Youth Sports In America: Programs And Effects

In today’s society, it is more common for both parents to be working outside of the home. Due to this, there has been an increased demand for after school and summer programs that involve playing sports. “Organized sports are also favored by parents because they provide predictable schedules, adult leadership for children, and measurable indicators of a child’s accomplishments” (Coakley, 2017, pg. 81). However, many new trends have arisen with youth sports in the past few years. Several of these major trends in today’s youth sports include: Organized programs becoming increasingly privatized, organized programs increasingly emphasizing the “performance ethic”, an increase in private and elite sports training facilities dedicated to producing highly skilled and specialized athletes who can compete at the highest levels of youth sports, and parents increasingly involving themselves with the participation and success of their children in organized youth sports. This essay will cover these major trends in youth sports today and go over effective ways and changes to improve them for future generations.

​One of the major trends in youth sports today, is that organized programs are becoming increasingly privatized. “This means that more youth sports today are sponsored by private and commercial organizations, and fewer are sponsored by public, tax-supported organizations such as park and recreation departments” (Coakley, 2017, pg.83). Playing in organized sports here in the United States has been on the rise. However, there has been a drastic decline in publicly funded youth sport organizations. This has all come down to the fact that many governments struggle with fitting certain budgets and in the end certain areas get cut, which in this case is public youth sports programs. Due to this, many programs have to implement a fee to join in order to stay afloat. If not, then the public program would be eliminated. Since many public youth organizations no longer exist in certain areas, middle- and upper-class parents formed their own private sports organizations. These clubs have annual membership fees that are too expensive for lower class families and practices and games are inconveniently located for them as well. Many club teams have membership fees that have to be paid before you are allowed to join and they do consist of a lot of traveling to and from games and practices. From my own personal experience, I was very fortunate to have been able to play on a club team. My parents sacrificed a lot for me to be able to play on my club soccer team. I remember having to drive thirty minutes to and from practices three times a week. Every weekend consisted of tournaments an hour to an hour and a half from my house or even games located in different cities in Texas. These private sport organizations have made it very difficult for lower class families to receive the same opportunities as everyone else. “Low income and single parent families often lack money to pay for dues, equipment, and other fees” (Coakley, 2017, pg.84). One of the consequences that has followed the privatization of sports is that it has created and accentuated ethnic segregation and social class divisions within communities. The people with very few resources are put into a tough situation. These parents can’t afford for their child to be in one of these private programs and if they don’t put them into one, then they are accused of not caring about their child’s well-being. Because of this you can see a trend when looking at private programs. Many of these club teams are filled with children from primarily white, well off families. In my own experience, I find this to be very true. Throughout my sixteen years of playing soccer, I have been on over 4 club teams. On each team I was surrounded by mainly white girls whose families were well off. Out of the 22 girls on my team, only four of us were not white. There isn’t much diversity when it comes to these private sports programs due to the fact that many minority groups either cant afford it or aren’t properly represented in the different programs. The second consequence is that as public parks and recreation centers aren’t being used since there aren’t any public youth sports programs using them, they are usually rented by the private sports teams for practices or games. Coakley (2017) stated that these private organizations often benefit from tax supported facilities without being held accountable for running their programs to benefit the entire community.

​Organized programs today are increasingly emphasizing the “performance ethic”. “Performance ethic is a set of ideas and beliefs emphasizing that the quality of the sport experience can be measured in terms of improved skills and competitive success” (Coakley, 2017, pg.86). The Sport experience for children today isn’t just about fun. Many youth sports teams main focus is improving skills in order to be more competitive. For example, when I was younger I can remember playing on a recreational team at my neighborhood park and clearly remember practices just being fun. We did have skills training but it wasn’t very intense. There wasn’t a traveling team for the better players. Everyone was the same to our coach and we were all there to have fun. As I outgrew that team and realized that I wanted to get better to eventually play in college, I went and joined a private program. There, practices were long and consisted of various skills training sessions. When games were approaching, the trainer would hand select girls who had made the traveling team to play that weekend based on how you did at practice with skills training. After making the traveling team, I felt proud of myself because I had accomplished my goal and I felt like I made my parents proud because I worked hard for what they were sacrificing for me to be there playing. When talking about traveling teams, Coakley (2017) states that “many parents like this because it enables them to judge their child’s progress and prove to themselves and others that they are “good parents” because they have created talented children”. Every time I made the traveling team, may parents would call my grandparents or my aunts and uncles and talk about it. They were always so proud of me and I think they felt like their sacrifices were paying off because I was exceling in my sport. My parents moved me around from a couple of club teams to find a good fit for all of us. Many of these teams had huge fees that were just insane but the private programs justified it by showing that all of their girls on the team were star athletes and already being recruited by huge universities. Some of the Club teams even had trainers who had trained with professional teams and athletes. These various programs were emphasizing the quality of the sport experience by their success. “Parents of physically skilled children sometimes define expensive membership fees, equipment, travel, and training expenses as investments in their children’s future” (Coakley, 2017, pg. 86). I think one of the many reasons my parents paid for me to be on these club teams was because I wanted to play in college. I had a better shot at playing in college if I was on a team that had great players and great trainers who had access to different connections.

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​With “performance ethic” being the main emphasis in youth sports today, many parents have started to pay for extra developmental programs on top of their child already being in private programs. This has caused the development of elite, specialized training programs and leagues. “Many private and commercial programs encourage early specialization in a single sport because they have year-round operating expenses that can be paid only if people pay year-round membership fees. If young people played multiple sports and did not pay dues through the entire year, these programs could not meet expenses or produce profits” (Coakley, 2017, pg.86). Trainers and club owners have convinced parents that in order for their child to succeed and be competitive, they must put in all their time and focus into one sport. If not, then their child would fall behind and not stay on track for the future. For example, I played club soccer year-round starting right after 5th grade. Before then, I was in multiple sports and spent the week balancing dance, volleyball, and soccer. My Club coaches would get mad at me for not being able to make all the practices for soccer during the week and eventually it affected my playing time. After that I had to choose to between the three sports that I loved and ultimately decided to pick soccer. From then on I would be playing year-round with only a small summer break. My parents had also started to play for extra private training lessons to make sure I was excelling. On top of going to my practices three times a week that were two hours long, I also had a private training session once a week for an hour. Having young children specialize in a sport early can have some serious effects later on in the Childs journey of sports such as burnout. Burnout can happen due to loads of emotional and physical stress. If all of their time and energy is focused on this one sport then that can be pretty exhausting. The stress of always having to be great or you won’t make a traveling team or you might be punished for not playing well. It can also be very challenging to make time to for a social life when you have a sport that takes up all your time. For me, this was very challenging. In middle school and high school, I remember having to miss a lot of school events such as school dances or events because I always had games on the weekend. Even during the week, I had practices and had to focus on my school work. So I never had time to hang out with my friends. During my junior year of high school I remember telling my parents that I didn’t want to play soccer anymore. They had asked me why and I told them that I was just tired of it and I just didn’t want to play anymore. My life had been so focused on soccer, I felt like I was missing out on so much. I also think the stress of trying to get noticed and recruited by coaches was overwhelming. My dad had talked to me about it and we decided that I needed to finish out the fall season and from there I could take a small break to see what I wanted to do. I took the spring season off following that and after that I had decided that I wasn’t ready to give up the sport I loved and I continued to play. I do think that the break was much needed and helped me clear my mind and rest my body from all the loads of stress being placed on it.

​For youth sports today, parent involvement has been on the rise. “Many parents now feel compelled to find the best organized youth sport programs for their children and then ensure that their children’s interests are being met in those programs” (Coakley, 2017, pg.88). When parents are paying huge amounts of money for their child to be on a team, they feel as if they can have a say so in what goes on because after all, they are paying for the training and coaches. Coakley (2017) states that youth sports are a way for parents to prove their moral worth. If their child does well then, they are praised, but if their child doesn’t do as well as other children then, parents are judged. An example of this happened not to long ago on my own team. There was another girl who was on my club soccer team who wasn’t doing as well as she used to. Because of that, our trainer started to bench her during our games and she started to lose playing time. She didn’t seem to care because she knew she wasn’t performing. But her parents took it to extreme levels. They would come up to our trainer and exchange very harsh words with him because they didn’t appreciate him not starting their daughter and cutting her playing time. Our trainer would tell them that it wasn’t fair to the other girls who pay the same amount of money and work harder. Even during games when she did play, her parents were very tough on her and always telling her she needed to do better. After multiple confrontations with her parents and the trainers, they eventually had to send out an email regarding parents’ involvement.

​Overall, Youth sports today have many issues that need to be fixed. A few years ago, the Citizenship Through Sport Alliance (CTSA) assessed the current state of organized youth sports in the U.S. and identified some major issues. Coakley states the CTSA determined that youth sports had lost a child centered focus and were more interested in winning. Some of the other issues included: parents being overinvested and having unrealistic expectations for their child, youth sports also failed in training and evaluating coaches, and overemphasizing early sport specialization that could lead to burnout. Ways to improve some of these issues could start with “programs and teams being evaluated in terms of whether they are child centered and organized to match the developmental age of the children” (Coakley, 2017, pg.98). However, another challenge is also working with adults. Parents of these young children should work on being more patient, supportive, and to try and be less demanding. They should try and set realistic expectations and not overwork their child for their own benefit. Young children need a supportive system who can guide them without controlling them too much. In order to excel in the sport, children need their own space to figure out their style of play and what works best for them. “Adults should also use creative rules and strategies to promote exciting and challenging action in youth sports rather than giving priority to winning games, developing a killer instinct in players, and qualifying for post-season tournaments” (Coakley, 2017, pg. 98). Youth teams are also very wide spread and do not include many minority groups on their teams due to the fact that they can’t afford to travel far or pay all of the expenses. One way to fix this issue is to try and make youth teams neighborhood and school based when possible (Coakley, 2017, pg.99). This allows a diversity of people to have the same opportunity to play on the team without having to travel so far. Travel teams could also try to offer scholarships for children who come from lower income families to play with them. I know that while I played, my club team offered two scholarships for anyone who couldn’t afford to pay for the membership dues, but they did have to try out and make the team in order to get the scholarship. Coakley (2017) also states that pre-game warmups should include mixing the players from both teams and having them warm up together. This gives the children a chance to introduce themselves to each other and to get to know who they are playing against.

​In the long-term focus of things, youth sports programs have a considerable amount of work to do in order to improve for the future generations to come. They must regain their focus on being child centered and put more emphasis on the Childs experience rather than winning games. Parents must also set more realistic expectations for their child and be supportive of what they want to do rather than just focusing on themselves. Youth sports programs must also make sure that they are properly training and educating coaches and stop overemphasizing sport specialization.