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Photos courtesy of Mississippi State Athletics
Maybe you missed Tanner Allen’s recent tweet
It read:
“Parents … let your 10 year old be a kid.
“You’re going to spend all your money on travel ball just for Johnny to be burned out and not want to play high school ball.
“I promise there is 0 scouts at a 10 y/o travel tourney.
“I’ve been down this road and seen it happen.”
The tweet hit home with me. I will explain later.
Allen certainly has the credentials to express an opinion on the subject. He helped lead Mississippi State to the 2021 national championship. His stats for that season: .383 average, 72 runs, 100 hits, 19 doubles, five triples, 11 home runs, 66 RBIs. He accounted for 29 percent of the Bulldogs’ 476 runs.
“I taught kids hitting this past off season,” said Allen by phone from Jupiter, Fla., where he is playing Class A baseball for the Miami Marlins. “It really opened my eyes. I could tell with some kids that they didn’t really want to be there. I even had some parents say, ‘He’s here because we want him to be.’
“I get it. Parents want the best for their kids. They would love to see their children grow up and play Power 5 baseball somewhere. But parents go overboard. They have nine and 10-year-old kids playing 50 and 60 games a summer. They don’t have time to be a kid.
“When I was that age, I played parks and recreation ball — which is almost unheard of these days. We would play about 14 (regular season) games. Then I would play all-stars, which was no more than two tournaments. And that was it. The rest of the time I was hanging out with my friends, fishing and going to the beach.
“Look, if a kid is going to be great he’ll do it on his own. I’m all about letting them play when they’re five or six years old, let them learn the game and how to play. But just let them be kids, too.”
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I told Allen my personal story and he urged me to share it.
Both my sons were good baseball players. And they played on teams with good friends, who were also good players.
We practiced from the time they were 5 years old. Practiced probably more than most.
When my oldest was 13, three dads and I started what is believed to be the first travel youth baseball team in the Madison-Ridgeland area. Other parents thought we were nuts. We played all over Mississippi for two summers, from Gulfport to Tupelo. The parents had a blast and so, too, did the kids. But that 14-year-old season was the last for my oldest. He played football and basketball, instead. Said he was tired of baseball.
My youngest took Allen’s route — played recreational baseball and then all-stars. But as his 11-year-old season approached, he called me into his room one night.
“Would you be mad at me if I didn’t play baseball this year?” he asked.
“No. I would never make you play,” I said. “But why do you not want to play.”
He shrugged. “I’m just kinda tired of it,” he said.
And that was that. He played football, instead, through high school.
Looking back, I probably threw them too much batting practice away from our team workouts. Yes, it made them good. But at a cost. They didn’t have a lot of free time in the summer and as they got older the game was no longer joyful.
That’s on me. I would urge you parents to absorb Tanner Allen’s words.
They’re only kids for a while.
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Allen almost made a decision he would have regretted: Before his senior year, he informed his high school football coach that he was only going to play baseball.
He was 23-2 as a starting quarterback.
“But as the season got closer, I just couldn’t stand it. I wound up playing,” said Allen, 24. “We weren’t nearly as good as we had been A lot of starters had graduated. But I wouldn’t give anything for that final season.”
Allen, who grew up in Theodore, Ala, (20 minutes from Mobile), was committed at the time to play baseball at LSU. He recalled his recruiting visit to Baton Rouge.
“I’ll never forget what Coach (Paul) Mainieri told me,” Allen said. “He said, ‘We love the fact that you played football, too. Football guys are gritty and tough and know how to handle adversity.’
“And he’s right. Football teaches you so much. I’m not saying that’s for everybody. I’ve played baseball with a lot of guys who didn’t play football and they worked out fine. I’m just telling you that football had a big effect on me as a baseball player.”
He was first noticed in the eighth grade by a pro scout. Allen had been called up to the high school team and a guy with the Chicago White Sox was at one of his games evaluating another player. The scout jotted down Allen’s name and it wasn’t long before college recruiters were watching.
He, of course, decommitted from LSU. Assistant coach Andy Cannizaro had recruited him for the Tigers. When State hired Cannizaro as head coach in November 2016, Tanner chose to follow him to Starkville.
After the 2021 national championship season, Allen was named the SEC Player of the Year and earned the ABCA/Rawlings National Player of the Year award. The Marlins drafted him in the fourth round, the 118th player overall.
“I’ve struggled so far,” he said. “I was inconsistent last year — good two weeks then bad two weeks. Fouled a lot of balls straight back.
“My coaches tell me I’m trying to muscle up on the ball and that doesn’t work with a wood bat like it does aluminum. With a wood bat, you have to be smooth. It’s not how hard you swing, it’s how quick you can get the barrel to the ball.
“But I’m making progress. I’m gonna work my butt off. I’m going to control what I can control and give the rest to the Lord. That’s what I’ve always done.”
I loved the article and totally agree with Allen. Both my children are all grown up now and have boys of their own now. When they were young they always played summer baseball and softball and basketball when they had it. We come from Ingomar Mississippi. Home of the winingest coach in Mississippi. Norris Ashley. As they got up into Jr high and high school sports. Our daughter played basketball and fast pitch and slow pitch softball. Our son played baseball and basketball. We didn’t and still don’t have football. They still had time to be a kid. We stayed busy during seasons though. I had a parent to tell me one time that I wasn’t doing right by my Kidd by not putting them in travel ball. But they were my kids and neither of them wanted to give up what free time they had for travel ball. Now my oldest grandson is a pretty good football player. But doesn’t love it. But is doing great at baseball and loving it. He is 10 about to be 11. My youngest is loving basketball and baseball right now and doing pretty good at both. He is 7.
Thank you
Very well said
Parents learn from their mistakes. I did. But even though I learned, there’s no way to go back and correct the mistakes. And there’s no next time in which to NOT repeat the mistakes.
We pushed our son from age four or five into soccer and his Greenville teams won under-12 state championships two years in a row. But he had enough of being a goalkeeper for nine years. We were on the fields every weekend, and daily for practice, for months on end, mostly cold weekends, with tournaments in Greenville, Greenwood, Tupelo, Jackson, Vicksburg, Pearl, Clinton, Brandon. Fun for everybody. Still have seven goalkeeper jerseys shadowboxed on the wall, and another shadowbox full of medals and memories. My memories…not necessarily HIS memories. We do treasure the life-lessons all of that and the coaches taught him. He’s the man he is today, partly because of it.
Soccer was mixed with baseball and baseball prevailed. He played youth and high-school baseball until a shoulder injury ended it during his senior year. All his friends played youth baseball and it was a lot of fun for the boys, especially competing against each other, hitting home runs against their friends’ pitching. Sliding into third, wearing a knee brace after surgery from a football injury. I was constantly going onto the field to straighten out the metal brace.
He was good at football beginning in sixth grade. The school teams he was on in Madison from sixth through eleventh grade never lost a game until state playoffs. We didn’t knowingly PUSH him, or did we? Was HE having fun or were WE having fun?
As his senior year approached, he said he was through with football, tired of it, numerous surgeries, weight-lifting, practice every day, then going to a hard-labor job every afternoon to pay for a truck…he just said he was through with it. My dream was for him to be snatched up by Auburn or MSU. He was 6’4″, 220, not an ounce of fat. Coach Justice said he was one of three he had ever coached who was a Division 1 prospect. My dream was shattered. I could not drive by Madison Central and look over at that stadium for five or six years. But I later figured out it was MY dream, not his. It wasn’t fair to HIM. But I had never realized it.
Looking back, now, it was not my dream that mattered. I didn’t have that right. He had the right to make his own decisions. He turned 43 last week and still takes joint meds every day and his knee, shoulder and foot act up every time the weather changes. Nothing I’ve said here will make a difference to a parent of a six or eight-year-old. They’ll learn on their own. The same way I did.
While the majors have one World Series per season travel baseball have many tournaments. They usually start on Friday with 3-4 games on Saturday and if those games are somewhat successful they might play 2-3 games on Sunday TBD. Not much time left for anything else. When the coaches say frog the parents and children need to jump. In state or out of state it doesn’t matter!! Cost of travel is not taken into consideration. Their weekends are not their own!