There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. Team gear creates excitement, travel tournaments produce lasting memories, and wearing matching apparel helps athletes feel connected to something larger than themselves.  The question is whether those things have quietly become the main reason why some kids choose to play.

Gear, or the game?

Would your child still want to play if there were no custom hoodie?  No personalized backpack?  No flashy uniforms?  No out-of-state tournaments?  No social media photos showing off the latest team apparel?

If the answer is yes, wonderful.  If the answer is no, perhaps it’s worth asking what exactly the child is signing up for.

Psychologists have long understood that people naturally seek belonging, identity, and status.  Uniforms, logos, and team apparel help satisfy those needs and tell the world, “I’m part of something.”  Travel sports organizations understand this as well, and have adopted marketing strategies similar to premium consumer brands.  The uniforms become more stylish, the gear more exclusive, and the overall experience more attractive.  Increasingly, some organizations appear to be selling not just baseball, softball, soccer, or volleyball — but a lifestyle.

Somewhere along the way, youth sports became an experience to wear rather than simply a game to play.

Think about what often appears on social media after a tournament weekend.  More often than not, the photos highlight the airport, the hotel, the team hoodie, the championship ring, or the new backpack.  Rarely do we see posts celebrating the countless practices, the slow improvement of skills, or the quiet satisfaction that comes from simply becoming a better athlete.

None of this suggests that team gear is the problem — the concern may be one of priority.

Imagine two travel programs with two very different offerings:

Program A:  offers outstanding coaching, strong player development, and experienced instructors—but older uniforms and fewer extras.

Program B:  offers average coaching but incredible uniforms, endless team gear, destination tournaments, and a strong social media presence.

Which program would most families choose?  Are fancy uniforms and hype social media posts more important than great coaching and instruction?

Final thoughts

The irony is that the things young athletes tend to remember most years later rarely involve the backpack or the hoodie.  They remember the friendships they built, the coach who believed in them, the lessons they learned after losing, the excitement of improving, and the joy of competing with teammates they cared about.  The gear eventually wears out.  The memories don’t.

Perhaps the best youth sports experiences are the ones where the uniforms, travel, and swag simply enhance the experience rather than define it.  After all, the greatest reward from youth sports shouldn’t be what’s hanging in the closet after the season ends, but instead the love of the game, life skills learned, and amazing memories that remains long after the jersey no longer fits.

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Understanding sports & racism

One explanation for how people can cheer an athlete on the field, yet still discriminate against that group of people off the field, involves cognitive dissonance — the discomfort created when we simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs. People are surprisingly good at reducing that discomfort without actually changing their broader attitudes.  Rather than reconsidering a stereotype, someone can simply make an exception: He’s different. He’s one of the good ones.

Psychologists sometimes describe this process of selectively differentiating people as subtyping.  When we encounter someone who contradicts a stereotype, we don’t necessarily abandon the stereotype.  Instead, we mentally place that individual into a special category.  The beloved athlete therefore doesn’t disprove the prejudice; he becomes an exception that allows it to remain intact.

In addition to cognitive dissonance and subtyping, sports introduce another powerful psychological force: social identity.  Human beings naturally categorize people into groups—particularly us and them.  Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, geography and countless other characteristics often create those boundaries— but sports can rearrange them remarkably quickly.  Put an athlete in the uniform of our favorite team and suddenly another identity becomes more important.

He’s a Tiger.  He’s a Yankee.  He’s a Patriot.  He’s a Knick.

Most importantly, he’s one of us.

His touchdown becomes our touchdown.  His home run becomes our home run. His success becomes connected to our identity, our community and even our happiness.

Take for example the symbolism of the sports jersey.  A person who ordinarily expresses prejudice toward a particular racial or ethnic group may happily spend $150 to walk around with the last name of someone from that very group written across his back.  For several hours on game day, race seemingly becomes irrelevant.

But is that really colorblindness?  Perhaps sometimes it is.  Sports unquestionably provide opportunities for people to admire individuals from backgrounds different from their own.  That exposure can challenge stereotypes and potentially change attitudes, though admiration for an athlete doesn’t necessarily translate into greater acceptance of everyone who looks like that athlete.  The player may instead become valued primarily because of what he provides—touchdowns, points, victories, championships and entertainment.

But what happens when the uniform comes off?  The Black quarterback adored on Sunday becomes an ordinary Black man on Monday.  The Latino baseball star whose jersey someone proudly wears becomes an unknown Latino man standing beside that same fan at the grocery store.  The admiration for a minority athlete on the field will occasionally transfer off the field, but often things stay the same — cheer for the player on the field, but see him a different, less positive way off the field.

Final thoughts

Sports can teach us a lot, including some fascinating lessons about prejudice.  Team identity demonstrates that people are capable of looking beyond racial and ethnic differences remarkably quickly when another shared identity becomes more important.  Unfortunately, we have also learned that those feelings don’t always transfer beyond the field.  For a few hours, sports can bring people together in ways that everyday life often cannot — even the most ardent racist may enthusiastically cheer for, admire, and proudly wear the jersey of an athlete from a racial or ethnic group he otherwise despises.  But when the game ends and that shared team identity disappears, old prejudices can quickly return. Perhaps the real challenge isn’t learning how to see beyond our differences; sports have already shown us that we can.  The challenge is learning to do it after the game ends and the players come off the field.

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The importance of accepting defeat

When people don’t like an outcome today, there is a growing temptation to declare that something must have been unfair, biased, corrupt, or “rigged.”  Certainly, legitimate cheating and injustice occur and should be challenged, but there is an enormous difference between questioning an outcome because there is credible evidence something went wrong and questioning it simply because we don’t like the result.  In other words, we need to retain the ability to distinguish between “I don’t like this outcome” and “this outcome wasn’t legitimate.”

Psychologically, our difficulty doing this isn’t surprising.  Losing hurts because it threatens the ego and conflicts with what we want to believe about ourselves and the groups with which we identify.  If I believe my team is better than your team and your team wins, I can acknowledge that perhaps you were better that day — or find another explanation that feels a lot better, like the officials cheated us, the coach played favorites, or the game was rigged.

Psychologists call this self-serving bias — our tendency to take credit for positive outcomes while blaming outside forces for negative ones.  There is also a locus-of-control component.  Instead of asking what could have been done differently, it’s much easier to ask, Who did this to me?

This cultural shift becomes particularly concerning when it reaches youth sports.  Consider a 12-year-old baseball player who strikes out to end a championship game.  A parent can say, “I know that hurts. You played hard.  Sometimes you lose.  Let’s learn from it and get better.”

Or the parent can say, “That umpire screwed you. You guys should have won.”

The second response probably feels better walking to the parking lot.  The first may serve that child considerably better for the rest of his life.

Final thoughts

It is very possible — in fact, likely — that at some point in the future your child won’t make a team, isn’t selected as an All-Star, loses a starting position, or doesn’t receive an award.  Sometimes politics, favoritism, poor officiating, and genuinely unfair decisions occur.  But if unfairness becomes our default explanation whenever we don’t get what we wanted, what incentive does a young person have to examine shortcomings, work harder, and improve?  One of the most important lessons sports can teach young people isn’t how to win, but how to lose, accept the result, shake someone’s hand, learn something — and come back even stronger tomorrow.

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Are we surprised by any of this?  Should we be surprised?  Some argue that modern college athletics have spent decades creating exactly this environment, even if they act surprised by it today.

University recruitment methods & attracting star players

Look at what happens when an elite high school athlete is recruited today.  Universities don’t simply offer a scholarship, they roll out the red carpet.  Universities produce cinematic recruiting videos, and coaches tell recruits they are transformational talents who will change the future of the program.  Fans help by celebrating 5 star  commitments like championships.  NIL opportunities are quickly set up (sometimes in the millions of dollars), and social media followers explode.  The athlete is elevated from teenager to celebrity before ever taking a college snap.

Then, after years of telling these athletes they are extraordinary, we suddenly become shocked when some of them begin believing it.

This isn’t really about Jayden Daniels, but about the culture college sports has intentionally created.  Universities have become remarkably sophisticated marketers that don’t merely recruit athletes—they build brands.  They tell young players they are special, indispensable, and the future face of the program.  Those messages aren’t accidental, they’re designed to persuade the nation’s best recruits to choose one school over another.

The irony is that the very behaviors rewarded by universities during recruiting are often criticized later by the very fans who built the recruit up to feel invincible.

• We praise the athlete’s confidence until it becomes perceived as arrogance.
• We celebrate the athlete’s personal branding until the athlete protects that brand.
• We encourage athletes to think of themselves as businesses, then criticize them when they begin making business decisions.

To be clear, none of this means Daniels was necessarily right in how he handled the dispute.  Adults remain responsible for their own choices, and there can be healthy debate over his decision to involve attorneys over the jersey issue.  But saying Daniels is wrong after LSU did everything in their power to recruit him is ironic, to say the least.

How we got here

Psychologists have long recognized that people adapt to the environments that reward them.  When special treatment, constant praise, exclusive access, and celebrity status become everyday experiences, they begin shaping expectations.  If universities spend years reinforcing the message that a player is unlike everyone else, should we really be surprised when that player expects to continue being treated differently after leaving campus?

Perhaps the real issue isn’t athlete entitlement, but institutional inconsistency.

College athletics increasingly asks elite recruits to view themselves as brands while simultaneously expecting them to behave like traditional student-athletes when doing so becomes inconvenient.  Schools eagerly benefit from the publicity these stars generate, but when conflicts arise, many are quick to distance themselves from the very culture they helped create.

Final thoughts

Maybe Jayden Daniels deserves criticism, but maybe LSU deserves criticism, too.  Or maybe both are simply behaving exactly as modern college athletics has taught them to behave — universities today promise the sky, and top athletes learn that they can have just about anything they want.  When that paradigm shifts (as is what is happening with Daniels right now), feathers get ruffled and fingers get pointed.  Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with Jayden Daniels?” perhaps the better question is, “What kind of system have we created?”  If we continue treating 17-year-old recruits like celebrities, marketing them as brands, and telling them they’re bigger than the program, we shouldn’t act surprised when some eventually begin believing exactly what they’ve been told.

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That perception may deserve another look.

Changes in D3 athletics

Over the past two decades, D3 athletics have quietly undergone one of the most significant transformations in college sports. Many small colleges have invested millions of dollars into athletic facilities, hired full-time coaching staffs, expanded recruiting efforts, and added new varsity sports.  Walk onto many D3 campuses today and you’ll find state-of-the-art weight rooms, artificial turf fields, beautiful stadiums, sports performance centers, and facilities that rival those found at some Division II—and even lower-level Division I—institutions.

Why the dramatic investment?

Many colleges have discovered that athletics are far more than an extracurricular activity—athletics have become an important enrollment strategy.  Student-athletes often remain on campus, become actively involved in college life, graduate at high rates, and contribute to a vibrant campus culture.  As competition among colleges for students has intensified, athletics has become an increasingly attractive way to recruit talented young people.

The athletes themselves have changed as well.  Today’s D3 athletes arrive on campus with years of travel sports experience, private instruction, strength training, and specialized coaching.  Simply put, many are far more skilled than D3 athletes of a generation ago.  The result is a level of competition that surprises many people who still picture D3 through the lens of the 1990s or early 2000s.

Some of the biggest changes in Division III athletics include:

• Major facility upgrades. This including modern stadiums, turf fields, weight rooms, and athletic performance centers.
• Professionalized coaching staffs. D3 schools now have more full-time coaches dedicated to recruiting and player development.
• Higher-quality athletes.  Many D3 athletes arrive after years of travel sports, private instruction, and year-round training.  The D3 competition today is far superior than just 10-15 years ago.
• A stronger emphasis on the total college experience.  D3 schools often place great emphasis on balancing competitive athletics with academics, internships, leadership, and campus involvement.

Perhaps the biggest change, however, isn’t found in the facilities, or even in the quality of play — it’s found in the mindset of families.  Years ago, the question many parents asked was, “Can my child play college sports?”   Today, increasingly more families ask a different question: “Where will my child have the best overall college experience?”  Those are very different conversations that often lead to two very different future paths.

For many student athletes, Division III provides an outstanding balance of competitive athletics, excellent academics, leadership opportunities, internships, study abroad experiences, and campus involvement.  Student-athletes can continue competing at a high level while still enjoying many of the opportunities that make college such an important period of personal growth.  For some families, that combination is becoming more appealing than the increasingly business-like atmosphere surrounding major college athletics.

None of this is meant to suggest that Division I or Division II athletics are inferior.  Each NCAA division offers unique opportunities and challenges depending on the athlete and his or her goals.  The point is that Division III has evolved dramatically, yet many families continue making college decisions based on outdated assumptions.

Final thoughts

Perhaps it’s time to stop viewing D3 as a consolation prize and instead recognize it for what it has quietly become: a destination of choice for thousands of talented student-athletes seeking an exceptional college experience.  Sometimes the best fit isn’t determined by the biggest stadium, the most recognizable logo, or the highest NCAA division.  Sometimes it’s determined by finding the place where a young person can grow, compete, and thrive for the next four years.

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AI vs. human coaching

At first glance, the possibilities of having AI coach kids sounds exciting.  Imagine every young athlete having access to personalized feedback that was once available only to professionals.  AI can identify mechanical flaws, track improvement over time, monitor workloads, and provide objective performance data.  There is no doubt that AI has the potential to make quality coaching more accessible than ever before — especially for kids.

While those are remarkable advances, there is another side to the conversation that needs to be discussed.  The greatest coaches have never simply taught mechanics, they teach confidence, leadership, and resilience.  Great coaches teach sportsmanship, how to respond after failure, and how to communicate with teammates.  They also teach kids how to focus, set personal goals, and how to keep nerves in check during game situations.  All of these kinds of lessons are difficult to reduce to an AI algorithm.

The danger isn’t that AI will replace great coaches overnight, but that we begin believing coaching is simply the transfer of technical information.  Coaching is fundamentally a human relationship, one that is built on trust and belief.  Young athletes rarely remember a coach’s practice plan twenty years later, but what they do remember is the coach who believed in them when nobody else did, challenged them to become better people, or inspired them to persevere after disappointment.

AI might be great at developing a workout schedule or creating a highlight video, but AI lacks the human touch that coaches provide to kids by means of role modeling, inspiration, and self-belief.  In fact, many adults immediately point back to a particular coach who gave them the strength and courage to do great things — it’s doubtful AI can generate those same feelings the way a great coach can.

Final thoughts

Perhaps the coach model for the future won’t rely on AI exclusively, but instead a hybrid model that includes advanced technology, but also human coaches who can teach and reinforce important concepts and data provided by AI.  Imagine coaches using AI to analyze performance, organize information, and identify trends while continuing to provide the encouragement, accountability, wisdom, and relationships that technology cannot duplicate.  When AI is used that way, it becomes an extraordinary tool rather than a replacement.

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Youth sports and building your brand

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with athletes promoting themselves.  Social media allows young people to share accomplishments, celebrate teammates, connect with recruiters, and build relationships that simply weren’t possible a generation ago.  The ability to communicate directly with coaches and showcase athletic ability has opened legitimate opportunities for many student-athletes.  The question is whether we’ve unintentionally changed the focus for kids participating in youth sports.  Instead of simply becoming better athletes, increasingly more young people experience mental health issues due to feeling pressure to become their own sport marketers.

Today’s youth sport athletes are often encouraged to:

• Build a social media following.
• Create highlight videos.
• Develop a recognizable personal image.
• Post consistently to increase visibility.
• Think about future NIL opportunities.
• Do anything and everything to get noticed, get clicks, go viral, and stand out from other kids also trying to get noticed by college coaches.

None of these activities directly improve an athlete’s ability to throw a baseball, shoot a basketball, or hit a tennis ball, yet they consume a lot of time and emotional energy.

Adolescence is already a mental health period when young people are trying to answer one of life’s most important questions: “Who am I?”  Sports can be a wonderful place to discover confidence, resilience, teamwork, and purpose. But when an athlete begins measuring success through followers, likes, and online engagement, identity can quietly shift from performance to popularity.

Instead of asking, “Am I becoming a better athlete?” the question becomes, “Am I becoming more visible?”

Ironically, the athletes who ultimately build the strongest reputations often do so by focusing relentlessly on their performance rather than their image.  Their brand becomes a byproduct of excellence—not the other way around.  Today, however, we have kids putting more time into beefing up their social media pages than they do putting extra time into practicing their sport!

None of this is meant to be an argument against NIL or social media, as both have created meaningful opportunities for athletes.  The growing concerns I raise center around introducing adult-like NIL and social media conversations too early, especially at young ages where kids should be focusing on developing sport skills, training their bodies, and learning how to work well with others on a sports team.  Childhood and adolescence should still be about learning, competing, failing, improving, and simply enjoying sports — a personal brand can always be built later.

Final thoughts

Maybe the goal of youth sports shouldn’t be raising athletes with the strongest online presence, but instead about raising young people who love to compete, respect their teammates, and discover who they are long before they worry about who the internet thinks they should become.  Help kids grow and develop through sports, including embracing the countless life skills sports teaches that prepare kids to grow into successful adults.  Youth sports should be about fun, not constantly posting sport metrics and videos designed to build a brand and get clicks.

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But here’s the bigger question: Is this really about sports anymore?

Increasingly, it appears the answer is no.  We are now living in the era when everything becomes a bet.

Understanding the psychology behind gambling

The rapid growth of legal sports betting has revealed something much bigger about human psychology: People aren’t simply drawn to football games or horse races, they are drawn to uncertainty.  Humans are naturally curious about the future, and we enjoy making predictions, testing our judgment, and wondering what will happen next.  Add the possibility of winning money, and that curiosity becomes even more compelling.

Psychologists have long understood that one of the most powerful ways to reinforce behavior is through variable-ratio reinforcement—the same principle that makes slot machines so addictive.  You don’t win every time, and that’s exactly the point.  Because the reward is unpredictable, the brain continues anticipating that the next wager might be the big one.  Each near miss, small win, or unexpected payout releases dopamine, encouraging people to return for another try.  Ironically, uncertainty itself becomes rewarding.

The rapid growth of legal sports betting has revealed something much bigger about human psychology: People aren’t simply drawn to football games or horse races, they are drawn to uncertainty.

Many bettors also develop an illusion of control, believing that careful research, intuition, or sports knowledge allows them to predict outcomes better than others.  While knowledge certainly has value, the unpredictable nature of sports—and life—means chance always remains part of the equation.  Yet people routinely overestimate their ability to forecast events, a phenomenon psychologists refer to as overconfidence bias.

Then there is FOMO, or the fear of missing out.  Betting has become a shared social experience — friends compare wagers, social media celebrates big wins, and television broadcasts routinely flash betting odds across the screen.  For many people, not participating begins to feel like missing the conversation.  What was once a niche hobby has rapidly become normalized.

Perhaps the most interesting psychological trait involved is sensation seeking.  Some people naturally crave novelty, excitement, and stimulation.  Betting transforms ordinary events into emotionally charged experiences.  Suddenly, a meaningless Tuesday night baseball game between two last-place teams becomes must-see television if money is riding on the outcome.

Betting beyond sports

If uncertainty is what people truly crave, then perhaps sports are only the beginning.

Today, prediction markets and other wagering platforms allow people to speculate on events far beyond authentic athletic competition.  Depending on the platform and legal jurisdiction, people may predict political outcomes, entertainment awards, economic indicators, and other future events.  The object of the wager is becoming less important than the simple fact that there is an unknown outcome to predict.

That raises an important question: If people enjoy wagering on uncertainty itself, where does it stop?

Will we eventually see betting attached to nearly every significant event?  Corporate announcements?  Television finales?  Scientific breakthroughs?  International diplomacy?  At what point does every uncertain outcome become another opportunity to place a wager?

Final thoughts

The more betting becomes integrated into everyday life, the more we risk changing our relationship with the events themselves.  Do we watch a football game because we appreciate athletic excellence, teamwork, and competition?  Or because we have money on the point spread?  Do we follow current events because we want to understand the world, or because we’re looking for the next betting opportunity?

History has shown that technology often removes barriers to behaviors people already enjoy.  Sports betting no longer requires a trip to Las Vegas or an illegal bookmaker — it now lives in our pockets, available with a few taps on a smartphone.  As access becomes easier and betting opportunities expand, we may discover that the biggest story isn’t the legalization of sports gambling, but instead the gradual gamification of uncertainty itself.

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Everyone has a voice today

Athletes host podcasts.  Former players produce YouTube channels.  Social media allows anyone to instantly share opinions with millions of followers.  In many ways, this is a positive development.  Fans gain direct access to athletes, and athletes no longer have to rely entirely on traditional media to tell their stories.

But there is also an unintended consequence.

We’ve reached a point where having an opinion often seems more valuable than having expertise.  Turn on sports television today and you’ll quickly notice that much of the discussion isn’t about the games themselves.  Instead, we’re treated to athlete podcasts, social media arguments, reactions to other reactions, celebrity appearances, and endless debates over comments someone made on another platform.  Before long, the original athletic competition almost feels secondary to the conversation surrounding it.

We’ve reached a point where having an opinion often seems more valuable than having expertise.

Why has this happened?  The answer may be surprisingly simple.  Attention has become one of the most valuable commodities in modern media.  Thoughtful, balanced discussions rarely go viral, but outrage and conflict does.  So do personal attacks, as well as bold predictions.  The louder and more controversial the opinion, the more clicks, views, and engagement it tends to generate.  Algorithms understand something psychologists have known for decades: people are naturally drawn to conflict, controversy, and novelty.  As a result, sports media increasingly rewards the most interesting voices rather than the most informed ones.

Ironically, many of today’s biggest sports stories aren’t actually about sports at all.  Instead, they revolve around what someone said about someone else.  One athlete makes a controversial comment, another athlete responds.  Next, a podcast discusses the response, and television shows debate the podcast.  Social media then reacts to the television debate.  Suddenly, an opinion has become a three-day news cycle, even though no actual competition took place.

None of this suggests athlete podcasts are inherently bad, as many provide fascinating insights into leadership, teamwork, preparation, and the realities of professional sports.  Giving athletes a direct voice is, in many respects, a positive step forward. The concern is what happens when media incentives reward controversy more than substance.

Final thoughts

Perhaps the question isn’t whether athletes should have podcasts or social media platforms, but whether we’ve confused having a platform with having something meaningful to say.  Sports have always produced extraordinary stories through authentic competition.  Hopefully, we don’t reach a point where the games themselves become merely the backdrop for the endless stream of opinions surrounding them.  The constant arguing and negativity can wear fans down, but until we stop clicking we should expect more rage, arguing, and sensational takes.

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Distinguishing between sport competition & entertainment

To be clear, the analysis of ESPN and its recent programming changes isn’t an argument against professional wrestling.

Professional wrestling has entertained millions of fans for decades.  The athleticism required is remarkable, and the performers are incredibly talented.  But wrestling itself openly acknowledges that it is sports entertainment. The winners are predetermined, the story lines are scripted, and the performances are carefully choreographed to entertain an audience rather than determine the better competitor.

That distinction matters, and used to differentiate and legitimize ESPN from less authentic sports.

Traditionally, sports journalism has focused on uncertainty. Who won?  Who lost?  What strategy worked? Which athlete rose to the occasion under pressure?  The drama of sports has always come from the fact that nobody knows the outcome until the competition is over.

Entertainment follows a different model.  The outcome already exists.  The story is created before the performance begins.

Perhaps the larger issue isn’t professional wrestling at all.  Maybe it is that sports media has gradually shifted from reporting sports to reporting whatever attracts sports fans.  If enough people click, watch,  or engage with a story,  it increasingly becomes “sports news” regardless of whether it involves legitimate athletic competition.

Maybe it is that sports media has gradually shifted from reporting sports to reporting whatever attracts sports fans. 

This trend extends well beyond wrestling.  Today, sports networks devote significant coverage to athlete social media feuds, podcast comments, fashion choices, celebrity boxing matches, and reality-style documentaries.  None of these topics are inherently bad, but they represent a noticeable shift from journalism centered on athletic competition to content centered on entertainment and engagement.

Why has this happened?  The answer is probably simple.  Attention has become one of the most valuable commodities in modern media, and every click, every view, and every minute watched translates into advertising revenue.  If audiences consume entertainment alongside traditional sports coverage, networks have every financial incentive to provide more of it.

The question is whether something is lost in the process.

Final thoughts

There is nothing wrong with enjoying professional wrestling, celebrity events, or athlete personalities.  They all have a place in our culture.  But should they occupy the same journalistic space as authentic athletic competition?  If sports journalism gradually abandons the distinction between competition and entertainment, we shouldn’t be surprised if viewers begin to blur that line as well.  Assuming sports media continues to chase clicks over authentic sport competition, what will the future look like when theater and entertainment begin replacing sports as we know them today?

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But how many families truly understand what they’re chasing?  While college D1 sports include the best training facilities, coaching, competition, and unparalleled SWAG, often the route getting there leads to incredible amounts of pressure, anxiety, and stress for kids unprepared for such an undertaking.  Throwing around comments that “I want to go D1” is one thing, but few families really know the odds of making it, the super-high pressure kids and mental health concerns kids experience along the way, and the full-time job D1 sports are for kids fortunate enough to make it that far.

Finding the right path for your child

There is no question that competing at the D1 level is an incredible athletic accomplishment.  These athletes are among the very best in the country, and they earn opportunities that millions of others never will.  However, somewhere along the youth sports journey, many families begin pursuing the D1 dream without ever stopping to ask an important question:

Are Division 1 sports actually the right fit for my child?

For some athletes, the answer may be yes.  For many others, the answer may be no.

The problem is that today’s youth sports culture often treats D1 athletics as the only destination worth celebrating.  Travel organizations proudly advertise the number of Division I athletes they produce.  Recruiting rankings begin at younger and younger ages.  Parents compare scholarship offers.  Kids learn that “D1” isn’t just a level of competition—it becomes a status symbol.

Unfortunately, status often comes with a lot of pressure, and sometimes serious mental health issues.

Young athletes begin believing that every game, every tournament, every measurable, and every statistic determines whether they will eventually “make it” and earn a D1 scholarship.  Instead of simply playing, improving, and enjoying their sport, they begin chasing an identity.  What many families don’t realize is that Division 1 athletics are not simply an extension of youth sports.  D1 athletics are, in many respects, a full-time job.

Division 1 athletes often experience:

• Year-round training and conditioning.
• Demanding travel schedules.
• Significant time away from campus.
• Constant performance evaluations.
• Intense competition for playing time.
• Limited free time compared to other college students.
• Mental health issues when struggling to balance schedules, earn playing time, and fulfill expectations.
• Ongoing pressure from coaches, teammates, family, and friends to be the best athlete they can become, and play well enough that they can move on to the highest level: professional sports.

For the right athlete, those demands are exciting and worthwhile.  For others, they can quickly transform a lifelong passion into something that feels a lot more like work than play.

Ironically, there are thousands of athletes competing at the Division II, Division III, NAIA, and junior college levels who absolutely love their college experience.  They continue playing the sport they enjoy, receive an outstanding education, build lifelong friendships, and graduate with memories that extend far beyond wins and losses.  Sadly, many young athletes never seriously consider these opportunities because they have spent years believing that only a D1 scholarship represents success.

Final thoughts

Perhaps it’s time to redefine what success in youth sports actually means.  Maybe success isn’t measured by the logo on a college jersey or the division in which someone competes.  Maybe success is finding a college, a coach, and an athletic experience that allows a young person to thrive both on the field and in the classroom.  Division 1 sports are an incredible opportunity—for the athletes who truly want and are prepared for that lifestyle.  The mistake is assuming that D1 is automatically the best outcome for every talented athlete.  The ultimate goal should be to find the college where your child will thrive academically, athletically, socially, and emotionally — which may, or may not, be Division 1 sports.

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One of the great paradoxes of sports is that the games we love are often built upon tradition, yet the people who govern them seem constantly determined to change them.  Whether it’s expanding the College Football Playoff, conference realignment, legalized sports gambling, jersey advertisements, or the transfer portal, nearly every major decision in modern sports seems to begin with the same question:

“Will this generate more revenue?”  (If the answer is yes, the change usually follows).

At what point does financial growth begin to undermine the very thing that created the value in the first place?  The pursuit of maximizing profit often destroys the traditions, relationships, and authenticity that made sports valuable in the first place.

Traditions vs profits

There is nothing inherently wrong with making money.  Professional and collegiate athletics are businesses, and businesses need revenue to survive.  The concern arises when the pursuit of financial growth begins to overshadow the traditions, rivalries, and experiences that made sports valuable in the first place.

At what point does financial growth begin to undermine the very thing that created the value in the first place?  The pursuit of maximizing profit often destroys the traditions, relationships, and authenticity that made sports valuable in the first place.

College sports offer perhaps the best example.  Not long ago, conferences were built around geography and regional rivalries.  Today, schools routinely travel across the country because television contracts make it financially worthwhile.  Historic rivalries have disappeared, student-athletes spend more time traveling than ever before, and fans are left trying to remember which conference their favorite team now belongs to.  The financial gains are obvious.  Whether the overall fan experience has improved is far less clear.

The same pattern appears elsewhere throughout sports:

• The College Football Playoff continues to expand.
• Professional leagues increasingly partner with sports gambling companies.
• Uniforms feature more corporate advertising than ever before.
• Streaming rights have fragmented broadcasts across multiple subscription services.
• NIL and the transfer portal have created unprecedented athlete movement, making it increasingly difficult for fans to develop lasting connections with their favorite teams.

Each decision makes sense when viewed independently.  Together, however, they reveal a larger pattern: more games, more television inventory, more advertising, more subscriptions, and ultimately, more revenue.

Psychologists have long recognized that people quickly adapt to success.  Once a new level of income or reward becomes normal, we rarely remain satisfied for long.  Instead, we begin pursuing the next increase, believing that just a little more will finally be enough.  Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as the “hedonic treadmill.”  Once people or organizations achieve a new level of success or wealth, that new level quickly becomes the baseline.  Rather than feeling satisfied, they begin pursuing the next increase, convinced that one more television contract, one more playoff team, or one more revenue stream will finally be enough.  Perhaps sports organizations are no different.  Every successful television contract creates pressure for an even larger one.  Every playoff expansion sparks discussions of expanding it further.  Growth becomes the expectation rather than the exception.

Ironically, the pursuit of maximizing revenue can gradually erode the very qualities that made sports so meaningful.  Regional rivalries become corporate transactions.  Tradition gives way to television scheduling.  Loyalty is replaced by free agency.  Fans become customers, and games become content.

None of this suggests that sports should never evolve.  Change is inevitable, and many recent changes have produced genuine benefits for athletes and fans alike.  The real question is whether every change should be driven primarily by financial gain?  At what point does healthy business growth become something else?

Final thoughts

Perhaps greed doesn’t always destroy sports overnight, but changes sports so gradually that we hardly notice until we look back and realize something important has been lost.  Hometown pride and traditional rivalries are no longer priority #1, as fans have become customers, and games have become content to sport leaders and decision-makers.  The next time college athletics announces another conference realignment, playoff expansion, or billion-dollar television agreement, perhaps the most important question isn’t how much money will be made—but what will be sacrificed to earn it?

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Breaking down the numbers…

Years ago, I used to teach graduate courses in research methods where we would examine how to properly set up research questions, find appropriate subjects, develop hypotheses, run statistics, minimize confounds, and responsibly generalize findings.  Students quickly learned that good research takes a lot of work, both in the design of the study, as well as how to accurately test for significant differences between control and experimental groups.  For example, if you were interested in testing subjects on their level of depression, you could choose from a variety of tests with varying sensitivity for picking up differences between groups.  Simply put, a quick 10 question online test for depression will likely provide much less credible findings than a more thorough instrument consisting of more questions and used by mental health experts for many years (i.e. the MMPI).

Going beyond mental health and using a different example, think about if you were shopping for a used car and examined the car on the lot from 50 feet away — there’s a good chance that short of easily visible damage, your first impression of the car might be pretty good.  But what if you walked up and got real close to the car, and even used a magnifying glass to look for subtle scratches and other car damage.  Do you think you might find more things now?  Chances are you would, and this illustrates how data collection can vary based on how precisely you measure things.

Yes, we have more numbers today, but does the increase in data truly reveal what is intended, or do the numbers mislead us? 

You might also think about data collection like catching fish.  If you use a big net with large holes, small fish will swim through easily while big fish will be caught.  If you instead use a very small net, you will catch a lot more fish — but you will also catch everything else that is too big to pass through the net (often unwanted things!).  These are the kinds of questions researchers must contend with in order to conduct valid research, and not the kinds of things most sport decision-makers think of when perusing team data.

And then there are questions around external validity, also known as generalizability.  If a baseball hitter has a nice launch angle when he makes contact that’s one thing, but what if the hitter consistently misses hitting the ball?  In basketball, the +/- statistic looks at how good the team does when the player is on the floor, but we often forget that the +/- number also has to do with the player’s teammates on the floor, the opposing players on the floor, the plays the coach calls, and a host of additional variables that impact this number.

The point here is not to throw statistics out the window, as there are many great uses in collecting data and uncovering important findings.  What is concerning, however, is the trend right now for sport decision-makers to try and outsmart one another by procuring as much data as possible, and making haphazard decisions based on what they think are the best ways to predict future success.  By taking this approach, many actual things that lead to success are overlooked, including mental toughness, resiliency, focus, leadership, motivation, performing in the clutch, and overall knowledge of the game.

Final thoughts

Collecting data and using data to predict future events and outcomes is a worthwhile pursuit, but findings can be easily abused and misused if not being interpreted by folks who understand research statistics.  These days, you can spend hours looking over mountains of data related to athletic performance, but often in doing so we lose sight of the real, human elements that make great players — including motivation, game savvy, and human resilience, to name a few.  At the end of the day, it’s not always what you have physically (that contributes to data), but instead what you do with what you have.  One athlete with great numbers may under-perform because of poor focus and low motivation, while another athlete with lesser numbers may end up playing better due to a hyper-focus, unwavering motivation, and great resiliency.

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Unique ways to go far in sports

Baseball provides one of the clearest examples of how to accelerate chances to making it to the big leagues.  Left-handed pitchers are always in demand because they create difficult matchups, especially against left-handed hitters.  A right-handed pitcher may need overwhelming velocity or multiple excellent pitches to stand out, but a  left-hander with decent control, movement, and the ability to get left-handed hitters out may receive opportunities simply because fewer athletes can fill that role.

The same idea applies to a knuckleball pitcher.

A pitcher who can consistently throw a quality knuckleball does not need to light up the radar gun.  This unique pitch moves unpredictably, frustrates hitters, and places relatively little stress on the arm. Because the knuckleball is difficult to throw well, and often unpredictable even for pitchers who throw it regularly, it is a very difficult pitch to master.

Changing gears to look at football and perhaps no position better demonstrates the value of specialization than long snapper.  Most people overlook the significant role and specific duties of the long snapper:

• Snaps the ball on punts and field goals.
• Rarely appears in highlights.
• Is barely noticed when doing the job correctly…
• But becomes very noticeable when something goes wrong by means of a fumble or snap that goes far over the punter’s head!

It may not be glamorous, but every NFL team needs someone who can deliver a perfect snap under pressure.  Because the skill is so specialized, good long snappers can enjoy remarkably long careers.

Kickers and punters offer similar opportunities.  Some began as soccer players and found that their kicking ability translated into football.  A player who cannot block, tackle, or catch may still make a professional roster if he can reliably kick a football through the uprights from 50+ yards away.

Other unusual paths to professional sports

Many sports contain positions or roles that reward athletes with highly specific abilities:

• Basketball: A three-point specialist can build a long career without being an elite scorer in other areas, or even being a good defender.
• Hockey: A player who consistently wins faceoffs may provide value beyond traditional statistics.  Similarly, a tough fighting defender might play a long time for his ability to intimidate opponents.
• Lacrosse: Some players specialize almost entirely in taking faceoffs.
• Volleyball: The libero does not need exceptional height but must be an outstanding passer and defender.
• Soccer: A player who excels at free kicks, corner kicks, or long throw-ins can become extremely valuable.
• Baseball: A defensive catcher may remain in the lineup because of pitch framing, game calling, and controlling the running game—even with a modest batting average.

Final thoughts

Of course, none of these unique paths means becoming a professional athlete is easy.  A rare skill, such as being a great long snapper, still requires years of practice, discipline, and consistency.  But there is an important lesson here for young athletes, parents, and coaches.  The goal should not always be to turn every athlete into the biggest star on the field.  Rather, it may be more valuable to identify what that athlete does differently—and then develop it.

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Perhaps it’s time to ask a similar question about men.

Gender differences in advertising

No, men are not typically portrayed in advertisements the same way women have been.  However, they are often presented through an equally narrow lens.  Turn on the television during a sporting event or browse advertisements online, and you’ll likely find men driving oversized pickup trucks, conquering rugged terrain, grilling steaks, drinking beer, lifting heavy objects, or demonstrating physical toughness.  While there is certainly nothing wrong with any of these activities, they represent only a small fraction of what it means to be a man.

Advertising doesn’t simply sell products—it also sells identities.

Every advertisement communicates a message beyond the product itself.  It tells us who uses the product, what qualities are desirable, and, perhaps most importantly, who we should aspire to become.  For young boys who are still developing their identities, these repeated messages matter.  If nearly every commercial portrays “real men” as fearless, stoic, physically dominant, and emotionally reserved, what conclusions might they draw about themselves if they don’t fit that mold?

Psychologists have long understood that people learn by observing others (social learning theory).  Parents, teachers, coaches, and peers all influence our beliefs and behaviors, but so does popular culture.  Advertising may not create our definitions of masculinity, but it certainly reinforces them.  The more often a particular image is repeated, the more normal and expected it begins to feel.

When we examine advertisements geared toward men today, many portray men as:

• The rugged outdoorsman
• The pickup truck driver
• The beer drinker
• The fearless cage fighter athlete
• The physically dominant protector
• The stoic problem solver, independent thinker, and able to take care of most situations through brute strength.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with these portrayals, but they only represent one version of masculinity.  For a more complete, holistic understanding of men, future advertisers may want to broaden the ways in which they portray men, similar to how women today are more regularly seen as more than simply being physically attractive.  Images of men that are commonly missing include:

• Reading bedtime stories to their children.
• Caring for aging parents.
• Mentoring young athletes.
• Supporting their spouses during difficult times.
• Talking openly about mental health.
• Men comfortable demonstrating compassion, patience, empathy, nurturing, or vulnerability — as well as shown in female-stereotyped roles (i.e. stay-at-home dad).

These men exist in every community, yet they are far less visible than the stereotypical “tough guy.”

Ironically, many companies have worked hard to broaden the portrayal of women in advertising by highlighting intelligence, leadership, athleticism, and diversity.  That progress is exciting and worth celebrating.  Perhaps the next step is recognizing that men also deserve a broader and more realistic representation.  Male strength can certainly be physical, but it can also be emotional.  Courage isn’t demonstrated only by taking risks; sometimes it is found in asking for help, showing compassion, or standing beside someone who is struggling.

Final thoughts

Advertising will always simplify reality—that is part of its purpose.  But perhaps it’s time to ask whether our portrayals of men have become just as narrow as the portrayals of women once were.  The question isn’t whether advertisements should stop portraying tough, confident, or physically capable men.  Those qualities have value.  The question is whether those should be the only images of masculinity boys and men repeatedly see.

After all, strength isn’t measured only by muscles, pickup trucks, or toughness.  Sometimes the strongest men are the ones who patiently teach their children to ride a bicycle, quietly care for an aging parent, encourage a struggling teammate, admit when they’re hurting, or simply show up every day for the people who depend on them.

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Examining today’s changes in youth sport coaches & officials

Today’s youth coaches face expectations and responsibilities that previous generations rarely encountered — and for relatively low pay while working odd hours. Today’s coaches are expected to:

• Teach sport-specific skills and strategy, and adequately prepare talented kids for future college athletics.
• Promote sportsmanship and character while actively modelling those very same behaviors to kids.
• Communicate effectively with parents, including in-person, electronically, and often at non-work times (i.e. late in the evening).
• Prevent injuries and recognize safety concerns, which includes attending continuing education courses to keep up with new concerns (i.e. concussions).
• Manage playing time fairly, and respond to kids and parents who are not happy with how the coach is allocating playing time.
• Teach kids life skills, including communication, goal setting, decision making, leadership skills, and resiliency.
• Win games while keeping everyone happy, and build a winning climate that helps maintain a healthy athletic department.

That’s a difficult job description for someone working evenings and weekends for relatively modest compensation.

The same is true for sport officials. In addition to enforcing the rules, officials are increasingly expected to manage emotional situations involving coaches, parents, and players. Unfortunately, many also face criticism that extends well beyond the final whistle. Verbal and physical abuse, public criticism, and even social media attacks have made officiating far less attractive than it once was.

A simple reality

When fewer qualified adults are willing to coach or officiate, organizations often have no choice but to lower their standards simply to fill vacancies.  This is not meant as criticism of those who step forward to help.  Many volunteer coaches and beginning officials work extremely hard and genuinely care about young athletes.  However, experience, education, and mentorship cannot be replaced overnight.

Parents also play an important role in shaping the future of youth sports.  While the vast majority are supportive and respectful, it often takes only a handful of negative interactions to convince a coach or official that the job is no longer worth the stress.  If we want quality adults to remain involved, appreciation and respect must become part of the culture.

Improving youth sports requires more than simply recruiting additional volunteers. Communities should strive to:

• Recruit and mentor new coaches and officials.
• Increase education and training opportunities.
• Offer competitive compensation whenever possible.
• Publicly recognize outstanding coaches and officials.
• Hold adults accountable for creating respectful environments.
• Refocus the emphasis on the importance of youth sports on how the investment in good coaches and officials provides for the best physical, mental, and emotional growth for student athletes!

Final thoughts

The youth sport landscape has changed a lot, especially as it applies to coaches and officials.  Schools today regularly struggle filling coach openings with quality coaches, and state sport organizations are doing all that they can to attract more officials to the profession.   The challenge is that coach and official jobs generally don’t pay a lot, the hours are odd, and threats of physical harm and/or negative social media attacks always loom.  If communities hope to attract and retain high-quality adults, they must also create conditions that make coaching and officiating rewarding rather than exhausting.  The future of youth sports depends not only on developing better athletes, but also on supporting the dedicated adults who make those opportunities possible.

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Understanding sport statistics

Sports analytics are everywhere these days, and there is little doubt they have made coaches and athletes more informed than ever before. Radar guns measure pitching velocity, cameras calculate spin rate and exit velocity, wearable technology tracks speed and fatigue, and sophisticated software can compare athletes against thousands of others across the country. The collection of data itself is not the problem. The more interesting question is what happens after the data are collected.

In psychology, one of the first questions we ask about any assessment tool is whether it actually predicts what we think it predicts.  This concept is known as predictive validity.  Simply because a test measures something reliably does not mean it accurately forecasts future success.  The same question should be asked of sports analytics. Does a high exit velocity at age 12 predict becoming a successful high school hitter?  Does a high spin rate on a baseball predict future pitching success? Sometimes the answer is yes—to a degree—but rarely is the relationship as straightforward as many people assume.

Today, sport analytics present the same challenge — sure, we acquire specific data supposedly relating to future sport success, but do most people know how to use this information responsibly?

Another important concept is external validity.  Just because an athlete performs well in a controlled training environment does not necessarily mean those same results will transfer to meaningful competition.  A player may produce outstanding numbers in a batting cage, but can those same mechanics be repeated against a live pitcher with two strikes, runners on base, and a championship game on the line?  Context matters, and numbers collected in isolation do not always capture the realities of competition.

Perhaps the biggest mistake people make is assuming that because two things are related, one must cause the other (when in fact the variables correlate with one another).  For example, many elite baseball players produce high exit velocities.  That does not necessarily mean increasing exit velocity alone will create an elite hitter.  It may simply be that better hitters naturally generate higher exit velocities because they possess superior mechanics, timing, vision, and decision-making.  In this case, exit velocity may be a byproduct of great hitting rather than the cause of it.  The same reasoning applies to pitching velocity, spin rate, sprint speed, and countless other measurable statistics.

There is also a psychological cost to consider.  Young athletes today increasingly define themselves by their measurable statistics rather than their overall development.  Instead of asking, “Am I becoming a better player?” they ask, “Did my exit velocity improve?”  While analytics can provide valuable feedback, they should never become the sole measure of an athlete’s worth or potential.

Analytics have undoubtedly improved sports, and they are here to stay.  However, numbers should inform coaching—not replace it.  Great coaches understand that data represent one piece of a much larger puzzle that also includes confidence, decision-making, resilience, work ethic, leadership, adaptability, and countless other qualities that no radar gun or computer can fully measure.  The challenge moving forward is not collecting more data. It is developing the wisdom to understand what those data truly mean—and just as importantly, what they do not.

Final thoughts

When using statistics, it is important that we understand exactly what we are measuring, as well as how useful the data will be in terms of predicting things in the future.  Without understanding statistics, it is very easy to misunderstand data, including what is being measured, the importance of that information, and how useful it will be to apply the information in the future.  Additionally, correlation (when two variables change or occur together) should not be confused with causation (when one variable directly causes change in another variable), yet this happens all the time with people not trained in data analysis.  Use data as a part of evaluation and future planning, but make sure to employ a holistic approach that also includes examining confidence, motivation, and resiliency — constructs not easily measured in traditional testing.

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Don’t beat yourself!

Can’t find an outfit.  Bad directions.  Couldn’t study the night before. Didn’t learn the material.  How many times has something like this happened to you?  Ironically, much of the success we enjoy in life is a direct result of being responsible, especially with how we prepare for events and experiences in our lives.  When we follow directions and prepare ahead of time, we surge past the competition by creating a picture of working hard and wanting that starting position, grade, or job.  On the other hand, when we show up late and unprepared, we send the message of this not being very important — even without opening our mouth.  If life is a game of inches, these are the “inches.”

How do you deliver on what is expected — or better yet, supersede expectations?  Yes, the “little” things really do matter, and often simply being able to follow directions can advance your chances for success (or diminish them).  For example, when I teach college classes, I give writing assignments with very specific directions about the assignment.  One aspect, total page length for the assignment, is listed specifically on the syllabus, as well as discussed verbally in class.  In fact, not only do I discuss the page length, I specifically outline the consequences for going over the page length since the assignment is about being concise and efficient.  I have even said to the class directly that the first word you go over the page length, you will automatically lose points as a result — couldn’t be more clear, right?  Amazingly, over the years my guesstimate is that a good 30-40% of students will, in fact, completely disregard all the directions and warnings and turn in a paper that’s over the length allowed.  The result?  These students lose points, even before I have read a single word of their paper!  Think about that for a moment — the paper could have been the best written paper ever, but the student lost points simply by not following the rules.

While you will likely never know for sure, ask yourself how many times in your life did you lose an opportunity because you were late, unprepared, didn’t follow directions, or made a similar avoidable mistake?  Have you ever been delinquent to an appointment?  Failed to prepare for an interview?  Worn the wrong attire to a meeting?  The point here is not to say you are a failure if you aren’t perfect, but to instead illustrate how often we beat ourselves, versus others beating us.  Conversely, how many times in life do we succeed because we were prepared, and ready for the moment?

Life is tough enough, why lose out on opportunities simply because you failed to prepare for the moment?  Learning how to responsibly manage your time, communicate, and get things done efficiently and correctly is a big part of human success, and often the very exact qualities others look for when hiring, promoting, or evaluating others.

Final thoughts

When we minimize our unforced errors and follow through with exactly what we are tasked to do, we give ourselves the best chances for success — even when up against better competition.  When others see that we want it more than the competition, and are willing to do the supposed “little things,” it shows our responsibility and willingness to do whatever is necessary for success.  Pay attention to details, out study and outwork your opponents, and be ready to go when your name is called!

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Biggest changes in youth sports

Just about everything changes over time, including youth sports.  Rather than simply state that the changes are “all good,” or “all bad,” it is important to look at each change and include any nuance that might exist.  For example, for one family year-round sport specialization might be healthy, while another family doing the same might witness their kid dealing with sport burnout.  Below are observable youth sport changes that have occurred over the last several decades that impact most sport families today:

• Recreation leagues vs travel leagues.  It used to be that local communities offered all that you needed when it came to youth sports, but these days recreation leagues are disappearing quickly while elite travel leagues continue to build more teams to meet greater interest.
• The “eyeball” test vs. sport metrics.  Coaches used to watch kids perform and gauge their potential based on what they saw.  Today, kids are constantly measured and evaluated for better (supposed) future predictability.
• Volunteer coaches vs. expert coaches.  Youth sports used to be driven by volunteers; today, elite programs have paid coaches to coach teams.
• Focus on fun vs. focus on advancing in sports.  Youth sports used to focus exclusively on fun, growth, local pride, and preparing for school sports.  Today, clubs focus on talent, development, and attracting the attention of college coaches.
• Reasonable costs vs. exorbitant costs.  The cost to play youth sports used to be a nominal fee, but today’s club costs can easily be in the thousands of dollars — resulting on increasingly more kids being squeezed out.
• Occasional serious injuries vs. regular serious injuries.  Injuries commonly seen in youth sports in the old days included cuts, scrapes, and the occasional broken bone.  Today, kids at very young ages experience serious injuries (i.e. ACL) that require surgery, with some kids retiring from sports prematurely as a result.
• One sport per season vs. sport specialization and year-round training.  The three-sport letter winner used to be a common thing, where kids played a new sport each new season.  Today, however, we see more kids specialize in one sport and do it year-round.
• Eagerness to play college (and stay) vs. not ready for college athletics, premature quitting.  Another interesting change many people overlook are the growing number of young athletes who do make it to play college sports — then voluntarily quit.  After dedicating their lives to a single sport (and playing it year-round), increasingly more young athletes make it to college sports then decide they have simply had enough and retire from sports.
• Not enough sports (excitement to play more) vs. too much sports, burnout and mother mental health issues.  Kids from the past played shorter seasons, and many wanted to play more.  Kids today play so much that many experience sport burnout, or other mental health issues.
• Focus on growth vs. focus on winning.  Sports used to be viewed as a meaningful part of a child’s life, a place where kids could get good physical activity, meet friends, and learn important life skills.  Kids today train very differently, with most competing in leagues that focus on winning over everything else.

Are the changes above good for kids, or have we created an experience that falls short of the one previously enjoyed by their parents?  Some parents love the seriousness of youth sports today, while others yearn for an experience focused more on fun and growth over intensity and winning.

One of the great ironies of modern youth sports is that we’ve become remarkably better at developing athletes, yet not necessarily better at developing childhoods.

Regardless of where you stand on the ways youth sports have changed, kids are experiencing serious injuries and mental health issues as a direct result of sport intensity today.  Should we just continue pushing, or would it be better to revisit current trends and work to get back to a more balanced youth sport participation model?

Final thoughts

Changes in youth sports have become quite noticeable in recent years, especially with respect to focus and intensity.  Some of the changes have been positive and helpful, while other changes have turned an otherwise fun experience for kids into something very different than what they had thought.  Sport participation can be an amazing developmental experience for kids, but positive outcomes only occur when we create a welcoming environment focused on fun, friendships, and life skills development, not a hyper-professional, pressurized, college preparatory experience.

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Sport analytics and kids

As technology has advanced, so have sport analytics.  The change from the “eyeball” test of an athlete, to now being able to objectively measure an athlete’s physical abilities has been controversial — even at the pro and college level.  Critics argue that sport performance is not based exclusively on “measurables,” and that overlooking an athlete’s passion, drive, and resiliency misses the big picture while creating unnecessary anxiety.  If this is how folks feel about sport analytics at the adult level, what do you think kids deal with when being pressured to improve their measurables?

While accumulating data allows for player comparisons and better future predictive accuracy (hopefully), increasingly more kids are feeling the negative effects of having their physical shortcomings suddenly become visible to everyone, and new expectations for future improvement that feel overwhelming. 

Kids today don’t stay in recreational sports very long, evidenced by increasingly more families each year deciding to join a club or premier team in their child’s sport.  These advanced teams practice more, play more, and measure kids more.  Depending on the sport, a kid may be analyzed along a number of factors, including speed, strength, vertical jump, reaction time, shot accuracy, launch angle, and exit velocity to name a few.  For kids, this can be an awful lot to contend with, especially when their data is matched against other kids, as well as mapped up against future benchmarks needed to simply be recognized by college coaches.  As a result, many young athletes struggle with mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.  In worst-case scenarios the pressure becomes too much, and some kids retire from sports prematurely as a result.

Sport analytics are here to stay, and there does not appear to be any evidence of less analytics occurring in youth sports — in fact, we see the opposite happening.  As more “elite” teams pop up, and new technologies emerge, kids will likely be under the microscope even more in the future.  Yes, analytics provide for objective data that can be used for many statistical comparisons, but is that the only thing we care about?  Should a kid’s well-being be the primary focus, even if it means less testing of his or her physical abilities?  What is the end game here — to train and measure kids exactly how we do with pro and college athletes?  There is most definitely a cost using this approach, as sport analytics in youth sports are adding a lot of undue pressure to kids who simply want to play their sport.

Final thoughts

Sport analytics allow for objective data collection and valid comparisons between people, but questions still loom about both the predictive validity of analytics to sport performance, and the mental health issues that emerge when athletes (especially kids) believe their numbers simply don’t measure up.  While an argument can be made that adult athletes competing in pro and college sports are mature enough to handle these kinds of stressors, most kids do not have the maturity and stress coping skills to deal with being scrutinized in this manner.  Kids want to play, not feel like a lab rat running through tests while scientists measure their behaviors.

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