Let Them Off The Hook...

 Our lives are mired in prediction.

Open your eyes in the morning and the shower radio will estimate your drive to work based on previous days models, the weather and the day. And speaking of the weather, perhaps rain in the afternoon, so dress accordingly. Suddenly a text from the office: the boss might be in today so please make sure you have your reports up to date. Before you have left the house, you are already draped in predications that will dictate your day.  Of course, the ONLY thing we know about predictions is sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.

Turn on the news and for the past six months, everyone with a pulse will tell you who will win the 2024 presidential election and by how much. Who will win the World Series? There are thousands who want to tell you who will win and many thousands still that want you to bet your daughter's college tuition on it. Before the NBA season's first jump ball, sports betting wants you to lay down your paycheck on who you think will be the Rookie of the Year and here are the names THEY think will be in the race for that award. Wait...what?

We have gotten lost between reality and the fantasy world of prediction and it has spread to our young athletes.

On August 12th, the Florida State Seminole football team was ranked #10 in the country. Let's  be clear, there was no preseason tournament to give FSU a solid footing at #10, this was prediction. From sports writers, from media and social media posts. From perhaps players and coaches in interviews. Regardless of the stimuli, FSU was a top 10 national powerhouse on August 12th.

Then they lost their first two games. 

One month later, the folks that bet on them, based on other's predictions, now called for the coach to be fired. They were the biggest disappointment in college football, the most underwhelming team of the season. 

Tragically what is lost amongst this hyperbole is the simple fact that sometimes predictions are right, and sometimes they're wrong. It doesn't seem like FSU was as good a football team as people predicted, but rather than admit their faulty predictions, sports writers, pundits, bettors and bookmakers turned their wrath onto a coach and a group of eighty 18-23 year olds. 

In 2012, a prognosticator named Nate Silver predicted the presidential election state by state: 50 for 50! He was  a genius. Four years later, he posted on his new prediction website fivethirtyeight, the following:

Excuses, misinformation and humility in hand, Nate Silver tumbled back to earth.

ESPN, which used to be a sports network showing different sports and games for 18-20 hours a day now broadcasts a game or two each day- maybe, using the rest of their airtime for prognosticators, prediction and advice to gamblers. Some of the content will be right, some will be wrong. But as long as the public consumes these opinions, don't look for the network to go back to broadcasting sports anytime soon on their main channel.

There are some "rules" that we, as sports fans, know. First, no matter what we think, sports are random. Half of teams win and half of teams lose  and that is the only certainty we can count on. Even sports that allow ties will have teams helped and hurt by the outcome.

At the root of a lot of this crystal ball gazing is the growth in online sports gambling, a prediction that was easy to see coming. But the speed of which it is growing is staggering. It is estimated by 2029, the total revenue of online gambling will exceed $65b from over 180 million users. It's no wonder websites, tv networks and prognosticators alike want a piece of this cash cow. And thus we see ESPN go from a sports network to one of prediction, criticism when they are wrong and gloating when they get one right!

Often, the person giving you their prediction isn't qualified. There are some excellent TV hosts who have never played the sport they are reporting on, never been in the locker room or chatted with a coach or players, and yet they are deemed the "expert" because they have the one quality the networks put above all others...they are good on TV!

Our Arizona Region, like so many others, will put together a seeding committee to place teams where they think they should be for the upcoming season. It's a small group who have no way of knowing all 13,000 members of our Arizona Region, who all the coaches are, which clubs are new, etc. They have only the self prediction of the team's coach or club director to base their information on. To no one's surprise, it is an imperfect science. And yet every season, Parents and coaches will use these anemic predictions to label their teams' seasons successful or disappointing.

Can we all agree that this is just wreckless and without merit?

Walk into a National Qualifier this season and listen to Parents talk about their son's team and the other teams in his pool. They talk as if they have been hired by the Youth Volleyball Network. "We shouldn't have any trouble with this team, they are small and their setter can't block." And when the final whistle blows and they do lose,  instinctively the coach doesn't know what he's doing, the players didn't try or work hard enough, the officials wanted the other team to win, etc. All of this vitriol because we can't reconcile that our predictions are just that: a guess!

The tidal wave that is sports gambling and prediction is too seismic to thwart. It will be with us forever. Too many names are made with the outlandish prediction that comes true, (never mind the sweeping under the field of the dozens they missed). This isn't a call to disarm those with the microphones to start doing their jobs and actually dig, find and report true news stories: the advent of social media has left that in the rearview in the early 2000's. 

But let's let kids off the hook. Let games be played, appreciate the effort and growth and the fun they re having. There is plenty of time to make them the bullseye of misinformed rhetoric by those with oversized vocal chords or a large microphone at their disposal.

Your athletes don't deserve to be favorites or underdogs. They don't deserve the added pressure of odds in or out of their favor. 

They just deserve to be young athletes learning a sport. Please...