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USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
'Work of the devil'? Authors, dads test limits of travel sports
BERKELEY, CA - 'You want to see what Americans care about?' Michael Lewis asks. You probably know Lewis. He takes sports and societal narratives – the sabermetric undercurrent, a homeless kid seemingly born to be a left tackle, the careful yet tough influence of a high school coach – and turns them into influential books. The really good subjects, he has found, are right under your nose and no one is saying anything about them. That eventually becomes impossible. Take travel sports. 'Go to a 10 year old softball game and watch the parents,' Lewis said in March at the Project Play Summit. 'They care about that more than anything.' Across campus at the University of California, another author, Richard Reeves, raised within a British youth sports system much more infatuated with playing than the material things you can get from sports, offered this reading of the landscape: 'Travel sports, the work of the devil.' Reeves' three sons were around middle school age when he and his wife brought them over from the United Kingdom to America, and into the so-called youth sports industrial complex. 'You've got these kids being hauled around the country and think they got to do this, parents shouting in their ears and they had scouts there and individual coaches,' he tells USA TODAY Sports. 'I was horrified by the culture around it.' Lewis had two softball-playing daughters and, like so many of us, gave himself to their careers. 'The most pathetic character inside it is the one who's paying for it all,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win,' his 2020 audiobook that details life in the complex. 'The sports parent funds the entire operation but is regarded by everyone else as expendable. The central truth of this elaborate mechanism we've built so that our children might compete against each other might be this: How little a parent can do to help the child. As a result, the overwhelming emotion of the sport parent is anxiety.' But would he do it again? It's a question he thought about as he wrote, and as he spoke to the crowd at Project Play five years later about what has become a $40 billion industry. The two authors (and dads) offer perspective on their zany escapades within travel ball and advice on how we can negotiate it – or perhaps avoid it entirely. Travel and youth sports can give parents a 'moral education' Lewis has raised two daughters and a son with his wife, Tabitha Soren. Soren thought softball would be a nice way for dad and his young daughters, Quinn and Dixie, to bond. What could go wrong? Ther local softball league was founded by Cal religion professor Harlan Stelmach under the premise it existed for the 'moral education of parents.' It was against the rules to talk about the score, or even to use verbs from the stands to instruct or criticize your daughter while she was playing. 'Left to their own devices, children playing sports make it fun,' Stelmach said. 'It's when adults get involved that the problems arise.' The goal was a .500 record, and an evaluation was held to select teams balanced equally by skill. But dad coaches whose daughters were good players told their children to 'tank' their formal evaluations so they would be undervalued. The rules were about adult behavior. 'You're not just teaching the kids, you're teaching the parents,' he says. 'Most of the competitive landscape was Daddy ball,' Lewis says. 'It was dads who cared too much, who were frustrated by their own lack of success as baseball players, whose wives had seen this is the one way to interest their husband in their daughter was to get them into competitive sports and have them run their sporting lives.' Haley Woods, an All-American catcher and power hitter at Cal who coached Dixie Lewis when she became a competitive travel player, had a poignant message for parents. It's what we need to understand when our kids are young: Don't see them as who you wish them to be, but for who they are. Growing up in England, Reeves played sports all the time, with no infatuation with what he might become. Rugby didn't help you get into Oxford, anyway. 'I wasn't very good at anything, but my dad coached rugby,' Reeves says. 'He'd played. We'd cut a hole in the fence so we could get into the school tennis courts, and they looked the other way, and summers were spent on the tennis courts. I never had an hour of tennis coaching in my life, but I'm an OK tennis player as a result. … 'I was fortunate enough to grow up with a very clear sense from my parents of the joy and the value of sport, but always on the play side. … I lived in fear of one of my kids getting good enough to play travel sports.' Reeves wrote the 2022 book, 'Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it.' His session at Project Play addressed youth coaches and administrators looking for ways to engage more boys in sports as their participation numbers are plummeting. Problems with boys and girls sports can arise when we get out of our comfortable communities and into the industrial complex. 'It's like, you have these small furry creatures who have been raised on an island without predators,' Lewis says. We toss them into the jungle, and our education continues. Observing travel sports can be a pill for improving a child's character At some point, with players' and parents' inner ambition brimming beneath the surface, the Berkeley softball league formed a travel team. Lewis' older daughter, Quinn, was 9. Now they were driving an hour away to play. At first they got pummeled, which tested the adults' limits' of frustration. 'At a kid's ballgame, you're never quite sure who's going to go mad - only that someone will,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win.' No trait - education level, income, race or gender – was predictive of it, he observed. The explosion happened to the Berkeley parents the first time the team was close to winning. Near the end of the game, one of their runners slid into home. The umpire called her safe. Lewis recalled four opposing coaches running out of the dugout and screaming at her, profanities flying. The umpire started to cry. 'The Berkeley parents were always very good at not being the first one to throw a punch,' Lewis said, 'but (they) are always on a hair trigger for other parents' bad behavior. So their coaches get their fans riled up, they're all screaming at the ump. The Berkeley parents are then outraged. 'On the field, they're like 20 little girls looking back and forth, with 70 parents screaming at the top of their lungs, veins popping, faces red. Through the noise - and the din was incredible - you heard this Berkeley mom shriek, What horrible modeling for our children.' The umpire tossed the opposing head coach. He then told her he was director of facilities and said she was fired. Lewis followed her as she moped toward the parking lot. He had to give her a pep talk to stay. 'I remember having this feeling like, yeah, on the surface, it is horrible,' he said. 'On the other hand, softball became one way to show my children - and then basketball with my son - how not to behave as a grown-up. 'Mostly what they got from grown-ups was a lot of artificial behavior, like polite grown-up behavior. When they saw the mask come off, then we can have a serious talk about how you behave and shouldn't behave.' It's a tactic Jeff Nelligan, another sports dad and commentator on American parenting I've interviewed, used with his three sons. Daily life, he writes, offers advice moms and dads can't concoct on their own: good, bad, and inspirational. Our job, Nelligan says, is to judge what we see. 'Every single one of us makes judgments about people and situations throughout our day,' he writes. 'It's the only way to successful navigate through life.' We learn about the length people go for our kids, and when we go too far. Perhaps for Lewis, it was when he went to Cal's women's softball team and, in his words, 'threw a sack of money' at its players to coach the Berkeley team and reverse their losing. Or when he was interviewing then-President Barack Obama for a story aboard Air Force One. When they arrived in Washington, the president asked Lewis to ride back to the White House to continue their discussion. Lewis said he had to rush home for a girls softball tournament. COACH STEVE: Ranking the 6 worst youth sports parents Don't look at travel sports as something that will play for college, but as a learning experience The next time you're at your child's game and want to say something out loud, pretend you are on a national stage. With social media documenting everything, you essentially are. Best mound visit ever. Listen to this. This should go viral. Amazing and what it's all about. Baseball is fun and this coach absolutely gets it Before you speak, think about what you are about to say, whether it be an in-game instruction to your kid, who might just glare at you, or a jab at another parent, which will make you a spectacle. Sports parenting is a lot like driving, Lewis writes. He says you want to go over and scream at the coach who benched your child like you want to give the finger to the person who cheated at the four-way stop sign. But 24 hours later, you have trouble even remembering why you got so upset. Your exercise can start when your kids are young, when the stakes are much lower, nonexistent really. What you stop yourself from saying might teach you something about the industrial complex you are about to enter. Reeves, the British author, says he came into it blindly. 'I think this whole college thing, the selection thing, the scholarship thing, it's putting this downward pressure on youth sports that is very distorting, and I don't know what to do about it, but I do know that we survived it,' he says. 'We were never parents trying to get the kids into these highly selective colleges who would like do oboe on Tuesday and lacrosse on Wednesday and their nonprofit on Thursday and the Mandarin class on Friday. 'God, it was exhausting. I was like my kids are just gonna go to a state college and they'll be fine.' One of his sons, Bryce, wound up on a travel soccer team and got injured. At that point, the family decided they didn't want the scene to infiltrate their life any further. 'Saturdays are for the sofa,' he says. 'They're not for getting up at 6 to drive to New Jersey.' Lewis spent five years of nearly 30 hours per week running his childrens' sports and 10 as commissioner of the travel softball league, mostly to the objections of his wife. 'In the beginning (it) was, 'How sweet, Michael's getting very involved in the daughter's lives,' Lewis says, 'and then it's like, 'Wait, we're spending 52 nights a year at the Hampton Inn in Manteca?' … 'Her view is there was a price that was paid, and the price was that our life was less diversified. It was more specialized, even if it wasn't specialized in a single sport. It was severed but it was all or nothing, and the kids all approached it that way. They were all really into it.' Dixie had a drive that was different, her dad thought. As a young teenager, she had sought out Haley Woods' Cal Nuggets softball team on her own and made the team. She threw herself into the journey and experience. She played in front of college coaches, and she found a role model. 'Everything she says to me, I take seriously, and there's so few grown-ups I feel that way about,' she told her father about Woods. 'She has a lot to say that's really useful to me.' COACH STEVE: 'Is it worth it?' Red flags to watch with youth sports programs Always play sports for the love of them, not matter how old you are Lewis admits the tens of thousands spent on travel ball fees, private lessons and travel costs and the pursuit of athletic scholarships is much better invested in a 529 college fund. Still, he also adds, 'My view of all this was that there's so many things you can learn through this experience that what sacrifice was involved was totally worth it.' Lewis and his daughter observed that top softball schools barely acknowledged ones that couldn't offer athletic scholarships. Dixie found top academic schools that also had softball teams were surprising accessible. As they walked around the campus of Division III Pomona College after she had committed there, she told her dad the travel ordeal had been worthwhile. 'Look where it got me,' she said. 'I feel so good about myself and where I am. I wouldn't change anything.' Dixie died in a 2021 car accident during her freshman year of college. Lewis almost gave up writing. He didn't because it was something that made him feel better. He draws deep satisfaction in knowing, amid his sorrow, his daughter chose her own path through youth sports, and she wound up at her dream school. Lewis, though, fully acknowledges that about half the young athletes in America have been priced out of the industrial complex. Youth sports participation as a whole, Aspen Institute research has found, falls off sharply by age 11. Reeves' son, Bryce, is now a Baltimore city public schools teacher and girls soccer coach. He plays on the Baltimore City FC amateur soccer squad. 'That makes me so happy,' his father says. 'I think there's something beautiful to just watching kids running around and having a great time. I'm here to make the case for mediocrity. And the trouble is, that doesn't sound very inspiring.' Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
The Herald Scotland
09-06-2025
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Boys sports declining? NBA Finals shines light on youth athletics
"That's a scary feeling for me, and I don't know what a 6-9 skinny kid would have been doing, but it wouldn't have been pretty. Growing up here in Oakland, I could have done a lot of other things." We were at March's Project Play Summit, asking him and two other successful men brought up in their own distinct ways through sports, about why they think the athletic participation rate among boys has crashed. As the Pacers play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, a trend you might find troubling lurks at the grass-roots levels. It underscores the thesis of Richard Reeves' 2022 book, "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it," and a more recent brief undertaken by his institute about "The quiet decline of boys' sports." According to the latest data from Sports & Fitness Industry Association, half of boys aged 6 to 17 participated regularly in sports in 2013. But only 41% did in 2023. The number has been at 41% or lower for eight straight years as the rate for girls (35.6% in 2023) has remained steady. At the same time, according to Reeves' research team, sports are the only extracurricular activity boys are more likely to do than girls. "It's not like on the average, boys are going to go to theater or math club - maybe they should," Reeves tells USA TODAY Sports. "Participation in youth sports is a big issue in and of itself, but the stakes are even higher for boys than they are for girls, because they're less likely to do other stuff and they need to move more." How do we get more boys to play sports, and keep the ones who are playing? We spoke with Reeves and sat in on his discussion with Davis and Larry Miller, the chairman of Nike's Jordan Brand advisory board, to help find answers that could help you and your young athlete. Another 'way out' Miller, who grew up in Philadelphia, says he was the teacher's pet through elementary school. He was in junior high when he got distracted. "The cool guys were doing the stuff that was in the street and I got pulled into that," he told the crowd in Berkeley. At 16, he killed another teenager he mistakenly believed was a rival, according to and spent years in a juvenile correction center. He rehabilitated himself first by taking college classes in jail, eventually matriculating at Temple University. "Of all things, as a criminal I decided to get an accounting degree," he said. After revealing his dark background to a hiring manager cost him a job with Arthur Anderson, he kept the story to himself for 40 years. After Miller built his career at Nike, though, his eldest daughter, Laila, suggested it might inspire other people. They collaborated to write, "Jump: My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom." Michael Jordan and Phil Knight, the company's chairman, supported his decision, and he meet with the family of the young man he shot to ask for their forgiveness. In February, Miller launched the Justice and Upward Mobility Project (JUMP) to provide chances for those affected by the justice system. "Part of our goal is how can we provide more opportunity for people who have the talent but just don't have the ability to utilize that talent?" he said. Why not through sports? "I think in the Black communities, brown communities, the sense of hope has kind of dissipated," Miller says. "And I think that's why boys in particular are saying, 'Hey, there's no reason for me to do this, because it's not going to lead to anything.' "In our community, people saw sports as a way out. And I think what happens as boys advance, (they) realize that, 'I'm not gonna be able to play professionally, I'm not gonna to be able to get a college scholarship, so I'm just going to fall off and try to figure out a different way out. I'm gonna go do something else that can allow me to get paid.' " A re-education starts, Davis suggests, with a change in perception of what it means to be a kid, and what it means to be a man. 'Get back to the basics': Normalize what success means for kids Davis' dad was killed when he was in high school. He remembers being singularly motivated to provide for his family. After he played for 13 years in the NBA and raised a son (A.J.) and daughter (Kaela) who both played high-level college basketball and professionally, he thinks more about the benefits he got from sports. Today, youth coaches seem to link their self-worth with winning a game more than providing kids with an experience. "All the pressure that's being put on them by their team and their parents, I just think they're opting to do all the other stuff that's kind of pulling and tugging on them, whether it's playing video games or just hanging out or doing other things," Davis says. "I think they're just being kind of turned off. And I feel we just have to get back to the basics of the importance of all the other life lessons that you're going to learn from just playing sport. I'm a big advocate of just give kids space to move around and move their bodies and learn how to be in shape and to be healthy. "And then as we go on, as I did with my kids, introduce all kinds of sport and whatever they gravitate towards, because that'll be something that'll be tugging at their heart and not forced into." Coach Steve: American kids get a D- in physical activity. What can we do about it? Davis, who is also the CEO of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, says the No. 1 thing former players say they miss about the NBA is the camaraderie. That's a benefit from sports we all get. "I've played almost every sport you can think of really badly, but I had a great time," says Reeves, the British author, who played rugby at the University of Oxford. "The great thing about sport is that someone has to lose. I think one thing that should be zero-sum in sport is you have to lose. And by God, you can lose brutally sometimes. Some of my strongest memories were playing in subzero temperatures (against) these massive kids and losing like 67-0. So you lose. ... "And because I moved around from different sports, probably I would lose more. And I think that that sense of you can compete, you can lose, and that's great, was actually an incredibly important life lesson for me because you lose in life all the time." Coach Steve: Have we lost the sportsmanship in high school sports? What do we 'call a man'? Boys need male role models Reeves, who raised three boys who are now in their 20s, writes in "Of Boys and Men" about how girls consistently outperform boys in school, and about how men are struggling to fit into society and the workforce. He founded the American Institute For Boys and Men (AIBM), which shares in its brief that while we don't have definitive answers as to why boys might be playing sports less often, one hypothesis behind it is the decline in male teachers who serve as coaches, particularly at the high school level. Meanwhile, according to AIMB research, men account for 23% of U.S. elementary and secondary school teachers, down from about 30% in 1988. "Coaches of boys sports are mental health professionals in disguise, and part of it is because they do it shoulder to shoulder, which is a much more male friendly way of doing it," Reeves tells USA TODAY Sports, "but the coach sitting next to the young man or the boy on the bench saying, 'How you doing? You seem off today. How are things at home?' ... that may be one of the most important men in that boy's life. That's very interesting to me, coming from a different culture and raising my kids here, is the almost iconic position of coach in American culture." Davis was raised in Oakland by his mom. He says his grandmother told him what to avoid, and he had influential men around him who gave him sports opportunities and a safe space. Being a professional athlete, he says, doesn't make you a role model. What does is taking accountability for yourself and what you make out of your life. "I hate that if we play sport and we don't make it, we feel like a failure," Davis says. "Whether you are a young man or a growing man, we have to learn how to take this stance, that no matter what society says, no matter the outcome, I'm doing the things that I'm supposed to do: Being a contributor to my community, taking responsibility if I have kids," Davis says. "And we have to find ways to let our kids know that it's OK to hopefully graduate from high school, go off to college if he or she is lucky, and then go on to get a job. "It's not bad to just say, 'Hey, I got a job. I'm making good money, I'm taking care of my kids, I got a ride that can get me from A to B.' We don't have to have the best car and the biggest house and a pocket full of money in order to be what we call a man." Ask your kids about what they get out of sports, and always be there to support them Our life in sports doesn't have to end when our career does. Reeves plays squash and tennis, "and I can still beat my kids at badminton," he says. Working for Jordan Brand, Miller has gotten to travel the world, where, he says, he can attend any sporting event he wants. "I never even came close to being a professional athlete," he says. "There are all these other incredible benefits that come from playing sports and I think we've gotten away from teaching that: The teamwork you learn, the working with others, the being able to be part of something that's bigger than yourself." Basketball remains perhaps the most popular sports for boys and girls to play. According to the Aspen Institute's State of Play 2024 report, more than 7 million kids between the ages of 6 and 17 played it regularly in 2023. However, the percentage of kids who play it has declined or remained the same since 2013. "As I kind of move around and watch a lot of youth basketball, and coach youth basketball, I feel that there's just kind of this pressure: If you're not the best, if you're not going to succeed, then why even try?" says Davis, 56. "And I think there's a lot of layers to why that happens: Parents, the way that it is today with social media and I think a lot of our young men are getting turned off very early by I guess the system." He has a grandson who plays football. "I ask him why is he playing," Davis says. "Regardless of what's going on outside of my house and all this other stuff that I can't control, what I can control is his perception: 'Did you learn something? I saw you get knocked on your butt. How did that feel?' We have to fight against it by getting into the heads of your kids and the teams that you run. "We can't let it take away what we know to be true, which is, if our kids play sports, they're eventually gonna be better off than not playing." His grandson is a 12-year-old lineman. When Davis watched him recently, though, he was allowed to play quarterback. He took the ball, went a couple of steps, and was tackled. Davis acted like he scored a touchdown. "I'm not sure why I did it," he said, "but I needed him to understand the fact that he did something should be celebrated: that he was out there and he was engaged and he got up and he was smiling and having fun. Like, make that the normal, not being a champion." Reeves said the anecdote reminded him of when he was 12, and he finally managed to break through that rugby line. As he ran to score, he saw someone tagging along with him on the sideline. It was his father. "He was more excited than I was," Reeves said. Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
USA Today
08-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Are boys sports declining? NBA Finals shines light on youth athletics issue
Are boys sports declining? NBA Finals shines light on youth athletics issue How do we get more boys to play sports and keep them involved? Show Caption Hide Caption Seattle Mariners' newest player shares promotion with family Cole Young announces his move to the big leagues playing for Seattle Mariners during an emotional phone call with his family. BERKELEY, CA – If you saw Antonio Davis on the court, you remember a fierce power forward and rebounder. As he played, he saw failure as something he couldn't afford. 'If you would have taken sport away from me, where would I be today?' says Davis who helped lead the Indiana Pacers to four NBA Eastern Conference finals in the 1990s. 'That's a scary feeling for me, and I don't know what a 6-9 skinny kid would have been doing, but it wouldn't have been pretty. Growing up here in Oakland, I could have done a lot of other things.' We were at March's Project Play Summit, asking him and two other successful men brought up in their own distinct ways through sports, about why they think the athletic participation rate among boys has crashed. As the Pacers play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, a trend you might find troubling lurks at the grass-roots levels. It underscores the thesis of Richard Reeves' 2022 book, 'Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it,' and a more recent brief undertaken by his institute about 'The quiet decline of boys' sports.' According to the latest data from Sports & Fitness Industry Association, half of boys aged 6 to 17 participated regularly in sports in 2013. But only 41% did in 2023. The number has been at 41% or lower for eight straight years as the participation rate for girls (35.6% in 2023) has remained steady. At the same time, according to Reeves' research team, sports are the only extracurricular activity boys are more likely to do than girls. 'It's not like on the average, boys are going to go to theater or math club - maybe they should," Reeves tells USA TODAY Sports. "Participation in youth sports is a big issue in and of itself, but the stakes are even higher for boys than they are for girls, because they're less likely to do other stuff and they need to move more.' How do we get more boys to play sports, and keep the ones who are playing? We spoke with Reeves and sat in on his discussion with Davis and Larry Miller, the chairman of Nike's Jordan Brand advisory board, to help find answers that could help you and your young athlete. Another 'way out' Miller, who grew up in Philadelphia, says he was the teacher's pet through elementary school. He was in junior high when he got distracted. 'The cool guys were doing the stuff that was in the street and I got pulled into that,' he told the crowd in Berkeley. At 16, he killed another teenager he mistakenly believed was a rival, according to and spent years in a juvenile correction center. He rehabilitated himself first by taking college classes in jail, eventually matriculating at Temple University. 'Of all things, as a criminal I decided to get an accounting degree,' he said. After revealing his dark background to a hiring manager cost him a job with Arthur Anderson, he kept the story to himself for 40 years. After Miller built his career at Nike, though, his eldest daughter, Laila, suggested it might inspire other people. They collaborated to write, 'Jump: My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom.' Michael Jordan and Phil Knight, the company's chairman, supported his decision, and he meet with the family of the young man he shot to ask for their forgiveness. In February, Miller launched the Justice and Upward Mobility Project (JUMP) to provide opportunities to those affected by the justice system. 'Part of our goal is how can we provide more opportunity for people who have the talent but just don't have the ability to utilize that talent?' he said. Why not through sports? 'I think in the Black communities, brown communities, the sense of hope has kind of dissipated,' Miller says. 'And I think that's why boys in particular are saying, 'Hey, there's no reason for me to do this, because it's not going to lead to anything.' 'In our community, people saw sports as a way out. And I think what happens as boys advance, (they) realize that, 'I'm not gonna be able to play professionally, I'm not gonna to be able to get a college scholarship, so I'm just going to fall off and try to figure out a different way out. I'm gonna go do something else that can allow me to get paid.' ' A re-education starts, Davis suggests, with a change in perception of what it means to be a kid, and what it means to be a man. 'Get back to the basics': Normalize what success means for kids Davis' dad was killed when he was in high school. He remembers being singularly motivated to provide for his family. After he played for 13 years in the NBA and raised a son (A.J.) and daughter (Kaela) who both played high-level college basketball and professionally, he thinks more about the benefits he got from sports. Today, youth coaches seem to link their self-worth with winning a game more than providing kids with an experience. 'All the pressure that's being put on them by their team and their parents, I just think they're opting to do all the other stuff that's kind of pulling and tugging on them, whether it's playing video games or just hanging out or doing other things,' Davis says. 'I think they're just being kind of turned off. And I feel we just have to get back to the basics of the importance of all the other life lessons that you're going to learn from just playing sport. I'm a big advocate of just give kids space to move around and move their bodies and learn how to be in shape and to be healthy. 'And then as we go on, as I did with my kids, introduce all kinds of sport and whatever they gravitate towards, because that'll be something that'll be tugging at their heart and not forced into.' Coach Steve: American kids get a D- in physical activity. What can we do about it? Davis, who is also the CEO of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, says the No. 1 thing former players say they miss about the NBA is the camaraderie. That's a benefit from sports we all get. 'I've played almost every sport you can think of really badly, but I had a great time,' says Reeves, the British author, who played rugby at the University of Oxford. 'The great thing about sport is that someone has to lose. I think one thing that should be zero-sum in sport is you have to lose. And by God, you can lose brutally sometimes. Some of my strongest memories were playing in subzero temperatures (against) these massive kids and losing like 67-0. So you lose. ... 'And because I moved around from different sports, probably I would lose more. And I think that that sense of you can compete, you can lose, and that's great, was actually an incredibly important life lesson for me because you lose in life all the time.' Coach Steve: Have we lost the sportsmanship in high school sports? What do we 'call a man'? Boys need male role models Reeves, who raised three boys who are now in their 20s, writes in 'Of Boys and Men' about how girls consistently outperform boys in school, and about how men are struggling to fit into society and the workforce. He founded the American Institute For Boys and Men (AIBM), which shares in its brief that while we don't have definitive answers as to why boys might be playing sports less often, one hypothesis behind it is the decline in male teachers who serve as coaches, particularly at the high school level. Meanwhile, according to AIMB research, men account for 23% of U.S. elementary and secondary school teachers, down from about 30% in 1988. 'Coaches of boys sports are mental health professionals in disguise, and part of it is because they do it shoulder to shoulder, which is a much more male friendly way of doing it,' Reeves tells USA TODAY Sports, 'but the coach sitting next to the young man or the boy on the bench saying, 'How you doing? You seem off today. How are things at home?' … that may be one of the most important men in that boy's life. That's very interesting to me, coming from a different culture and raising my kids here, is the almost iconic position of coach in American culture.' Davis was raised in Oakland by his mom. He says his grandmother told him what to avoid, and he had influential men around him who gave him sports opportunities and a safe space. Being a professional athlete, he says, doesn't make you a role model. What does is taking accountability for yourself and what you make out of your life. 'I hate that if we play sport and we don't make it, we feel like a failure,' Davis says. 'Whether you are a young man or a growing man, we have to learn how to take this stance, that no matter what society says, no matter the outcome, I'm doing the things that I'm supposed to do: Being a contributor to my community, taking responsibility if I have kids,' Davis says. 'And we have to find ways to let our kids know that it's OK to hopefully graduate from high school, go off to college if he or she is lucky, and then go on to get a job. 'It's not bad to just say, 'Hey, I got a job. I'm making good money, I'm taking care of my kids, I got a ride that can get me from A to B.' We don't have to have the best car and the biggest house and a pocket full of money in order to be what we call a man.' Ask your kids about what they get out of sports, and always be there to support them Our life in sports doesn't have to end when our career does. Reeves plays squash and tennis, 'and I can still beat my kids at badminton,' he says. Working for Jordan Brand, Miller has gotten to travel the world, where, he says, he can attend any sporting event he wants. 'I never even came close to being a professional athlete,' he says. 'There are all these other incredible benefits that come from playing sports and I think we've gotten away from teaching that: The teamwork you learn, the working with others, the being able to be part of something that's bigger than yourself.' Basketball remains perhaps the most popular sports for boys and girls to play. According to the Aspen Institute's State of Play 2024 report, more than 7 million kids between the ages of 6 and 17 played it regularly in 2023. However, the percentage of kids who play it has declined or remained the same since 2013. 'As I kind of move around and watch a lot of youth basketball, and coach youth basketball, I feel that there's just kind of this pressure: If you're not the best, if you're not going to succeed, then why even try?' says Davis, 56. 'And I think there's a lot of layers to why that happens: Parents, the way that it is today with social media and I think a lot of our young men are getting turned off very early by I guess the system.' He has a grandson who plays football. 'I ask him why is he playing,' Davis says. 'Regardless of what's going on outside of my house and all this other stuff that I can't control, what I can control is his perception: 'Did you learn something? I saw you get knocked on your butt. How did that feel?' We have to fight against it by getting into the heads of your kids and the teams that you run. 'We can't let it take away what we know to be true, which is, if our kids play sports, they're eventually gonna be better off than not playing.' His grandson is a 12-year-old lineman. When Davis watched him recently, though, he was allowed to play quarterback. He took the ball, went a couple of steps, and was tackled. Davis acted like he scored a touchdown. 'I'm not sure why I did it,' he said, 'but I needed him to understand the fact that he did something should be celebrated: that he was out there and he was engaged and he got up and he was smiling and having fun. Like, make that the normal, not being a champion.' Reeves said the anecdote reminded him of when he was 12, and he finally managed to break through that rugby line. As he ran to score, he saw someone tagging along with him on the sideline. It was his father. 'He was more excited than I was,' Reeves said. Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
USA Today
26-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
'Sportsmanship is not sexy': Have we lost the purpose of high school sports?
'Sportsmanship is not sexy': Have we lost the purpose of high school sports? Show Caption Hide Caption Little leaguer hit by ball is quickest to console pitcher who hit him At a 2022 Little League World Series game in Texas, Tulsa player Isaiah Jarvis took a hit to the head and then consoled the pitcher who hit him. USA TODAY Elliot Hopkins has centered his career around a term he feels should embody high school sports. For more than a quarter-century, he has worked on initiatives around the country to promote it at games. Go to your local one, though, and you might not see it. "Sportsmanship is not sexy," says Hopkins, director of student services for the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). "Strangely enough," he says, "this is why sportsmanship really matters: Some people just don't get it because of what they see at other levels or schools in their state or conference. Some parents are bad actors. And then the kids get the same vibe, and then they carry it out into the field. And then you mix in some coaches who don't understand that education-based sports is just that: Education-based." Witness a March basketball playoff game between two Pennsylvania schools – Meadville and Uniontown. A technical foul on the court led to a brawl in the stands among adults. It spilled onto the court. Arrests were made and fans were led off in handcuffs. As spring sports conclude their postseasons through the end of May and into June, state associations and administrators hold their breath. On-campus incidents like this not only occur with frightening regularity, but they sharply distort the deep-rooted message that is the backbone of high school sports. "People immediately think our role is to get students effective for the next level, which is college or major league baseball," Hopkins says. "It's quite the opposite. We believe what we do makes a young person a better human being and a better contributor to society." Instead, emotion, aggression and me-first aggrandizement can interlock into an ugly mess with so much seemingly on the line: NIL money, next-level participation, pay-for-play opportunities on travel teams and social media reputations. How can more kids and parents be better examples and better understand the core values of school-based sports? USA Sports shares perspective from Hopkins' decades-long career and from coaches and leaders who spoke at March's Project Play Summit in Berkeley, California, about the crossroads high school athletics faces. 'One of the last free options': High school sports connects communities and can save lives The goal of Project Play, a national initiative from the Aspen Institute, is to build healthy communities for kids of all ages, races and economic backgrounds through sports. We can think of high school athletics in a similar fashion. Studies have connected them with higher attendance and academic achievement. But prep sports also cuts to the core of our being and sense of belonging. It's a place where we band together to face our most intense rivals, but also one where we shake their hands afterward and where our parents cheerfully sell them and their supporters tickets and hot dogs. Go to rural Virginia, though, and you find moms and dads selling cupcakes and donuts to pay for referees jerseys and lining materials for the field. For every team with million dollar donors to help build fields, there are many others who play at city or regional parks. They depend on the experience. "School-based athletics is one of the last free options to participate," says Franky Navarro, California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) commissioner of Oakland, California. It's a city with a sharp divide in socioeconomic status between zip codes. "It provides opportunity for students," he says. "It builds community and depending on where you're at, it can also serve as violence prevention." According to the most recent survey results from the NFHS, high school sports have more than 8 million participants, a rise from 444,248 since the coronavirus pandemic, an especially dark period for children. During the first 10 months of COVID, 5,568 youth between the ages of 5 and 24 died by suicide, according to the National Institutes of Health. "We had kids taking their own lives because they can't see their teammates," Hopkins says. "We had kids not eating as well as they normally do because, in some cases, they get their best meals when they go to school (and) their best adult supervision is when they have coaches around them. "Ninety-five percent of our kids, if not a higher number, when they hang up their high school jersey, they're done. They're not going on to the next level. They're not going to play in college. They're just gonna be regular people. How have we impacted them for four years?" 'Where were the adults?' High school sports are a chance for us to set better examples We play in front of people we might run into at the grocery store, mall or post office. We see teachers and local Little Leaguers in the bleachers much more often than college coaches. It can be an opportunity to show how much we have grown, but also how far we have to go. "What's going on in high school is a microcosm of what's going on in society," Hopkins says. "We see people cheating. There are fights at games (at the) college and professional level. That's what our kids see, and that's what they want to mirror. A prominent basketball player pushes somebody because of a hard foul, that gives credence. It's like a dog whistle that tells some kids they can do the same thing – because he does it, it must be OK. And it's not OK. We don't do a good enough job to hone in on that." These games center around raw emotion that tests human sensibility. Taunts and gestures can begin on social media earlier in the week, heightening everyone's awareness of what's ahead, "so come Friday night football, there's gonna be a fight in the stands," Hopkins says. He says in recent years, students in Indianapolis have shown up for baseball games against a Jewish school with swastikas on their cheeks, while others in New Mexico have thrown tortillas at a team comprised of predominantly Native American players. A mostly white team in Coronado, California, was stripped of a regional championship when spectators behaved similarly against Latino players. "Where were the adults?" Hopkins say. "Who thought that'd be funny or would be a good idea? And you wonder why the first hard foul or that first pitch is up near the chin of somebody." A number of states, including Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii and Virginia, have adopted zero tolerance policies, resulting in immediate ejection and further discipline against hate speech directed at sex, race, religion, creed, age, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, marital or parental status, sexual orientation or disability. All 51 high school associations, including the District of Columbia, have policies for curbing poor spectator behavior in general. In California, two former NBA players, Robert Horry and Matt Barnes, were ejected from their sons' games for yelling at officials in the last two years. Video showed Horry shouting, "Hey ref … you suck!" while Barnes confronted a student broadcaster for the other team. The CIF recently instituted two bylaws: adult spectators must stay away for three games if ejected; and if you assault a game official you're done attending California high school sports. "It's sad that we had to put them in place," says Ron Nocetti, the CIF's executive director. "And we literally had people say, 'Well, that's not fair.' I mean, wait, you're telling me that you can go and physically assault someone in a parking lot, which we saw happen after a baseball game, and you think you have the right to then come back to our events?' "It's also why we talked about wanting to get more involved in sports at the younger ages. Just look at all the videos you see out there. There's referees literally been chased around basketball courts after games. I mean, that's how sad it has gotten." Coach Steve: Dan Hurley's words could improve parent, coach behavior at games 'Bigger than yourself': High school sports can help us discover who we are The CIF is only authorized to govern ninth through 12th grade athletics, but Nocetti wants to see sports played at every middle school in California. That way, affiliated high schools could partner with them and send their players in to mentor and coach. "Then these students are looking up to those students," he says. Seated with him on stage at Project Play was former University of California soccer player Ari Manrique, who has coached girls at Berkeley High. Manrique was a star who travelled as a member of the U.S. national team at the U-15, U-16 and U-17 levels. But at the end of her career at Cal, she had to medically retire and found herself using her psychology coursework to fully understand her younger athletes. Some days, she says, she went in with a full practice plan but needed to lighten it up after her players were dragging from, say, a chemistry test. "It's not always gonna be 'Go, go, go,' " she says. "It's hard to be a teenager and I think teenagers are feeling that in the ever-changing world that we have – with social media and everything else. Students who already have so much in the education space, now you're asked me to practice after class? Like, 'No, no way.' And they kind of can get lost in this. "I was able to find my love for the sport again in a tough time and see the girls go from maybe deciding to quit after freshman year to seeing them at senior day, they've made it all the way through. And they have no plans of playing in college, but they have a nice group of friends. They got something out of it. They learned. They became a better person because of it." She also has perhaps realized that along her own elite path, taking online courses away form the traditional high school setting, she had missed out. "I think there's something to be said about playing a high school sport, being a part of something bigger than yourself," she says. During an interview earlier this year, USA TODAY Sports asked Luis Robles, a former USMNT goalie and the technical director of MLS NEXT, if he encouraged teens within his youth soccer organization to play the sport in high school. MLS NEXT only recently added a tier to accommodate a prep schedule. "I would stop short of encourage; it's just allowed," Robles said. "I think what we encourage is them to identify the best environment possible for them to develop. And what we've identified as what would be the best environment is where are the best coaches? And if you're under that coach for as long as possible, and you're competing with the best possible competition that aids your development." Hopkins would argue that travel coaches who ask players to skip high school for their team have an educational obligation, too. "I'm not saying those opportunities aren't good for children," he says. "You've got to finish the sentence. They also have to mirror what we're trying to teach because if they never get to play at the high school level, and they just run their career in youth sports and travel ball and things like that, they have to make sure those kids are ready for life as well." Coach Steve: Is it worth it? 10 questions teen athletes need to ask if they play travel sports High school sports is now about NIL; what about sportsmanship? It has all suddenly become much more of a business. Navarro, the CIF Oakland section commissioner, has found himself asking former collegiate athletes in his office to help students figure out the landscape of Name, Image and Likeness. NIL has exploded into a money-making opportunity. High school athletes, depending on their state, can create their own brand and try to profit off of it. The chances increase when they get to college, especially if they are top recruits. "What happens if you get a deal, what do you do?" Navarro says. "I think for many of our students that never have had the opportunity to earn income, it becomes a challenge when they do arrive at a college level and are beginning to earn." Hopkins, 67, who played on the defensive line at Wake Forest from 1975 to 1979, doesn't see the system as sustainable. "You just can't keep doing this long term, because what happens is you and I are teammates and you get a bigger deal than I am, but I'm blocking for you," he says. "I'm like, 'What the heck? You wouldn't be getting any money if I didn't block for you. I need more money so you can do your job,' and the whole locker room becomes frazzled, and then no one trusts each other, no one wants to work for each other. They're out for themselves." To him, NIL is be another disruptive force to that magic "s" word he and NFHS are holding up these days like a placard. "Sportsmanship is a demonstration of fair play, respect and gracious behavior," he says. "We have not seen a lot of stories of that. And it's not a political thing. It's just where we are right now as a country, and we need to get back to the middle, because if you raise a bunch of kids who don't have fair play, respect or gracious behavior, we're going to end up raising and allowing those kids to grow up having kids with little bit of a different attitude, and that's gonna to kill the sport. "And you can fill in the blank of whatever sport it is." Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
ESPN wants kids to enjoy playing sports again and in investing $5 million to push effort
Over the past decade — and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic — participation in organized youth sports has been steadily declining. Experts cite numerous reasons for this trend — the most prevalent being things like lack of access to facilities or programs, onerous costs, time constraints and the pressure to win and/or excel, among others. The outlet that bills itself as the network that serves sports fans "Anytime. Anywhere," ESPN, is determined to do something about this unfortunate trend. Last month, the media giant announced that, in collaboration with NBA superstar Steph Curry and wife Ayesha Curry's Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, it was spending $5 million on a year-long initiative called 'Take Back Sports' — with the stated goal of getting more kids to play sports and, even more importantly, have fun while doing so. The announcement was made at the Aspen Institute's Project Play Summit — where ESPN serves on the '63X30' committee. The committee's goal is to have 63% of kids playing sports by 2030 — a rather ambitious goal based on recent statistics. According to data from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Aspen Institute's 'State of Play 2024' report, only 38% of kids ages 6-12 played sports on a regular basis in 2023. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that, in 2022, only 33% of children living in poverty participated in youth sports. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the percentage of high school youth playing on at least one sports team dropped from 57% in 2019 to a 21st-century low of 49% in 2021. 'It's time to take back youth sports from a system that has prioritized profit over well-being,' said Kevin Martinez, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at ESPN. 'Travel leagues have overtaken recreational leagues, specialization has replaced multisport play, and winning has come at the expense of fun. We need to shift the focus back to what matters — making sports accessible, enjoyable and rewarding for all kids. With ESPN's deep sports expertise and unwavering commitment to community impact, we are uniquely positioned to help drive this change to elevate the conversation, invest in meaningful solutions and unite stakeholders to reimagine youth sports for the next generation.' Martinez explained that the $5 million investment ESPN is making will target the following areas: 1. Community recreational leagues, where kids of all skill levels and backgrounds will have a place to play. 2. Quality training for coaches so they can develop the skills critical for helping make sports enjoyable for kids. To this end, ESPN is teaming up with Positive Coaching Alliance and the National Recreation and Park Association as part of the 'Million Coaches Challenge' to provide training to coaches throughout the country. 3. Encouragement of multisport play in an effort to prevent injuries and burnout. By playing multiple sports, kids will develop more rounded skills and become better all-around athletes. develop into stronger athletes. Among the multisport programs that ESPN is investing in are the Boys & Girls Clubs of America ALL STARS program, as well as 2-4-1 Sports. 4. Promoting fun in sports, which is the most critical component for getting kids to participate in sports and stay with them. According to a study by the National Institute of Health, children cite 'fun' as the primary reason for participation in organized sports — and that its absence is the No. 1 reason while they'll stop participating in a sport. Megan Buning, a teaching specialist at Florida State University in the Interdisciplinary Center for Athletic Coaching and a former All-American softball pitcher at the University of South Carolina, specializes in the crossover of sports and classroom concepts, and strategies to improve coaching and teaching practices. She's also a wife, mother and youth sports coach. While she believes strongly in the overall benefits of youth sports, she's also seen firsthand what happens when they go awry. 'Unfortunately, I see young athletes burning out because they feel pressure to constantly train or play,' said Buning. 'Sometimes this pressure is self-created, and other times the pressure is created by parents and/or coaches. If our youth are not allowed to rest, take a break from the sport, or to explore other activities, then they are more likely to quit the sport.' When young athletes — no matter their ability level — quit playing sports, Buning believes they lose out on an array of valuable life lessons. 'Athletes learn from a young age how to work toward a common goal and work through failure,' she explained. 'Athletes usually fail more often than they succeed in sports, and each time they fail and try again, they strengthen their ability to be resilient. Another benefit to youth sports participation is athletes learn discipline and develop a work ethic. Any amount of practice requires time management, practicing when you don't feel like it and doing the same things repeatedly. All of this teaches a work ethic and discipline that will benefit them later in life.' Buning lauds ESPN's commitment to helping increase youth sports participation and stressed that, beyond the corporation's efforts, parents play a critical role in ensuring that their kids' experiences are ones they'll remember fondly. 'For parents, one of the best ways to support their young athletes is to work on productive pre- and post-game discussions,' she noted. 'Parents can completely change how youth athletes respond and handle emotions with how they speak and respond to performances. Supportive, positive and encouraging conversations can be a huge factor in making sure they continue participating in youth sports.' This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: ESPN Take Back Sports campaign to promote fun in youth sports
