Charlatans

Kids are stupid. Not their fault. The brain isn’t finished yet and impulse control is still under construction. That’s why parents exist. To be the guardrails. To say no when the kid can’t or won’t. Nothing groundbreaking here.

But there’s a problem. Parents are stupid too.

Well-intentioned. Loving, even. But myopic. They want what’s best for their child and often have no idea what that looks like. This makes them easy marks. And my world is crawling with people ready to exploit that.

A kid wants to get better at basketball. Maybe compete in college. The parents get starry-eyed. They see scholarship money. They see ESPN. They see everything except the orthopedic surgeon’s office, which is where this story usually ends.

Enter the charlatan.

The Grift

They come disguised as AAU coaches, club directors, and youth “performance” specialists. They’ve got matching warm-ups and a logo. Maybe a website with stock photos of athletes who’ve never heard of them. They speak in buzzwords. Development. Exposure. Next level. They use these words the way a used car salesman uses “certified pre-owned.”

What they actually do is run kids into the ground. Year-round competition schedules. Tournaments every weekend. Practice four nights a week. During the school season. On top of the school season. Because apparently a 14-year-old’s body is a renewable resource.

Their programming — if you can call it that — consists of drills scraped off Instagram and conditioning that amounts to running until someone vomits. There is no periodization. No attention to workload. No understanding of what the developing body can and can’t tolerate. Conditioning is a loose term for mindless hard exercise with no thought given to what’s actually being developed. These coaches wouldn’t know a stress fracture from a stress ball.

But they’ll happily collect your check every month.

This is the grift. It isn’t complicated. Pack as many kids into a program as possible. Charge monthly fees. Run tournaments that require registration fees. Sell the parents on exposure and development. Deliver neither. Repeat.

The kids don’t know any better. They’d play year-round if you let them. That’s what kids do. They don’t think about ACL integrity or growth plate stress. They think about the game. Which is exactly why an adult needs to step in.

Nobody is saying no anymore. The coaches won’t. They need bodies for revenue. The parents won’t. They’ve been told more is better. And the kid is 13. They’re not going to voluntarily sit out.

Unserious People

Let’s be clear about what these coaches are. They are not experts. They are not developers of athletes. They are small-time operators running a business model that depends on parental ignorance and childhood enthusiasm. That’s it. That’s the entire operation.

A real strength coach or sport coach prioritizes health. This is not optional. This is the job. Elite athletes — professionals, Olympians, Division 1 scholarship holders — train with health as the first priority. Unless someone is one of the best in the world, nobody is investing millions in an athlete who’s perpetually hurt. If grown men and women with professional contracts pay serious mind to their health, it’s baffling that anyone would ignore it for a teenager.

Charlatans will tell you this is what the pros do. It isn’t. They’ll tell you this is how D1 athletes train. It isn’t. They’ll tell you your kid needs this level of commitment to compete at the next level. Your kid is in eighth grade. The next level is geometry.

These are unserious people creating serious problems. Overuse injuries. Burnout. Kids who hate a sport they used to love by the time they’re 16. Anterior cruciate ligaments shredded before prom. And when it happens, these coaches disappear. They don’t call. They don’t visit the hospital. They’ve already moved on to the next batch of parents with a credit card and a dream.

Emotional terrorists is a strong phrase. I’ll use it anyway. They prey on a parent’s love for their child and weaponize it into a revenue stream. They sell hope dressed as expertise. It’s shameful work.

A Story That Didn’t Have to End This Way

I consulted with a mother and daughter. The daughter ran track for me. A talented athlete. Fast. She also competed in club soccer. Her AAU coach had them convinced they needed to play and train with the club for most of the year. Including during track season.

The problem was she had a laundry list of injuries. Nagging stuff that never fully healed because she never fully rested. Rather than taking time away from competition, she’d grind through the year. Because the coach said so. Because the parents trusted the coach.

Because nobody said no.

I told them bluntly. If she keeps going this way, a major injury is coming. Not might. Will.

Together we built a plan. We structured rest. Managed workloads. Balanced training and recovery. The mother seemed to agree. The daughter was on board.

It didn’t stick. They walked out of my gym and went right back to the AAU schedule.

She shredded her knee.

She missed her entire senior season. Her chance to compete at the State meet? Gone. It gets worse. She’s permanently shelved on a doctor’s recommendation. Too many injuries, compounded over too many years, with too little recovery. Injuries that could have been prevented. Risks that could have been mitigated. A career ended before it started. Because an AAU coach needed to fill a roster.

A Word for the Parents

Most of you mean well. I believe that. You’re doing what you think is right. You’re investing in your child’s future and trusting the people who claim to know better. I get it.

But some of you need to hear this. Your child is not going D1. I’m not being cruel. I’m being honest. The numbers are brutal. Roughly 7% of high school athletes play any college sport. Less than 2% make a Division-1 Team. 1% or less receive full scholarships. Your kid can be good — very good — and still not be that. Pouring money into year-round club sports doesn’t change the math. It just makes the injury more expensive.

And then there are the other parents. The ones pushing a child who doesn’t even want to be there. Living through their kid’s jersey. Chasing goals they failed at or regretted not pursuing themselves. There is a special place reserved for that kind of selfishness. These aren’t athlete parents. They’re hostage-takers with a minivan.

The Fix

The solution is not complicated. It’s so simple that its simplicity is probably why people ignore it.

Every athlete needs an off-season. Even the young ones. Especially the young ones. A period to rest, recover, and let the body repair. A time to break the monotony of repeated motor patterns that have been hammered at competition intensity for months. A time to build resilience against the injuries that year-round play guarantees.

Multi-sport athletes should not stack competitive seasons. Playing school basketball and club basketball simultaneously is not developing two skill sets. It’s doubling the stress on the same tissues with zero recovery window. This is how careers end at 16.

A real coach won’t push for year-round specialization. They won’t demand a child play one sport for most of the year. They’ll prioritize health over their tournament schedule. They’ll build a foundation rather than exploit one.

What that off-season should look like, specifically, is a longer conversation. One I intend to have. For now, the ask is simple. The next time a coach pushes for another tournament or another season with no break, ask one question.

What’s your plan for keeping my kid healthy?

If they stumble, deflect, or sell you on “exposure” — you’ve found your charlatan.

-Schmidt