Louisiana ranks second to last in the U.S. in sports participation rates for girls (39%), behind only Mississippi, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health. Far more Louisiana boys (55%) participate in sports. A similar gender gap exists in Baton Rouge.

Sports offerings are only as good as the ability to market them. Families need to know how and when to register, costs to play, scholarship opportunities, locations of practices and games, and much more. We heard from parents who say they don’t have enough information about available sports programs, including costs.

Very few children or parents we spoke with said children play outside on their own. That’s a shame. The loss of free play costs children opportunities to exercise creativity, set and achieve goals, learn interpersonal skills and develop a love of physical activity for its own sake. Baton Rouge is not unique.

We heard positive and negative sports experiences from Baton Rouge youth. Many talked about the joy and freedom they feel when they play, describing how sports are an escape from problems in life. In addition, too many young people told us they feel anxious and pressured by adults in sports.

Baton Rouge leads the U.S. with 1.6 recreation or senior centers for every 10,000 residents, according to the Trust for Public Land. But the quality of many rec centers is lacking.

East Baton Rouge Parish Schools offers magnet programs to retain students, but that has consequences for extracurricular activities: Thousands of students don’t attend schools near their homes and are transported right after school back to their homes. For many children, their only way home is the school bus, which can be a long ride across the parish.

Changes in the climate increasingly expose football players (and all athletes in outdoor sports) to higher temperatures and dangerous levels of humidity that surpass recommended safety thresholds. Not only football is being affected, of course. How, or if, children play sports and recreate outdoors continues to be impacted by climate change, and the challenges are not going away.

Many youth sports providers in the public and private sectors don’t communicate much with each other, in part due to distrust of each other. There is a belief by some that no intersection exists between people who strive to use sports as an economic engine and people who focus on providing affordable, quality access for all children. The divide between the haves and have-nots in youth sports within East Baton Rouge Parish resembles that in the educational environment.