years went by the other girls caught up with, and started to pass her on by. 99 percent of the time, you are what you are in sports from Tee ball on up, but occasionally one of them will surprise you. You just never know. I think more of them might blossom with age but they get discouraged and give up when it gets hard. Some just do, or don’t, have the personality and fire for athletic competition. At a very early age I think that having an aggressive, confident, type of personality and having a parent that will get out in the yard and play ball with you gets them off to a fast start. The kids that are passive and shy have an uphill battle. Sometimes sports will help them blossom and sometimes it won’t.

 

[johnson86-1]

Weird one here. Figured someone on here's seen this and I would be curious.

Do children that are noticeably more naturally strong/fast/muscular at a young age compared to peers tend to maintain that advantage through adolescence? Is it a genetic thing where they are born predisposed to having athletic advantages (say more fast twitch muscle than most of us) and it maintains through puberty? Or is it more of an early advantage that fades after other kids go through puberty?

I moved around a lot as a kid and don't really recall if the fastest/strongest kid in first grade went on to be the fastest in 6th and 11th as well. I assume there's a bell curve for this whole concept, but generally speaking did any of you SPSers have a or know a kid that you could see early on was athletically gifted and if so, did it sustain through teenage years into adulthood or did it slowly regress to the mean?

It was a mixed bag for us growing up. Off hand I can think of a guy that was always fast but then he hit puberty and got awkward and never recovered his athleticism. The Johnny all American in elementary and jr high was mainly good because he was just more coordinated and smarter about sports. When people got older, he was still good but other people passed him by in athleticism. We had a couple of guys that were always more advanced and went from dominating to barely staying on the field after everybody hit puberty. Had one guy that was always gangly and didn’t really get coordinated until he was a senior. Probably could have played any sport but got chased out of basketball by a stupid coach. But we were so small, I’m not sure we had anybody really get chased out of sports completely that could have been good later on, and the ones that got bypassed didn’t get completely pushed out of playing time for the most part.

 

[MStateU]

If you got it, you got it.

You can tell early if they got it.

 

[oh yeah]

I generally saw the kids who were good when we were young stay good. Probably a mix of raw talent and playing time/coach attention. There was a guy named Trey Johnson who I played baseball with when I was probably 10. He was way better than everyone, but he left the league. I looked him up several years later, and he’d gone on to have a great college basketball career and had several 10 day contracts in the NBA.

His kid has it. He can excel at any sport he wants to. I think he recently transferred to Germantown. You could tell by ymca basketball or little league, that he was gonna be a good athlete. I do believe there are some kids that just have it and for food or bad, some of those kids don’t work at it hard enough.

 

[85Bears]

IN GENERAL, my experience is that the kids who good early on, are the ones who are good later on. Called it learned confidence, call it parents holding them back so they are bigger, whatever, but that’s been my experience. Plus, the ones who are good early on tend to have parents that push them. Very few true late bloomers. I think that whole narrative that you don’t know at 8U or 12U is pushed by people who got frustrated with the process.

That said, you do have to watch out for the kids who hit puberty early…..that often gives a sense of false confidence. I do know a few kids who were like a 7th grade tailback, who ended being a bench warmer as a senior. Not incredibly common, but it happens more than the stuff we talked about in first paragraph.

Athleticism is often evident early on, like 7U/8U level of all sports.

Early puberty phenoms, happens quite a bit. I played football with a kid who was a 5-10 195 pound beast in 8th grade, full beard fastest strongest kid in the league. As a senior he was 5-10 195 pounds, so-so player. Some kids you can see it early fast twitch, just natural athletes at 9-10 years old.

I think it is hard to tell sometimes , especially for baseball. You get a kid who hits a growth spurt and all of a sudden he’s 6-4 215 and quite a different pitcher.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

First off it is a case by case basis. In my little league we had a farm team for 8 year olds. 9 played B. 10 played A. 11&12 played majors. I did farm at 8. B at 9. Then was 1 of 2 that moved to majors at 10. The best pitcher in B was a guy that obviously was always going to be a smaller human. He was unhittable that year. Even I had trouble hitting him. (He grew to only be 5'5"). By the next year all the others caught up to him and surpassed him. I think he stopped after that (Don't feel sorry for him cause he is a multi millionaire and has race horses and a horse farm on Long Island).
The other 10 year old that went to the majors, always stayed one of the better players in my town just not quite as good as me. His older brother spent some time in the minor leagues with Detroit, so genetics were involved. I think he played some college ball in Texas.

I obviously continued to improve and I always played at age groups above my age. I played 4 years of Varsity high school ball starting at 14,
which was pretty unheard of in NY.

So that is both sides of the spectrum. Some kids mature earlier and kinda stop while others continue to get bigger and stronger.

 

[aTotal360]

The 5'6" kid that is shaving in 8th grade has typically hit their ceiling.

Baseball is different. It's more fine motor skill dependent, so some kids can be late bloomers.

 

[FormerBully]

It also depends on coaching at a young age. I had a high school football coach tell me that bad coaching can set a kid back a few years. He told me he often prefers kids that haven’t played because they are easier to mold and peak earlier. He has seen many kids that had pure skill but had to be reprogrammed. Also, natural gifted kids will can be passed by the kid that was told they sucked because of motivation.

 

[WilCoDawg]

If you got it, you got it.

You can tell early if they got it.

This.

I knew a kid who wasn’t the biggest or tallest at a younger age but he was slightly faster. He just “got it” in every sport. He could just do things other kids didn’t seem to be able to. Other kids started to get bigger, stronger, and faster than him but he was still just mentally in a higher level.

There’s kids who mentally get it, or have the physical part, and then there’s the freaks who have both.

And as Oh Yeah mentioned, I’ve seen a lot of gifts who “got it” just not invest in practice and training like the other kids and their skills surpassed the gifted kids. I would love to know why those kids never invest in the time and effort to stay better in the sports that they seem to love.

 

[johnson86-1]

The 5'6" kid that is shaving in 8th grade has typically hit their ceiling.

Baseball is different. It's more fine motor skill dependent, so some kids can be late bloomers.

I resemble this remark, mother 17er.

 

[kired]

In general I think kids who have athletic ability at a young age have potential to maintain it. Question is do they have the desire and drive to continue with sports. Some of the best young athletes when I was in elementary school never played any sports past 7th grade. They just had no desire to practice every day or be bossed around by a coach. So obviously they didn’t develop.

I personally was not athletically gifted. I loved sports and worked my *** off my whole life, but I never put on muscle or grew like other kids (I’m literally half the size of most people on this board). I would say by the time I was 16-17, I’d was better at sports than those kids who quit playing at 12-13. But it was simply because I’d put in the work. Many of them had the physical traits to have been better than me if they hadn’t quit.

Sure, sometimes a kid quits growing by 8th grade or sometimes you see a really late bloomer. But most people are what they are, and you have a good idea even when they are young.

 

[KentuckyDawg13]

So many factors involved, but as a father of two and a former coach of several hundred kids, I would say that most athletic kids tend to stay that way throughout their teenage years. But there have been some individuals that were outstanding when younger that ended up being just average by the time they hit 20. Some athletes do peak early, specifically in sports like swimming while some are late bloomers.

My son is an example of a late bloomer, in that he was a good athlete throughout grade/high school but once he got to college, he put in the work and eventually became team captain (@ UofL Swim Team) by his senior year with two Olympic trials under his belt too.

On the other hand, my son had a teammate in high school that was one of the best in the country, but once he got to college, he was very average and ended up dropping the sport. Burnout fueled by his parents over-enthusiasm when he was younger.

Hard work beats genetics most of the time.

 

[Tractorman]

It is interesting to observe. From what I have seen, the skinny kids that are winning foot races in elementary school will have a natural athletic advantage and will excel in what ever sport they decide to focus on. These same kids will look like they have been passed by 10 to 13 yr olds who are already almost as tall as their dad in 8th grade. These are the ones that hit the homers and starting pitchers on your 10u thru 12u. They tend to "top out" at 14 or 15 yrs old. Then the elementary kid who has always been more athletic passes them in height soph and junior yr of high school. That is the kid you want for skill positions for speed and athleticism at the next level. The big boys in middle school that are good at sports, you hope they continue to get stronger and taller for football positions.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Weird one here. Figured someone on here's seen this and I would be curious.

Do children that are noticeably more naturally strong/fast/muscular at a young age compared to peers tend to maintain that advantage through adolescence? Is it a genetic thing where they are born predisposed to having athletic advantages (say more fast twitch muscle than most of us) and it maintains through puberty? Or is it more of an early advantage that fades after other kids go through puberty?

I moved around a lot as a kid and don't really recall if the fastest/strongest kid in first grade went on to be the fastest in 6th and 11th as well. I assume there's a bell curve for this whole concept, but generally speaking did any of you SPSers have a or know a kid that you could see early on was athletically gifted and if so, did it sustain through teenage years into adulthood or did it slowly regress to the mean?

In raising my kids, my observation was that athleticism was constant, the ones who had it, kept it. The ones of those who stuck with sports, excelled long term. There were seasons where growth spurts gave some less athletic kids an advantage, but you could still see that it was just size that allowed them to stand out, and that advantage disappeared as peers caught up.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

I was a big kid who always had two left feet. I matured late when I graduated. I was 6' 1" 180 pounds - nine months later I was 6' 3" and over 220 pounds. I didn't put on fat, I finally grew muscles.

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

So does this some it up for most of you?

Some kids are born with more natural athletic ability. If they take advantage of the natural talent by working hard and take advantage of the access to better coaching/competition while they are young, they are likely to maintain that advantage through high school. If they coast, the hard workers and late bloomers may pass them by. In a few cases, these young studs are really just early bloomers that will turn into blobs of shìt like Chet from Weird Science after puberty.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Hard work beats genetics most of the time.

Yes, within reason, i.e. if genetics are somewhere in the realm of similarity.

In your example, both kids are at least good enough to get a college scholarship.

 

[TimberBeast]

This.

I knew a kid who wasn’t the biggest or tallest at a younger age but he was slightly faster. He just “got it” in every sport. He could just do things other kids didn’t seem to be able to. Other kids started to get bigger, stronger, and faster than him but he was still just mentally in a higher level.

There’s kids who mentally get it, or have the physical part, and then there’s the freaks who have both.

And as Oh Yeah mentioned, I’ve seen a lot of gifts who “got it” just not invest in practice and training like the other kids and their skills surpassed the gifted kids. I would love to know why those kids never invest in the time and effort to stay better in the sports that they seem to love.

I believe this is correct. The drive to practice and work hard are what will get you where you want to be, but you still have to have IT in the first place.

 

[Herbert Nenninger]

I think for the most part, the kids that are going to steadily progress are the ones with hand eye coordination and more natural fluidity of movement. Fast twitch muscle fibers kind of goes along with that as well. Hard work is obviously essential, but it doesn’t create athletic potential, it just helps you maximize what u have.

When I was 7, the only sport I played was baseball, and I was the worst kid on the team. By my senior year I still hadn’t peaked physically, but I got offered to a 4 year school for tennis, a juco for soccer, and I could have walked on somewhere in baseball. All based on hand/eye/foot coordination.
And true athletic ability doesn’t wax and wane much with age. I’m in my 40s and I’m pretty sure I could wake up out of a coma and still frame a 90 mph pitch; but I can’t dunk.

 

[dog99walker]

Years ago I was coaching a great youth soccer team and we were in a district tourney playing Amory, who we normally clobber. We only won, 1-0, because they had a kid that was way better than anyone I had on my team. After the game, I told him ‘you are a great athlete and you will go far, I think.’ He told me his name, Mitch Moreland. I didn’t know he would have a World Series ring at that time, but I am not surprised that he did get one.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Years ago I was coaching a great youth soccer team and we were in a district tourney playing Amory, who we normally clobber. We only won, 1-0, because they had a kid that was way better than anyone I had on my team. After the game, I told him ‘you are a great athlete and you will go far, I think.’ He told me his name, Mitch Moreland. I didn’t know he would have a World Series ring at that time, but I am not surprised that he did get one.

And therein lies the rub....if you aren't "way better" than everyone in your age group, and pretty damn good against kids a year or so older than you, in most every sport you try..............you ain't developing into a kid that gets a P5 scholarship that truly pays. Even at the youth levels.

A lot of kids can work their way into lesser spots, whether it's FCS/D2 and down, or JUCO. But I've never been at a high school sporting event and been told there's an SEC player there, and not been able to spot them within seconds.