Don't take the fun out of youth sports.

• Author: Dalla, Narissa
• Position: Voices

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA--When I joined a private soccer league a few years ago, the sport meant everything to me. My coach said that I had lots of potential, and I became captain of my team. That was before all the obsessed parents took the fun out of playing.

At first, everyone on the team got equal playing time. Then the team moved up to the top division after winning all its games, and the pressure started. Some influential parents, who had paid the coach extra so their daughters could have private one-on-one training, got upset when she didn't give them more playing time in our matches. The coach was replaced.

The new coach made soccer hell. He gave me a starting position, but he sucked all the fun out of the game: All we did during practice was run. I always prayed to God that it would rain so the sessions would be canceled. Of course, all teams run drills; they are necessary. But we ran so much that, afterward, we had trouble breathing. Younger people shouldn't be doing workouts intended for 18-year-olds.

I was skinny before I started soccer, but as a member of this team I wouldn't eat much, because I was afraid of being too full to run. I feared making mistakes, and the added...