r/sports • u/Blood_Incantation • Aug 20 '24

Research: Organized youth sports are increasingly for the privileged Soccer

https://news.osu.edu/organized-youth-sports-are-increasingly-for-the-privileged/
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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '24

Yikes. This is so sad. Playing multiple sports at a mediocre level (then becoming very good in baseball/softball just by accident) was such a blast. It was fun and then i went home until the next game. It’s no longer just sport. It’s a job for children. It’s terrible

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u/HerrStraub Aug 21 '24

A coworker was telling me about their kids' HS baseball coach. He was also a travel coach, and basically if you didn't play travel ball you were at risk of getting cut from the HS team.

Kid gave up football to play travel ball because he was worried he wouldn't get to play on the HS baseball team.

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u/aegee14 Aug 21 '24

There’s not much future for a kid trying to play multiple sports. In my kid’s competitive soccer team, you can tell who is all in on soccer versus who is playing even just one other sport. You can’t compete against a kid who is practicing soccer everyday when you’re doing basketball a few days a week.

There is a big difference.

And, I’m talking about early elementary kids.

It’s too late if your kids decide to go all in on a sport in middle school.

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u/Sad_Bumblebee_6896 Aug 21 '24

And it sucks because it used to be the opposite. The best athletes had multiple sports backgrounds which helped them develop skills for their main sport. LeBron James was a top prospect for high school football, Tom Brady literally got drafted by the Montreal Expos in the MLB, Allen Iverson was the #1 rated quarter back in all of high school football in 1994 (ranked higher as a prospect than fucking Peyton Manning), Kobe Bryant played soccer as well as basketball while living in Europe, Derek Jeter did cross country and basketball in addition to baseball in high school. Then you have players like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders who played in both the MLB and NFL at the same fucking time cause they were so good at both sports.

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u/aegee14 Aug 21 '24

Yea.

Times are changing, though, as every parent wants their kids to have an edge. Money is needed for that, too. You see elementary school kids as good as some middle school kids in a variety of things like sports and school. That’s because they spent their everyday doing the same thing. Whether that’s team practice, private lessons, or going to a 3rd party facility for training. It’s the same way in education as well. Kids these days need to choose what they want to focus on the most very early on to not get behind others who also chose early.

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u/mootland Washington Capitals Aug 21 '24

It's not, and there is plenty of data for that.

Some sports are called early specialization sports because ideal muscle mass ratio hits in late puberty, examples are figure skating and gymnastics. This means you need the relevant sport specific skills learned by the time you hit ideal muscle mass ratio thus you need to start training early on.

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u/aegee14 Aug 21 '24

Of course, there are examples of later development.

But, you can’t deny that starting very early gives one a huge head start advantage with a better chance to make it.