The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper."Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries.

The letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper makes an argument to discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine. He provides support in the form of young players suffering from injuries, psychological pressure and loss of time from studies, because of participation in these sports. However, for the argument to be sound, there is a need to critically analyze the various assumptions of its premises.

Firstly, there is assumption that participation in the sports is injurious as young students who were injured in the sports increase as more and more students participated in youth-league sports last year. But, there is an apparent lack of proper quantification of data. It may be that 40,000 was mere 10% of total 4 lakh students who participated last year as compared to 30,000 which was 30% of total 1 lakh students who participated a year before. Thus, assumption of sports being injury prone becomes unwarranted as safety record might have actually improved over the years.

Secondly, there is assumption the time saved from participating in sporting activities will be used for academics. Without any proper survey the assumption may be dubious at best. It may be that time that is saved may used for other frivolous activities like roaming around streets and watching movies. It may also be that do to lack of any activity the students may indulge in nefarious activities like abuse of drugs just to satisfy the adrenaline rush of that age. Thus, the assumption becomes unwarranted due to lack of sufficient data in the contrary.This in turn makes the argument flawed.

Thirdly, there is an assumption that psychological pressures experienced by soccer players is similar to those experienced by the athletes. Soccer and athletics are two different sporting endeavors. There is no evidence to establish analogy between the two. May be the athletics competitions are much more free from pressure as they are largely individual as compared to team sport like football. It may also be that parents and coaches are not concerned about performance in athletics as it is not a fad in those societies.

Finally, there is assumption that disadvantages outweigh advantages without providing any sufficient evidence on the advantages brought about by participating in sports. There is need to question the motivation of the author. The author seems to be biased against athletic competitions as a whole for children under nine.

In conclusion, there are number of assumptions which may be unwarranted due to lack of sufficient evidence. This in turn can make the argument flawed if adequate data is not collected to support these assumptions.