Open Letter to Michigan Football Coach Jim Harbaugh

Dear Coach Harbaugh,

Waited a couple of days to write this to hear from you publicly about the validity of this scholarship offer. Not hearing anything leads me to believe it is entirely accurate.

https://www.freep.com/…/jim-harbaugh-7th-grade-…/2586319002/

That is disturbing.

Coach, somewhere in America a multitude of parents were just influenced by your decision to offer a scholarship to an athlete who, not only is not in high school, but most likely has yet to start puberty.

Now, I believe that the NCAA does not recognize a prospect until the athlete is in the ninth grade. So, at this point, the offer is little more than a gesture. But this is about principle, not legalities.

There are parents who will ignore research and conventional wisdom and go full force in trying to get their 8- and 9-year-olds started on a program that will culminate with a scholarship. They will be doing this as their children enter into one of the most important parts of their athletic maturation. I make a living writing and implementing curriculum and programming that help create athletes you can turn into amazing football players – or baseball, basketball, tennis, golf, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey and others.

I should admit my bias: I am a developmental purist, which means I am pro-athletic development even when the young athlete, the athlete’s parents or guardians and the athlete’s coaches are not pro-development.

What you have done, this history making event for the University of Michigan Football, has not inhibited this particular young athlete’s development. From what I have seen and read, his parents are excited, but are seemingly realistic about his continued growth. But what about the athletes of those other parents, the parents who are looking at what you did as the effects of an investment opportunity? Those parents are about to make a statistic of their young athlete in your honor.

Pressure, both physical and mental, will increase with their children. The mental pressure will increase exponentially. Parents will spend money they do not need to spend to try and get their children on the right teams who get in the right tournaments that promise the right coaches from the right schools will be there to catch a glimpse of them. 

You are the head football coach at the University of “Hail to the Victors!” Michigan. Surely you understand the magnitude of your actions. This isn’t the head coach of Florida Atlantic offering an 11-year-old (yes, it was just as nonsensical when the same coach offered a 13-year-old while at USC). Your voice carries so much more weight. With this, you have joined your non-revenue-generating coaching brethren in the quest to find the next big thing. You have just cosigned on a plan that is collectively degrading the veracity of youth sports in this country.

You just made it a little easier for parents who are already doing everything they can to create young superstars to impress you and your aforementioned peers – when they do not need to for several years. You are validating what they are doing and okaying what others want to do.

Athletes specializing in one sport, earlier and earlier, is increasing. Injuries from overuse caused by repetitive motions continue to rise. Even worse, folks are burning out and leaving sports all together at younger ages. Sports organizations, more and more, are catering to the whims of the parents instead to the development of young minds and bodies.

Coach, we have created a culture of “winning is the only thing” in this country that further erodes the integrity and altruism and “for the love of the game” that youth sports should have. Today, if young athletes fail to make the travel squad, or “A” team, they quit the sport because the ethos dictates that being on the “B” team makes you less of a person. Hell, I have seen families base, and sometimes change, friendships depending on their children’s sports teams and the team’s status.

The lure of the college scholarship is just that provocative, or, in the case of the youth sports entity, tormenting.

I know winning football games first is why Michigan hired you. There is no job otherwise. I would be surprised if you had a clause in your contract that required you to care about the maturation of America’s youth. I would bet a large sum that type of clause is not in any contract of any collegiate coach on any level.

If it were, you and the other coaches would leave these young athletes alone, or you would put plans in place that enable them to do the two things they need to do most.

Be kids and develop.

Thanks.

Coach Milo

Coalition for Launching Active Youth