Children Athletics

Sean Ballard has asthma, but he keeps up with his classmates in physical education at Palmdale's Highland High School. Basketball, jogging, push-ups, sit-ups. "I do 'em all," Sean, 14, said this week. "We just did the [periodic] fitness test. I jogged the mile in 9 minutes 16 seconds." Come Sunday at the University Track at Cal State Northridge, Sean will compete in a regional athletic event, the Breath Games, organized to give kids with asthma a chance to participate in track and field events.

From a barren hill near St. Innocent Orphanage, Ismael Valadez can view the Pacific horizon. Sea winds offer coolness and faint crescendos of distant surf. Sunset hues saturate the sky, and life becomes a quiet blend of beauty and darkness. Such is his feeling of being alone. Beauty and darkness. Sometimes he runs up and over these hills to Rosarito, five miles away. He loves the feeling of speed and is one of Baja's fastest teenage sprinters.

It starts out so pure. Parents sign their kids up for soccer, basketball or other sports for all the right reasons--to help them get fit, learn new skills, build character and have fun. With childhood obesity rates skyrocketing and physical education classes being slashed by budget-crunched schools, organized sports play an increasingly important role in getting today's kids moving. Yet all too often, when the whistle blows and the game begins, a strange phenomenon occurs.

Why didn't anybody tell me? If only I'd known. Such were the sighs Laurel Phillips and Barbara Stahl uttered as they shared the glory and misery on the sidelines of their children's travel soccer teams. So they huddled and wrote a book. "S.O.S.--Soccer on the Sidelines" is a humorous and practical handbook for the parents of the 2.5 million youths who play travel soccer in this country.

They may be in a peewee class, but don't call any of these high-kicking, punch-throwing youngsters "peewee" to their face. These kids are getting a taste of the martial arts at a Kempo Karate class at Leo Creer's studio in Los Angeles. Creer offers a number of martial arts classes for beginners, some as young as 3 years old. According to black-belt Creer, who is also an actor-stuntman, his classes teach youngsters self-confidence, discipline and self-control. Creer's studio is at 8227 S.

You've seen those adorable commercials: Sober-faced 6-year-olds wielding Big Berthas and proclaiming, "I am Tiger Woods." Unfortunately, a growing number of kiddies can add the line: "And I just got out of the brain trauma unit." Pediatric neurosurgeons across the country are reporting a spate of serious head injuries among children, usually younger than 10, who are learning to play golf--but haven't yet learned how to do it safely.

A broken ankle prevented Vladimir Artemev from participating with his Russian national gymnastics team in the 1978 Olympics. But now, through his only child, Alexander, he believes he has a second chance to realize the dream of a gold medal. The 12-year-old Tarzana boy, affectionately known as Sasha, recently placed first for his age group in the 1998 Boys Junior National Championships held in Michigan.

Jessica Rejano-Mojarro is learning how to land on her feet with the gymnastics program at the Glendale YMCA. The 6-year-old took a tumble last fall, after her father left home and her sister was born with a blood infection requiring repeated hospitalizations. Jessica began falling behind in her schoolwork, said her mother, Carmela, 31. The family entered counseling. "At home, we can't always have a good time with her, or give her enough attention," her mother said.

The Olympic flame may have been extinguished in Atlanta, but for a group of Northridge preschoolers it still burns brightly--at least in spirit. Heading into the final week of a seven-week summer program saluting the Olympic Games and the cultures of the world, Temple Ramat Zion's nursery school spent Monday morning staging Olympic-like games for its eager students.