Former MLB player with PNW roots takes on unhealthy youth sports culture

A few years ago, when KUOW’s Kim Malcolm was a Little League baseball mom, she remembers seeing signs bolted to the wire fence in front of the bleachers.
They said: "These are kids. This is a game. Umpires are human. Your child is not being scouted by a major league team today."
The signs were clearly meant to influence Kim’s behavior, and the people sitting around her who could get a little too wrapped up in the game, ratchet up the anxiety, and lower the fun factor for everyone.
Travis Snider knows about this from many angles. He was a standout for Mill Creek's Little League baseball team in the late 90s who went on to play in the major leagues for eight years. Now, he's a dad and a coach who runs 3A Athletics, an organization that aims to transform the culture of youth sports. He told Kim about his plans.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Kim Malcolm: A line on your company's website struck me. It says, "It's no longer a matter of if we should embrace a healthier culture, it's a matter of when." That strikes me as a major task. Tell me about how you're trying to achieve that.
Travis Snider: One bite at a time. I think we understand that this is going to be an uphill battle, and not every parent is in the space of wanting to hear better ways to approach parenting your kids through sports. But we feel like sports is a great vehicle for us to dive into some of these deeper, nuanced topics, and help parents understand. A lot of the time, our intent is coming from the right place, but what we're actually displaying, as far as behavior and how we handle these situations, is actually counterproductive. I think our ultimate goal as parents is to raise healthy and happy human beings who can go out and thrive in the world no matter what comes their way.
Let's go back to when you were a Little League baseball player. Was there a moment when you realized that playing baseball wasn't just about having fun?
I experienced a panic attack at 11 years old in the Western Regional tournament for Little League. We had won the state championship. Playing in front of 6,000 fans, and failing for the first time on a stage like that, was really difficult for me to process. At the time, we thought it was sports-induced asthma. What we came to understand was this was really an anxiety attack.
I was able to suppress it and continue on with my career and never really have to go back and address it. But as I started to transition out of playing professional baseball and making the decision to retire, I had to unpack that identity of who I was outside of the baseball player. It brought me back to that moment when I was 11 years old, and just the feeling of being on the mound and not being able to throw a strike, and understanding how much pressure I felt in that moment where it didn't seem like it was as fun.
How did your parents handle your success, and also the days when it wasn't as successful?
They were not parents who pushed me to work and get better at sports. They supported me and did a great job of building a community of parents around me who supported me and our family through the ups and downs. But at the end of the day, there was no information out there at the time. The internet didn't even really exist. They were doing the best they could with what they had. I think that's where we're really trying to change the game for parents in youth sports now, to provide them with a lot of resources to help navigate the successes and the failures that you're going to experience in youth sports.
For family members and kids who may be in the car right now listening to you, what's your best advice if they're on the way home from a game?
The car ride is probably the most overlooked opportunity for us as parents to build a connection. Instead, what we do from a place of instinct is correct mistakes. What our kids need in that moment is a safe space where they feel this connection and unconditional love. I think for parents, it's really hard for us, whether it's the anxiety, or the fear of missing out, or our kids falling behind, that we feel like we have to be the coach in that moment. Really, all they need is mom and dad just to create that warm energy to say, “It's okay no matter what happens, whether it's good or if it's bad, you're loved no matter what.”
Many is the time I've been in that car, and I was casting about for the right words and just feeling so inadequate, not sure what to say.
When you get done with work, the last thing you want is somebody to come tell you all the things that you did wrong. But that's just our instinct as parents, and that's something we're really trying to help guide them through. What are these nuanced situations in which we really can build a stronger connection and trust, to open the door for communication? Instead, what we oftentimes do is correct those mistakes, and have our kids go through this experience of questioning, what really makes me valuable, and is the car ride a safe space for me to enter without feeling like mom or dad's going to come down on me?
Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.