Americans suck at tennis, too

I was scanning the Associated Press wire Tuesday night and came across an article that made my blood boil. After the United States' dismal showing in this year's U.S. Open tennis event, the USTA announced a rules change, calling for downsized courts, smaller rackets and less lively tennis balls for players 10 and under.
The rule is designed to make tennis easier for young players. Instead of the regulation-sized 78-foot court, the youth courts will range from 36 to 60 feet, some with lower nets.
"You're asking a 9-year-old to play on the same-size court as Roger Federer does," said Kurt Kamperman, the USTA's chief executive of community tennis. "It's not always realistic."
You know what else is not realistic?
You can't create better tennis players by lowering the net.
If you make the game easy for youngsters, what happens when they start playing on the bigger court with the higher net and the bouncier balls?
I don't know, maybe I'm just too old. I remember when sports were challenging. Hell, I remember when being a kid was challenging. That was part of the fun. These days, children are coddled to the point where they don't know how to work for anything.
Everything already comes so easily. Kids can Google this or download that. Bored? Crank up the Xbox and play state-of-the-art video games.
You know how I entertained myself? With a stick and some rocks. That's right. It takes some imagination to kill off an entire summer day with just a stick and rocks.
Kids today don't have to do that. You say it's progress but I don't necessarily agree. I mean, heck, look at me. All I had to play with was the friend I completely made up in my head and look how great I turned out.
Okay, maybe I'm not a great example. But, it worked for other people my age.
Everything is so much softer for kids today. I heard they banned dodge ball at school because the kids who lost developed low self esteem.
Uh, huh.
Back at Hermitage, not only did we play dodge ball, we played a game called tackle tag. You didn't get to be "it" by getting tagged. You were "it" after you got body slammed on the ground.
Yeah, that's right, low self esteem my sweet patootie. If you made it through recess, you felt pretty darned good about yourself.
I don't have kids and I guess it's a good thing. I mean, we live in a "No child left behind" society where paddlings at school are illegal. It's darn near illegal to spank your kids at home.
Children's rights?
Exactly what year did children receive rights?
When I was a kid, I had the right to remain silent. That, and my mom's right hand were the only rights I ever knew I had.
And, just look how I turned out.
Okay, I'm not a good example.
But, back to the lecture at hand. The reason the USTA is doing this is to keep more kids involved in tennis so a growing pipeline will start feeding the elite levels. Basically, the USTA is upset that Europeans have caught up and passed Americans at tennis.
I'm not sure making the sport easier for our youth is the remedy. I think Europeans and people from other countries are simply hungrier than Americans, right now. Those other players know to get ahead, they have to work, work and keep working. Nothing is given to them.
I'm not sure what the answer is for us, but I just don't think continuing to spoon feed our kids is getting it done. I mean, Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors didn't play on a smaller court with a smaller racket and lower net. They became great players because they wanted it and they worked and got it.
If we want to develop better tennis players, perhaps we should raise the bar instead of lowering it. Another thing we could do is, at the high school level, stop treating tennis and golf like the red-headed step children of football. You want to encourage kids to play tennis, treat them like you treat the football players.
Ha! Who am I kidding?
I guess maybe it's just too late. Everything comes so easily for American youth. Pretty soon the only sport we'll dominate will be football. And by football I mean the Madden video game.