How to Ease the Anxiety of Tryouts

By Marty Schupak, Youth Sports Club

Imagine you are being called upon for the first time in your life to perform a sport to the best of your ability. In addition, you have to do this in front of 6-12 men holding clipboards.

Not the most relaxing atmosphere. For better or for worse this is what coaches do for the day that is known as tryouts. The anxiety of these tryouts can affect the performance of some young players. Many times it is not only the players that are anxious, but the parents too. Often, they can be worse than their kids.

I'm involved in youth baseball so I see it from this one sport. I am also in touch with numerous sports league commissioners around the country and hear how most of them approach these tryout days.

In our baseball league, on tryout days, parents accompany their kids and register them for the tryouts. The league board member running the tryouts will usually take four kids at a time on the field. He will then hit grounders to each one, showing the player's infield skills, before moving on to the next skill. This system continues in the outfield and then hitting, running and pitching. While this is happening, the coaches and their assistants are usually on the third-base line rating each skill on a number system.

Remember that the fear of failure is an athlete's worst enemy. One of the things the players trying out should be told is that they will be judged only on their successes and not from anything they do wrong. Isn't this true? If a player gets five swings and hits two over the fence but misses the other three, the coaches will usually judge or rate the player on the balls hit over the fence.

We also speak to the parents and explain the same thing. A lot of times the anxiety the kids bring to tryouts can be traced back to the parent. Even at the earliest age, parents are anticipating such things as their kid being the starting point guard or, even further down the road, a scholarship athlete.