No Grunting Allowed

With the NFL draft fast approaching and MLB spring training underway, it's easy to overlook the smaller, more meaningful stories that may not be deemed "cover story material" by your favorite sports website. Such was the case earlier this week. While most of you wake up and b-line for the coffee grinder, I instead get my morning fix from a variety of sports sites and blogs. I'll admit that usually when i run across a headline involving nine year olds playing tennis i happily move on to a bigger, more widely publicized story without giving it a second thought. I mean, come on, what could that possibly have to offer? At best, you hope for it to contain a candidate for the father of the year award who's pushing his kid so hard that by the time the kid's thirteen they're in therapy more than they're on the court (see Jennifer Capriati) just so you feel like you didn't waste five minutes of your life reading it. This story was a little different. The headline read "Nine-year-old tennis player banned for grunting" (http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=3267084). With a headline like that you don't even have to know what tennis is to want to read further. I did. As I read the story about the young Australian girl I didn't find anything about a father pushing his child to their limits. Nor did i find a story about a guy that had never played the sport trying to steal his kids spotlight (my apologies to Venus and Serena). I found a story about a dad helping his daughter try to control her attention deficit disorder through sports as recommended by her doctor. Introduced to the sport when she was four, Lauryn Edwards idolized another famous grunting machine, Maria Sharapova. Here's the difference: While Sharapova gets millions to grunt in matches nine year olds get banned. Not warned, not suspended, banned. While playing a match last week for her local club, Lauryn's opponent complained that the grunting, which Lauryn descirbes as natural and not forced, became too intimidating for her opponent who complained to officials. Then, without a warning, Lauryn's father was told that his daughter could no longer continue to play for the club unless he could guarantee a grunt free nine year old. Needless to say, it ended there with Lauryn being so upset she couldn't continue after being told she couldn't play the game she loved. Instead of being applauded for the family's efforts to control their daughters disorder with activity instead of a couple pills and a new X-Box game, they have to try and explain to her why she can't go play with her friends. To make matters worse, when contacted, the vice president of the club said "No one is not allowing her to play. Sorry, i can't say more than that.". When brought to the attention of the president of the Northern Suburbs Junior Tennis Association, which Lauryn plays in, he essentially said all they had to do was talk to the child and ask her to try and tone it down a little not make a huge case out of it. What i'd like to know is where an adult, who is the vice president of a tennis club that people pay to belong to, gets off telling a nine year old she can't play anymore. What is that saying to kids growing up? Sorry, you don't fit the mold. You're too much of an individual and a leader to play. Come back when you learn how to be a sheep and follow the herd. My guess is that the other parents got tired of having to take their teenagers home and try to explain to them why the grunting girl half their age kicked their ass all over the court so they joined forces against her. What they needed to do is get their kids involved in something other than sports if that's all it took to rattle them... maybe a nice glee club where everyone is a winner. I, for one, am all for Lauryn and her grunting. In fact, to honor her, i've grunted at least a dozen times while writing this. Read the article and judge it for yourself.