Winning isn’t everything…but the postgame snack

By Paul Engleman
Special to the Tribune

June 29, 2003

With downcast eyes and bowed heads, the 9- and 10-year-old Diamondbacks of the Edgebrook-Sauganash little league trudge dejectedly off the field after a tough loss. A few of them struggle to hold back tears. A moment later, heads lift and solemn faces regain their glow as a female voice bellows, "Snack!"

The kids make a mad dash to the bleachers--conducting the signature closing event at most kids' sporting activities: the stampede for snacks.

From Edgewater to Elgin, Humboldt Park to Hinsdale, kids are taking their losses with more than a grain of salt and finding that the taste of victory can be sweet indeed. After every game, a sodium and sugar fix awaits them in the form of chips, cookies, juice boxes and soda pop, provided by the parents of someone on the team.

Happy kids chowing down and juicing up after a ballgame. Who could possibly object to such a cheerful scene? Scott Swarm, that's who.

"I just hate the idea that kids have to get a treat after everything they do, that they need to be rewarded at the end of a game," said Swarm, who coaches baseball for 7- and 8-year-olds in the Edgebrook-Sauganash league. "The reward should be playing the game and the satisfaction of being on a team."

Swarm said he became dubious about the value of snacks two years ago during his son's soccer game in a league for 6- and 7-year- olds.

"There was a boy on the team whose father was an accomplished soccer player. But the kid was still awkward, he hadn't grown into his body yet. During the game, I saw the father sprint away.

"While he was gone, his son scored a goal for the first time. He was thrilled, then he looked around and realized his father wasn't there. A while later the father returned, hauling two Jewel bags. It was his turn to bring the snack."

Shortly thereafter, while Swarm was coaching T-ball, the mother of a boy on the team inquired about the snack schedule. Swarm said he wasn't sure they needed to have snacks. A few minutes later, he recalled, "I had five mothers chewing on me. I dug in deeper and said no."

Swarm's announcement stirred a tempest in a T-ball pot. Fellow coaches began calling him such nicknames as "Snackless" Scott. One, Tom Moran, assigned the dismayed opponents the acronym MASS-- Mothers Against Scott Swarm. There was a lot of grumbling, but the cookie crumbled Swarm's way: There were no postgame snacks for his team.

Although less vocal in her opposition than some moms, Mary Pat Pyles emerged as the de facto head of Mothers Against Scott Swarm.

"Baseball is the American pastime, and snacks have always been part of it--hot dogs, peanuts, Cracker Jacks," Pyles said. "I've seen it abused at kids' games, with Doritos and Dr. Pepper at 10 a.m., but I think a healthy snack is definitely appropriate."

Exactly when snacks became de rigueur at kids' sports events seems to be anyone's guess.

Snacks were already "in the culture" when Robert Lerch got involved with youth soccer nine years ago. Lerch, president of Region 418 of the American Youth Soccer Organization, which plays on the north lakefront, said snacks, which usually include orange slices at halftime as well as a healthy treat after the game, serve a good purpose. "We try to make it a social experience as well as a sports activity," Lerch said.

"It can get crazy," said Rob Matijevic, whose 8-year-old daughter plays soccer in a league in Elgin, where parents are assigned to bring snacks to practices as well as games. "Some kids go nuts. They care more about the snack than they do about playing the game."

"When you have three kids, you're on snack duty almost every week," said Tony Judge, of Chicago's Independence Park neighborhood. "It was murderous. My kids would be playing soccer and I'd be at the Dominick's, trying to figure out which bizarre-colored drinks I was supposed to buy. Your social status and degree of love for your child were measured by the quality of the snack."

At one game, he said, a coach brought her servant along to serve the team a postgame meal.

Jose Mulero, president of the Humboldt Park Little League, said snacks are not a problem as long as people understand that "it doesn't come out of the car until the game is over." Mulero pointed out that the league covers a wide economic range. "Sometimes someone will do something more elaborate, maybe make a Burger King run," Mulero said. "If someone buys pizza one week, a parent who can't afford that may feel bad. On a couple of occasions, I've seen it happen where parents keep a kid home to avoid having to buy snack." But overall, he said, "keeping the snack thing going, which we do even among the older kids, actually helps to keep it a family- friendly league."

For first-time providers, selecting a snack may present something of a challenge. Some of them may hear allusions to "snack police" and worry that their offering may fail to meet some high nutritional goal. But after their rookie season, most find that the bag of chips and a juice box is a universally accepted standard.

Two years after the Edgebrook snack controversy, Scott Swarm is still coaching, and his team is still not snacking. Mary Pat Pyles still disagrees but is "thrilled" that Swarm is her son's coach this year. "He's the one volunteering his time and helping the kids," she said, "so I'll go along with what he wants."

As the sun was setting over Wildwood Park on the Far Northwest Side, a father approached a pair of baseball coaches lingering at a deserted diamond after a game.

"I'm looking for my kid's glove," he said. "He remembered his snack, but he forgot his glove."

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