News
Original content from the Aspen Institute
In our youth survey, children who indicated they don’t play sports very often cited lack of program information — it was the sixth-most-popular reason among 16 answer choices.
Low- and medium-income youth are two to three times more likely than the wealthiest children to lack enough information on sports programming.
Washington D.C. is filled with many quality and well-intentioned sports providers, coaches and government and school officials who want to make a difference in the lives of children. They just often operate in silos and without a cohesive vision to leverage assets and help grow quality access to sports for all children.
Since DCPS launched its athletic training program in 1991, student sports participation in the system has tripled while the number of athletic trainers (ATs) has barely budged. The AT shortage was a crucial topic during DCPS teacher contract negotiations in 2024, at which time DCIAA (the district’s public high school athletic league) said it planned to hire a 15th athletic trainer. When DCPS added middle school sports in 2004-05, ATs asked for more staff, but no additions were made, so they became stretched thin even more trying to care for both middle and high school athletes.
Washington D.C. is viewed as a national leader for parks. In 2024, it was named by Trust for Public Land as having the best big-city park system in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive year. Twenty-four percent of District land is reserved for parks, among the highest in the country. The District also outperforms most of the U.S. in park-equity metrics among different races and ethnicities.
The gender gap for sports participation in D.C. is real and problematic. Only 53% of District girls participated on a sports team of any kind in 2022 and 2023, compared to 70% of boys. That’s the largest gender gap for U.S. states, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health. Our youth survey also showed that D.C. girls are less physically active than boys, according to CDC- recommended levels.
Simply finding coaches is increasingly challenging in D.C. Less free time, longer work hours, limited pay for coaches and hassles with parents are among the reasons it’s hard to find coaches, who are the backbone of youth sports. The best coaches are mentors, role models and inspirations for generations of young athletes — some of whom will grow up to coach as well.
The Aspen Institute’s State of Play Washington D.C. report, released in 2025, explored the role sports can play to reduce student truancy in schools. High levels of involvement in school sports are one of the strongest correlations with lower risk of cutting or skipping class and school misbehavior, according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation.
Charter schools comprise 36% of Washington, D.C.’s high school population, but only 22% of high school sports participants. Similar challenges to grow sports participation occur at the elementary and middle school levels for charters, which struggle more than any other school stakeholder to access facility space and financial investments for sports.
Oakland’s passion for sports was recognized by the Aspen Institute in “State of Play Oakland,” the 11th community report from our Project Play initiative. Two data points stood about above all: only 14% of Oakland youth received the 60 minutes of physical activity per day recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (below the U.S. average of 23%). And just 9% of Oakland girls were sufficiently physically active. The good news is many organizations and leaders in the city saw the numbers and got to work.
Last week, Boston became the 10th city to endorse the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports when Mayor Michele Wu signed the Project Play-developed statement at a public event and announced $300,000 in grants to support 55 community-based organizations. In adopting it, the mayor affirmed that “the City’s approach to youth sports will center the needs of youth, invest in play and qualified coaches, and commit to safe, healthy sports environments for all youth.”
The Aspen Institute recognizes Boston for its leadership and encourages other cities to take note of the experiment unfolding there – an example of how a municipality can unlock opportunities for youth through sports. Here, we explore one key innovation: a youth sports directory.
Currently, national participation in an organized sport is 54%. Urban, suburban and rural communities across the country are coming together to share knowledge about what’s working and how to solve issues around the barriers they are facing. Two philanthropic organizations, the Names Family Foundation (Tacoma, WA) and Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation (Southeast Michigan and Western New York), and the Aspen Institute are partnering to bring together philanthropists and community leaders to reach that 63% through the Project Play Communities Council.
Every child has the right to play sports and, when in the care of adults, the human rights they are born with need to be respected. This simple idea informs the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports, a resource designed to create a shared cultural understanding that all youth should have the opportunity to develop as people through sports.
States have been reluctant, historically, to establish rules and impose mandates on youth sports organizations. But in recent years, some have begun providing substantial public resources and setting up guardrails for young children involved in organized athletics outside of schools. The absence of federal regulation, social upheavals let loose during the pandemic, and persistence of the problems with the American “system” of youth sports—low participation rates in poor communities, an epidemic of overuse injuries in others, and a lack of systematic training or oversight of coaches—have spurred the changes in state behavior.
TAKOMA PARK, Maryland – It’s 3:40 pm on a fall afternoon, and as classes let out, about 40 children flood into the outdoor patio at Rolling Terrace Elementary School. They come for snacks and soccer and receive life lessons along the way.
On this day, many are antsy to play soccer, tying their free cleats and chatting loudly with friends rather than listening to their mentors discuss what optimism and persistence mean. Lukas Barbieri, a high school student who is the youngest of Rolling Terrace’s soccer mentors, eventually quiets the kids down.
“Does anyone remember what optimism means?” Barbieri asks.
“Helping your friends,” says one child. “Being thoughtful,” adds another.
“Sort of,” Barbieri replies. “Optimism means you have to believe in yourself.”
In a sense, this scene represents what optimism for youth sports looks like.
The Aspen Institute studied the governance models and ecosystem results in 11 peer countries, with a focus on youth sport participation rates and elite performance – the grassroots and treetops. The countries studied vary in population, geography, culture and forms of government, but all have found success in either youth sports or elite sports, or both.
Norway has the population of Minnesota. But that that didn’t stop the tiny Scandinavian country from topping the medal standings at the recently completed Beijing Olympics, just as it did in 2018 at the PyeongChang Games. Indeed, this time, its athletes won a record 16 gold medals across six disciplines. The performance burnished Norway’s reputation as having the best sport system in the world, both in elite performance and making a meaningful contribution to communities and its democracy. We invited three architects of Norway’s sport system to share their insights.
