State fair vs sports

The Great Minnesota Get-Together is once again underway and, once again, I have the privilege of serving as a chaperone for our county’s 4-H livestock exhibitors. I truly am lucky to have opportunities to give back to a program that has so significantly shaped my life.

The Minnesota State Fair livestock encampment packs more life lessons into five days than most other youth development opportunities combined. I’ve witnessed up close, how the state fair transforms kids — both my own kids and all the kids from Stearns County who I’ve come to know through chaperoning. The state fair transformed my own life; I can honestly say that I don’t believe I’d be where I am today had I not been a 4-H livestock exhibitor.

The state fair livestock encampment helps kids practice responsibility, learn more about the agricultural community, and make lifelong, likeminded friends. For my kids, spending five days at the state fair is the pinnacle of their year. I don’t think they’d miss it for the world.

I was chatting with a few other dairy judging coaches at the Steele County Dairy Judging Contest last week. The topic of 4-H students needing to choose between school sports and the state fair came up. Another coach mentioned a 4-H student who ended up going to football practice instead of the state fair because his football coach told him that if he missed three days of practice, he would be benched for the first six games of the season. For those of you who don’t follow high school football, that could be over half of the season.

The next day, my sister called and said my nephew had to choose between football and the state fair as well. If he took the state fair trip that he earned with his market turkeys, he would miss three days of practice and an important scrimmage that the coaches were using to determine who makes the varsity team. He’s just a freshman, but in his small town, it’s not unusual for freshmen to suit up for the varsity team. He ended up choosing football.

My state-fair-loving, chaperone’s heart broke a little.

When I was a student at that same school, albeit many years ago, the state fair and sports were both options for kids. 

The year I accepted my first state fair trip with my dairy heifer happened to be one of the years my school started classes two weeks before Labor Day. I missed school, cross country practice, cheerleading practice, and pep band practice – and neither my teachers nor my coaches asked any questions.

And, yes, you read that right. In the fall, I ran cross country. On Friday nights, I also suited up as a football cheerleader – and spent at least part of the pregame in the stands with the pep band playing my trombone.

When I say it now, it sounds like I’m boasting — or maybe crazy — but that’s not my intent. That’s just what my high school experience was like — and the experience of many of my classmates. There were boys who played football most of the week and ran with the cross country team on meet days. There were kids who both ran track and swung bats on the softball and baseball teams. There were very few one-sport athletes or one-activity participants.

We weren’t ultra-involved because our parents expected us to be. We were involved because we loved our sports and activities and because our school allowed it. You might even say they encouraged it. In our small-town school, there weren’t enough active students to fill all the rosters without allowing at least some of the students to double-participate in same-season activities.

Looking back now, perhaps our coaches and advisors also understood what I understand now about coaching kids: Our job as coaches isn’t to win state championships. Our job is to help young people pursue their interests and develop into well-rounded adults. Our job is also to support their participation in all of their activities — not demand their loyalty to our program only. 

Of course, this trend extends far beyond the state fair vs. sports. More and more each year, athletic programs are designed to keep kids to practicing and competing year-round. The message is clear: If you want to be successful, you need to commit to one sport. It makes me sad.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that life is all about making choices. And, as parents and coaches, we also have a role in helping our kids learn to make choices that better their lives. But kids have all of adulthood to make either-or decisions. We should be structuring youth programs in ways that allow kids to explore all of their interests while they’re young.

If kids want to do both sports and the state fair, then let them do both.