Why Kobe’s last chapter was his best

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

Let me tell you a story about Kobe Bryant that has not been shared before. It’s one that speaks, I think, to the true character of the man we just lost, all of us, in ways that can only be fully appreciated when a force of enormous creativity, drive and purpose comes to rest – and there is no more inertia, just waves of impact washing over us, each bigger than we anticipated at the start of the day.

Last August, we launched a major public awareness campaign called Don’t Retire, Kid. By we, I mean Project Play, our Aspen Institute initiative that aims to build healthy communities through sports with the help of many organizations that touch the lives of kids.

You may have seen the lead PSA. A 9-year-old boy announces at a press conference that he is “retiring from sports” because the adults have gone haywire. He got into this to have fun with his friends, and … well, you know the rest. Kobe needed to like the spot because he was going to launch the campaign for us, pro bono, on social media and ESPN.

“What do you think?” I asked him, in a room at ESPN’s LA studios.

“It’s OK,” he said, curtly, lips pursing with that familiar intensity.

Of the four languages Kobe spoke, body language was his loudest.

He wasn’t happy, and, having talked with him about the campaign for nearly a year, I knew why – the Mamba wanted a more aggressive script. He didn’t just want to wake up sports parents to the undue pressures they are putting on kids to perform. He wanted to punch them in the nose, these adults, many of whom were surely his fans.

Now, mind you, the script was already pretty direct. The truth it put on the table was uncomfortable, that we’re screwing it up for the next generation and that all of us – leagues, media, tech, athletes, coaches, schools, colleges and policymakers – need to be better stewards of the institution of youth sports. When the average kid quits sports by age 11, as our research shows, we collectively have a systemic problem.

As a trained journalist with a long history of trying to push truth into the jockosphere, I was thrilled that ESPN was prepared to run the spot hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the coming months.

He didn’t just want to wake up sports parents to the undue pressures they are putting on kids to perform. He wanted to punch them in the nose, these adults, many of whom were surely his fans.

Kobe wanted more edge, because to him it was personal. The first time we had lunch about Project Play, two years earlier, he told me about a game in which he was coaching his daughter Gianna’s team. The opposing coach was screaming at his players, berating them for mistakes. This went on the whole game, Kobe’s temper growing. He knew from being coached well that this isn’t coaching well. And he hated to see the girls on that team suffer from the emotional abuse.

During post-game handshakes, Kobe told me, he stopped the coach, looked directly into his eyes and, with the same quiet if intense fury once directed at NBA rivals – he demonstrated this for me – said, If you EVER act like that in another game in which I am coaching, you are going to have to deal with me. And trust me, you don’t want that.

At that moment, I knew Kobe was sincere about our project. I had never heard an athlete talk with such passion about sticking up for kids. Or ask as many sophisticated questions about our work.

“How do you approach the debate around participation trophies?”

“How do you mobilize organizations to change the game?”

“How do you tell your stories?”

Most pro athletes are one-way streets. You ask, they tell. Comes with the territory, a lifetime of being put on a pedestal in which you are treated as the center of the universe and nothing is as interesting as you. Here, in Kobe, I had one of the world’s true sports icons being curious about realms well beyond the arena, committed to learning, unafraid of the unchartered, and offering to give voice to the voiceless.

I didn’t have to sell him on anything. He was just in, eager to deploy his assets – his champion’s credibility, his social network, his advocacy, his international reach – to improve an institution that impacts the lives of youth. We chose Arnold Worldwide, the Boston-based agency that built Don’t Retire, Kid, based on his recommendation and that of his deft marketing chief, Molly Carter. Kobe moderated a panel with children at our Project Play Summit, to help tease out what kids want from a sports experience. For our Healthy Sport Index, he supplied a list of companion sports that basketball players can use to build skills and health (he also suggested meditation, to focus the mind).

Here, in Kobe, I had one of the world’s true sports icons being curious about realms well beyond the arena, committed to learning, unafraid of the unchartered, and offering to give voice to the voiceless.

My favorite athlete as a child was Roberto Clemente, for the style in which he played and his obvious care for others. His 1972 death from a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission left a hole in our hearts but opened up something to be filled as well by citizen-athletes, like Kobe using the modern tools of social change.

I learned of his passing shortly before I boarded a flight in Washington D.C, just as I was about to call my youngest child, Kellen, the boy holding a basketball aloft on the cover of my book, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. He’s 16 now, a soccer athlete who hasn’t played organized hoops since middle school but like his big brother Cole has always admired Kobe above all athletes. I apologized by text that I couldn’t call, with all the news coming in. He texted me back:

No problem, I have been reflecting on the impact he (Kobe) had on my life. His work ethic, determination, and what he did to give back to society. He was more than a basketball player to me and his legacy will forever live on. Hope you are doing well with this and we can talk later. Love Kellen.

With that, I cried so hard one of the contacts in my eyes fell out. I didn’t know that was possible. We learn something new every day. Including: Money isn’t the only way an athlete can change the world. LeBron represents the gold standard when it comes to athletes deploying dollars for good, and God bless him – we need more like him. Kobe donated in places too, but he also knew his lane. He sought culture change, building on the foundation, established over a long NBA career with just one team, of the personal characteristics he embodied.

He wasn’t perfect. He flashed ego and made errors that altered his life and that of others. A friend of mine likened him to Our Lady Di, flawed but beloved. But the better angels of his nature carried the day.

“Sport is the vehicle through which we change the world,” Kobe said in my interview with him in 2018. “The next generation is going to carry this world forward.”

That he died while traveling by helicopter to a youth basketball game, with his daughter and others he brought along for the ride, is not ironic. It is consistent with what he cared about: fatherhood, imagination, and youth sports as a tool of human development. My heart breaks at the horror he must have felt in those final moments, knowing the life of his child might end right there, at age 13, with no chance to flower further.

I am also sad for everything that lay ahead for Kobe, who at 41 was just getting started on his post-life mission. He was laying the groundwork to push so much good into the world, through his books, podcasts and other projects aimed at children. He had more to give Project Play. As a major donor to the construction of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he was granted one free lifetime use of the facility. He offered that to us, for our annual Summit.

We will gather at a different venue in Washington D.C. this October, at a space and date to be announced in the coming weeks. And when we do, he will be appreciated. Not just for his contributions to Don’t Retire, Kid, now up for several international awards. Or the advice he shared with parents on our platforms. But for building a life that helped build that of others. For being an original, in service of the future.

“Dream Big, Live Epic,” he scrawled on one of our Summit boards.

Now it’s up to us to be as impatient as he was with progress.

Tom Farrey (@tomfarrey) is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program (@AspenInstSports), and a former ESPN journalist. Watch videos and learn about Kobe Bryant’s perspectives on youth sports, as well as other contributions to Project Play, here.

The story was originally posted here.

Aspen Institute Mexico creates its own Project Play for kids sports

Dieter Holtz

As a lifetime swimmer, from the starting blocks in Mexico City to the roster of Florida State University men’s swim team, I know firsthand the role sports play in shaping a child’s future — not just academically, but socially, and personally. So, I have spent many years back in my country as a strong advocate for physical activity improvements in the Mexican system.

In November, my colleagues and I presented the Aspen Institute Mexico’s very own “Playbook Mexico.” It’s the culmination of two years of research bringing together kids, parents, trainers, experts in the field, companies, brands, Olympic athletes, NGOs, the academic sector and government officials to identify nine barriers, and their possible solutions, that we face in developing and sustaining youth sport participation. The project was inspired by the framework and methodology of Project Play, which the Sports & Society Program has used to help stakeholders build healthy communities through sports in the US.

The launch event for our report was held at Universidad Anahuac Norte in Mexico City and was made up of a panel of leaders from the Aspen Institute Mexico, the US, contributors from the university’s faculty, as well as past and former Olympic athlete speakers, and a panel of kids. The audience consisted of parents, coaches, education and health professionals, brands such as Nike, media representatives, NGOs, academic experts and government officials.

The interest in our playbook follows the great need for solutions. Mexico, a nation of 126 million with 31.1% of the population below the age of 17, has one of the highest obesity rates in the world. One in three youth, ages 6 to 19, are overweight or obese, and more than half (51%) of the youth between ages 10 and 14 are physically inactive. Sports play a major role in addressing these problems, as the instinct of children is to play – but often in Mexico, they have no place to do so or are discouraged from participating.

We knew we had to identify barriers and develop strategies specific to Mexico, just as the Sports & Society Program developed a framework specific to the structure and culture of youth sports in the US. Below is what we came up with, all mapping to a vision of Mexico, where all children have the opportunity to be active through sports.

Barrier 1: Early discouraging experiences
Strategy 1: Let’s build up a good beginning
By asking kids what they want, and letting them play naturally, we can increase the probability of them staying in sports. Before age 10, if kids have positive experiences in an activity, they are more likely to continue it in the long run.

Barrier 2: Limited options, more of the same
Strategy 2: Motivate them to try new alternatives
We tend to stick to a few mainstream sports, or only those easily accessible, but we can be innovative with the space and tools we have in order to let kids try new things, or even make up a new game. This enhances kids’ abilities, prevents boredom, and allows them pick and choose what they’re good at or like the most.

Barrier 3: Lack of adults as healthy models
Strategy 3: Adults as role models
Often, the problem lies in the households where parents aren’t setting a healthy and active example for their kids. There is a strong correlation between parents that are involved in sports and activities and their kids doing the same.

Barrier 4: Insecure and inaccessible environments for children
Strategy 4: Create adequate public spaces for kids and their characteristics
29 out of 32 entities in Mexico point to lack of security as the main concern. It’s paramount that we have accessible and secure spaces to practice activities, and that the infrastructure is adequate for children (i.e. a basketball hoop scaled to kids’ heights vs. 2 meters tall).

Barrier 5: Deficiencies in educational plans and programs
Strategy 5: Make and design a plan
Mexico’s P.E. programs are quite limited in offering only 50 to 60 minutes a week of physical activity for children. Children between the ages of 5 and 12 should be doing 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Technology is a great avenue to develop apps and online platforms that contain games and activities for kids to play. Also, the education sector can restructure their educational plans to include more P.E. time for the kids during school hours.

Barrier 6: Exclusion and discrimination during sports practice
Strategy 6: The games know no differences
Mexico is among the most diverse countries in the world — with different ways of thinking, interests and cultures, all of which can lead to discrimination and exclusion. Unfortunately, kids with a disability or are part of a minority don’t have the same opportunities in school, sports, and socially. We encourage the implementation of more inclusive programs and teaching kids to be more inclusive. The media and parents play a big role in this change as well.

Barrier 7: Deficiencies in human resources
Strategy 7: Strengthen training programs
Trainers and P.E. teachers should instill self-sufficiency and confidence in children. Emotional support and interpersonal communication from such trainers and role models are key tools for kids to be motivated to participate and continue to be involved in sports over the long run. The development of apps, platforms, and social programs to certify more trainers, as well as the introduction of P.E. teachers in schools, is crucial.

Barrier 8: Deficiencies in the use of media
Strategy 8: Effective use and optimization of media
The support of mass media and new technologies in the diffusion of activities, events, and community opinion in sport is extremely important. The more we generate conversations about the importance of physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, as well as sports campaigns directed to kids and adults to educate them about the benefits, the more we can increase participation and combat the obesity epidemic in Mexico.

Barrier 9: Absence of evaluation, monitoring, and research in Mexico
Strategy 9: Strengthen research for the development of solutions 
We need to create a national evaluation system so that all schools can implement tests that are simple, reliable, and safe to create a control and parameter of advancement in the physical capabilities of children.

To surmount these barriers, it is vital that the key players in our society come together to work symbiotically in service of and for the future of our children. We need engagement from: government, schools, public health organizations, sport associations, businesses, parents, the social sector, the media, and technology organizations.

It is Aspen Mexico´s duty to promote this research and to help permeate these solutions throughout Mexico. In the coming years, we want to develop “local guides,” akin to the community-focused State of Play reports produced in the US, that build on our national report and can help leaders in different areas of the country increase childhood activity levels. Leaders in various cities and states have expressed interest in this goal. We also will work with the Sports & Society Program to adapt and distribute existing resources that may be of use here.

Progress will take time and investment. But we are confident that the work put in by all who contributed to the development of the Aspen Institute Mexico’s work will continue in the coming years, for which I am deeply grateful. This will result in significant changes in the lives of our youth and our society.

Our hope is that everyone who reads or hears about our effort will understand how vital it is that we come together and contribute in whatever capacity we can.

So, please, if you want to believe in the vision we share, reach out if you think you might be able to hop on board and help us implement these solutions.

Dieter Holtz is CEO of Upfield and a board member of The Aspen Institute of Mexico, one of 11 countries where the Institute has affiliates. The project manager for Project Play in Mexico is Tatiana Vertiz, who can be reached at tatianav@aspeninstitutemexico.org. Learn more about how Project Play has begun helping other countries build healthier kids and communities here.

The story was originally posted here.

Romania deploys Project Play to get more kids active in sports

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

Among the few buildings in the world larger than the Pentagon, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is so colossal, so dense and byzantine in its layout, people here say that only the occupant who commissioned it, the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, knew how to navigate all its marbled hallways.

Who knew one hallway would someday lead to Project Play?

That day, to be exact, was Sept. 26, 2019, when about 130 leaders found their way to a large ballroom two levels up to participate in the Joacă Pentru Viaţă Summit, or the Play for Life Summit. The goal: Rethink the delivery of sport for youth in the former Eastern Bloc country, to get more of them involved.

The president of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee was there. So were top politicians, the acting Sports Minister, officials from the Ministry of Education, and Olympic medalists. The day began with a video message from reigning Wimbledon champion Simona Halep, who offered her congratulations to the Aspen Institute Romania, host of the event.

“There’s nothing better for kids than to be encouraged, at first through play, towards exercise, sports and a healthy and productive adult life,” said Halep, the country’s most celebrated athlete. “Not all of today’s kids will end up winning a Grand Slam or Olympic medal, but they will be representing a competitive generation, ready to face life successfully. Good luck to the Play for Life Summit. I am with you!”

Over the past year, Aspen Romania has used our Project Play framework to convene leaders with the aim of developing a national plan for getting more children active through sports. While Project Play was created for U.S. purposes, two of the 11 countries where the Aspen Institute has international affiliates – Aspen Mexico will release its plan in November – are now partnering with their Olympic committees to create strategies to build healthier children and communities through sports.

These are their programs, and we support them where we can.

In Bucharest, that meant sharing the process our Sports & Society Program and its partners have used to build Project Play as an engine of progress in the U.S. It’s our Theory of Change, if you will, for Romanian leaders to borrow from as needed.

Step One: Organize the Thought

Launched in 2013, Project Play spent the first two years convening leaders – 300 of them at roundtables where we posed questions on a range of youth sport topics. We took a lot of notes, surfaced the best ideas, then packaged the best of them into what became our seminal report, Sport for All, Play for Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game, with its eight strategies for the eight sectors that touch the lives of children.

The document was a critical step in laying a foundation for collective impact. It helped define what good looks like in youth sports, and the areas of opportunity for stakeholders. It created the conditions for the energy and money in youth sports – a $17 billion industry, at a minimum – to move less at cross-purposes. While programs that serve low-income youth could use more support, investments need to align with the needs of children and the research around how to build an athlete for life.

As with any country, Romania will need to develop a plan that recognizes its unique assets, limitations, culture and history. In the U.S., for instance, “Train All Coaches” is a key strategy, in recognition that most youth coaches are volunteers who are winging it. In Romania, where government-supported sport clubs provide programs, nearly all coaches are paid, educated and certified.

The training that many of them receive, however, is focused on identifying promising children and developing them into elite athletes – a holdover from the old Soviet-era system. The challenge now is how to train them in competencies like teaching social and emotional skills through sports, in all youth.

Step Two: Organize the Organizations

It’s hard to trigger systems-level change without getting the organizations at the center of that system to develop policies, practices and programs that map to the shared vision. In the U.S., we use a variety of tools to encourage cooperation and action: Project Play 2020 and Project Play Champions, which mobilizes industry leaders and non-profits; our community projects; and the annual Project Play Summit, where last month 550 leaders gathered for two days of panels and workshops.

Romania is well on its way to getting all the right organizations at the table. A key partner is the Romanian Olympic and Sport Committee, whose president, Mihai Covaliu, called for a reboot of the Romanian sport system at the Play for Life Summit.

For a while, Romania was able to rely on the old, authoritarian system to achieve results on the world stage. Romania won 26 medals at the 2000 Olympics, a decade after Ceausescu was executed, ending communist rule. Its female gymnasts dominated the 1990s, building on the legacy of Nadia Comaneci and the authoritarian coach Bela Karolyi in the 1970s.

By the 2016 Rio Olympics, Romania’s medal count had fallen to just four, across all sports. None were in gymnastics, and in Tokyo next year, as in Rio, the women’s team did not qualify.

“Too few of our children know how to run, jump and play,” said Covaliu, a former Olympic champion fencer. “We need to fix that. Mass sport sits at the base of all sport success.”

Step Three: Organize the Gatekeepers

That would be the parents, ultimately the most influential agents in the lives of children. In the U.S., our surveys show that more than 9 of 10 parents appreciate the value of sports and want their child to have positive, sustained experience. But they’re often lost on how to guide their child, leading to high attrition rates. It’s why Project Play 2020 launched the Don’t Retire Kid campaign in August, to drive them to solutions.

Romania faces a different challenge, according to leaders – parents withholding their child from sport activity. Some just don’t appreciate the value of physical activity, sending their children to school with medical notes exempting them from P.E. Others worry about introducing them to sport clubs where coaches demand performance from kids at too early of an age.

“We need to let the children enjoy playing and see what flows from that,” said Ciprian Paraschiv, development manager at the Romanian Football Federation. “As the Pope said last year, ‘Every child has a right not to be a champion.’”

It is impressive to see what Romanian leaders are already putting in place, in support its new vision. A tournament comprised of middle school teams, supported by the Olympic committee. A festival in Bucharest in June where thousands of kids got to sample 40 sports, collect stamps at each station, and connect with local clubs. Downloadable decks of playing cards that coaches can use to talk productively with kids.

Aspen Romania has asked if its staff can translate some of our tools, such as the Project Play Parent Checklists. Here you go. Happy to share, where feasible. Hope it’s useful.

Can’t say any of this was in Project Play’s Theory of Change. Certainly not Romania, 22 hours away by flight from my home in California.

But we’re beyond thrilled to see the framework travels well.

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, home of Project Play. He can be followed on Twitter at @TomFarrey and reached at Tom.Farrey@aspeninstiute.org.

Learn more about the Joacă Pentru Viaţă Summit here.

Staying in the game: Progress and challenges in youth sports

Jon Solomon
Editorial Director, Sports & Society Program

In the often confusing and frustrating world of youth sports, some progress is being made. The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program’s Project Play discovered these trends within research of kids ages 6 to 12:

• The percentage of kids playing team sports on a regular basis increased for the third consecutive year. Baseball, cheerleading, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, swimming, tennis, volleyball and wrestling all registered positive bumps.

• Fewer kids were physically inactive for the fourth consecutive year.

• Multisport play continued to make a slight comeback.

Those are among the key findings from the Aspen Institute’s State of Play 2019 report released today on how well stakeholders served children through sports over the past year. To that end, the Project Play 2020 campaign, “Don’t Retire, Kid” campaign, raises awareness about gaps in the youth sports system that cause kids to quit sports or not start in the first place – and solutions to keep them in the game.

But major gaps remain. While regular sports participation increased to 38% in 2018, it’s still far from the level of 45% in 2008. Kids from lower-income homes are more than three times as likely to be physically inactive. Families are spending on average almost $700 per child for one sport each year, with some parents spending tens of thousands of dollars. And less than three of 10 youth coaches have been trained within the past year.

Below is Project Play’s annual release of charts showing the national landscape in youth sports compared to past years. Unless otherwise noted, all data were provided to the Aspen Institute by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), which in 2018 commissioned an online survey of 20,069 individuals through Sports Marketing Surveys.

On average, a family annually spends $693 per child in one sport, according to a 2019 national survey of youth-sports parents by the Aspen Institute and Utah State University Families in Sport Lab. The most expensive sports: ice hockey ($2,583), skiing/snowboarding ($2,249), field hockey ($2,125), gymnastics ($1,580), and lacrosse ($1,289). The latest expensive: track and field ($191), flag football ($268), skateboarding ($380), cross country ($421), and basketball ($427).

The average child today spends less than three years playing a sport and quits by age 11, most often because the sport just isn’t fun anymore, according to the Aspen Institute/Utah State parent survey. The sports with the longest shelf life: field hockey, skiing/snowboarding, and flag football.

More than four in 10 coaches reported having never received training in concussion management, general safety and injury prevention, physical conditioning, and effective motivational techniques. The latest numbers also make clear that when coaches do get trained, it’s typically not on an annual basis.

Given how difficult it is to find volunteer coaches, the 2018 numbers continue to show how more coaches can be added. Only 27% of youth coaches were female, up from 23% in 2017 but still very low. There are also very few coaches of high school and college age, and not many senior citizens who coach.

Good news: The percentage of kids who play at least one day during the year has held steady for five straight years since increasing in 2014. Also, the amount of kids playing team sports on a regular basis increased in 2018 by nearly a full percentage point. The bad news: For the third straight year, fewer kids are playing an individual sport.

Kids played an average of 1.87 team sports. It’s the second straight year with a slight improvement, though still well below the level of 2011 (2.11). Anecdotally, there are signs that kids are sampling more sports but still playing one sport year-round against the advice of medical experts due to the risk of burnout and overuse injuries.

This statistic showed a rare increase in 2018. Important note: SFIA changed this definition in the past year, though percentages for previous years have also been adjusted based on the new definition.

Each year, this continues to be the most positive statistic we track. The percentage of physically inactive children has now decreased for four consecutive years, from 19.7% in 2014 to 17.1% in 2018. That’s still too many children not moving their bodies, but it’s a major advance. Every household income category had fewer inactive children except one: Kids in homes under $25,000, where the inactive rate has gone from 24.4% in 2012 to 33.4% in 2018.

The gap between girls and boys regular participation sports has closed since 2012. But that’s because the percentage of boys dropped significantly in those six years, compared to a modest decline by girls. Kids who identify as Asian/Pacific Islander were the only ethnicity to increase regular sports participation.

To learn more about Project Play, visit www.ProjectPlay.us. Read State of Play 2019 at as.pn/play2019 to learn all 40 developments regarding the latest youth sports trends over the past year. The report is sponsored by Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS).

Story was originally published here.

NCAA official: Right age for tackle football depends on physical and skill development

Sports & Society Program

Safety concerns have contributed to declines in youth and high school football participation. Today, 63 percent of parents support age restrictions for tackle football, with the majority of moms (63 percent) and dads (58 percent) in favor of setting a starting age, according to a new study by the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

Last fall, the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program launched Healthy Sport Index – a new tool to help parents, children, and other stakeholders assess the benefits and risks of the 10 most popular high school boys and girls sports. The Healthy Sport Index draws on the best available data and expert analysis to evaluate sports, while recognizing that different kids have different needs, and that each sport offers different benefits and risks.

Not surprisingly, football has the highest injury rate among boys sports and fared low in physical activity at practices. But it also finished first in a survey of high school athletes that measured personal and social skills, cognitive skills, goal setting skills, initiative skills, health skills, and negative experiences. This suggests that football – despite the public’s real concerns about potential longterm brain damage – still provides a social context that is highly important for some athletes.

On April 18, the Aspen Institute will moderate discussions with football experts to explore best practices for high school football health. The discussions are part of the NCAA-sponsored Derek Sheely Conference, honoring the former Frostburg State University football player who died from a traumatic brain injury sustained at practice in 2011. Register here for the free conference. Watch the livestream either live or taped here.

Brian Hainline

In advance of the conference, Sports & Society Program Editorial Director Jon Solomon spoke with NCAA Chief Medical Officer Brian Hainline about the state of football health at all levels. Hainline is also chairman of the Football Development Model Council for USA Football. Below are excerpts from the conversation.

Jon Solomon: When you see high school football players show up on college campuses, what are the predominant health issues you’re finding that universities inherit?

Hainline: One is just overuse injuries, which are common and not specific to football. High school athletes are training year-round and I think there’s just not a deep appreciation for overreach and that there has to be recovery. Another is that some athletes come in and already have in many ways reached their peak of passion, if you will. They’re sort of on that slippery slope of burnout for just having given their all and they’re not ready for the next level.

Solomon: Given these issues, what needs to be done at the high school and youth levels for preventive purposes?

Hainline: It’s something so many of us have been involved in. I don’t think there’s a simple answer. But I wish there was really a whole-hearted investment in the American Development Model (ADM), I like the term, longterm athlete development, because you really have to have a longterm perspective in this. The fundamental shift is getting away from early specialization. Another fundamental shift is there’s plenty of time to get where you need to go and you’re in it for the journey and not for the short-term.

Coaches in this country don’t have a sophisticated sport science background. I’m not saying it’s perfect in other countries, but in other countries to be a coach, you have to be credentialed or certified and it requires a lot of training. Looking at it from another point of view, we’re one of the few countries that doesn’t have a minister of sport. We leave it all to the grassroots level, but there’s not an overarching view in providing all of that. The Amateur Sports Act was supposed to solve all of that with the United States Olympic Committee holding that place, but that never worked out. There was no funding, so every national governing body is left to its own and they’re money-conscious. It’s a complicated issue. It’s societal.

Solomon: You’re now chairing the USA Football council that will oversee implementation of the Football Development Model (FDM). What are the goals for this model and what do you personally hope to see come out of this?

Hainline: The premise is that football is an aggressive, rugged, contact sport. So, from that point of view, it’s in the same category as sports such as ice hockey or soccer or wrestling or men’s lacrosse. These are sports where the body engages with other bodies in a contact or possible collision matter. So, given that and given that the premise of sport is that you want the good to outweigh the risks – and the risks are there for all sports – how do you learn to properly engage your body in the sport of football? What they [the FDM discussions] will not be is, well, is everything flag football or not flag football? Because flag football, when done improperly, carries great risks as well. You have kids diving for flags or this and that.

What’s the best way to engage your body? I don’t have a predetermined answer on what it will be. I think in the ideal world it would be if you’re engaging your body properly, number one, there should be minimal risk of diving or falling or spearing. You have to be lining up your body across somebody else’s body in a manner that makes sense. Number two, the head is not part of what is being lined up. It really is there to think. From that point of view, you’re really trying to minimize any sort of head impact, which is inevitable in every contact collision sport but it can be brought to a minimum.

But I think the challenge for football is how you learn to engage your body properly based on science and emerging consensus.

And finally, the goal is to develop a strong base that is for everyone and then to have athletes that are differential. So, for some people, they just want to play flag football for life, or for others they want to play football for life but it’s more of a modified 7 on 7, and for others, they may be in a developmental pathway where they’re going to play American football at an elite level. It all has all the hallmarks of any ADM. But I think the challenge for football is how you learn to engage your body properly based on science and emerging consensus.

Solomon: This sounds a little different than ice hockey’s ADM, where USA Hockey doesn’t allow checking for kids ages 12 and under. U.S. Soccer banned heading for children ages 10 and under and limits heading in practice for kids ages 11-13. It sounds like youth football will still have a pathway for tackle and a pathway for flag. Am I hearing that correctly?

Hainline: I don’t know. That’s a really open question. For example, if there is a pathway for tackling, does that resemble what we think of as tackling at, say, the NFL or collegiate level? And I suspect that will not be the case. I’m going into this with my own thoughts, but I think it’s more important to learn how to line up with someone and the idea of bringing them down is less important.

Solomon: What are your thoughts on what the right age is for kids to start tackling? (Note: The Sports & Society Program wrote a white paper in 2018 that recommended youth football organizations shift to a standard of flag football before age 14, while also beginning to teach fundamental blocking, tackling, and hitting skills in practice only starting at age 12.)

Hainline: I would compare it to wrestling because it’s is a form of organized tackling, if you will, one-on-one. And it’s not about age so much. Really, it’s about your level of physical development, both from a pubertal point of view and also from a skill development point of view. You don’t have certain types of wrestling techniques in prepubertal kids who aren’t developmentally ready for that.

I think we have to shift the language of what development really means.

I personally think this is where it’s going to get tricky – just assigning a simple age cutoff for tackling in football. When I was 12, I was a scrawny, little kid who could run pretty fast, but then when I realized that there were other 12-year-olds who looked like they were 16, it was a different world and I no longer wanted to compete against those kids. I think we have to shift the language of what development really means. I think that can be done ultimately, but it’s going to take a huge buy-in at a societal level.

Solomon: It was interesting to see Pop Warner recently choosing to eliminate the three-point stance. What did you think of that change? Could we see a day where that might come to high school, college, or the pros?

Hainline: I think it was a very important move. Because when you’re in a three-point stance, the only thing you see ahead of you is someone’s helmet. When you’re talking about youth and the ability to engage, moving from a three-point stance is much more difficult than moving from an upright position where you see everything. So, I applaud Pop Warner for that.

I do suspect that it’s something that’s going to gain momentum. I don’t know to what degree. I think part of that is going to be led by the science, too, because a three-point stance at the Pop Warner level vs. one at the NFL level, I think we need to understand the science of what that means as well.

Solomon: I’m interested in your perspective on the amount of full-contact hitting that should occur at practices. On one hand, some people say dramatically reducing full contact can help reduce concussions or other injuries – at least for skill position players – because you’re not tackling to the ground. Others say they’re not convinced that eliminating tackling reduces the collisions that may lead to long-term brain injuries as long as the offensive linemen, defensive linemen, and linebackers are still unavoidably colliding at the line of scrimmage during drills. What are your thoughts on where science is headed on this question, such as the NCAA’s ongoing CARE Consortium with the Department of Defense that is studying concussions and repetitive head impacts?

Hainline: One of the reasons I’m really thankful that Dartmouth University coach Buddy Teevens is on the [USA Football ADM] council is that he has a lot of insight into that. He didn’t eliminate contact, but he did curtail it and eliminated live tackling. He has a lot of insight. He’s going to bring that to the council.

This is the second year where we’re starting to get much better data about what happens during practice at the line of scrimmage. It’s still not completely analyzed but I think that’s going to drive some of our decision-making, too. I’m really data-driven. I think we have to learn to engage if we’re going to play the sport of football. But I also think we can learn to engage without unnecessary repetitive head impact exposures. That’s the balancing act. I think the data we’re getting on the CARE study will really shed some light on that. We just don’t have enough right now. That being said, in a consensus manner, the NCAA did reduce practice contact in a considerable manner, so much so that the Ivy League had to adjust to our rules because it was more stringent. But I don’t think that’s the end of the discussion.

Solomon: There continue to be questions about the role of strength and conditioning coaches in college football, including the lack of certification standards by the industry. More college players die in off-season conditioning than the combined number from games and practices. We saw it recently when University of Maryland football player Jordan McNair died after a workout and without proper care by the athletic trainers. How does this culture change so offseason workouts shift from performance-based to medical-based?

Hainline: There is going to be an inter-association consensus statement coming out soon and the essence of it is we’re really focusing on what we call transition periods, and we identify those. That’s not just summer to fall. It’s after the winter break, it’s after any sort of injury where you’re off, so you have to acclimatize after every transition period. The work/rest ratio is key and the workouts need to be within the construct of the broad sports medicine framework. And then we’re going to have a checklist for every emergency action plan.

Solomon: I think we too often see football workouts that are built around performance or punitive actions based on the success of the team. Why is it important for strength coaches to practice real exercise science?

Hainline: The strength and conditioning profession grew very, very fast and I think it was seen as a simplistic way to make people tougher. I think that growth occurred more rapidly than sport science-based performance. Performance has as much to do with good health as it does getting stronger. It has as much to do with recovery as anything else.

Jon Solomon is editorial director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. Follow him on Twitter at @JonSolomonAspen. Learn more about youth sports at www.ProjectPlay.us.

Story originally published here.

Where have the neighborhood games gone?

Jim Boyle

Until someone tells me different, I’m currently one of the greatest multi-sport athletes in the world. Just ask me. I’m the Bo Jackson of foursquare and cornhole. Maybe it’s not the most glamorous “sports” ever, but the chances of me pulling a hamstring are extremely low. How’d I get here and how’d I manage to keep my athletic mojo going (I also love to run, swim and play an occasional game of racquet ball) as I push 50? There’s no one reason, but it would be difficult to ignore the joy factor in my sports upbringing.

I grew up in a rural town a few hours north of Detroit on Lake Huron – a town as sports-obsessed as what kids now experience, but not exactly the same either. We played everything, everywhere, at all hours of the day and all times of the year. We played Wiffle ball on the beach in our bare feet with a huge sand dune serving as our “center field wall.” Friends would bum rides to our house for Saturday tackle football. My dad cobbled together enough buddies and resources to pour a ½-court cement basketball slab in our backyard and walked away to leave us to our own devices. To this day it’s like religion to play on that court.

We created bike obstacle courses and raced, and even once built a full-scale putt-putt course with Styrofoam cups buried in the ground for holes. Sure, kids would step away for a Little League baseball game or a pee wee basketball game, but they would always be back in time for a game of 500 (a baseball-centric game, Google it) as the sun went down. It was, admittedly, a privileged existence. Our rules, sometimes our invented games, solving our own conflicts along the way. Magic.

Today, we’ve lost a little of that magic. For a variety of reasons, we’ve seen youth sports go largely from kid-driven free play to more parent-driven costly play, which has led to led to less access and less participation across the board – rural, urban and suburban. Only 14 percent of kids in Western New York and Southeast Michigan combined (the markets the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation serve) are physically active to the level recommended by the Center for Disease Control. That’s even less than the already abysmal national average of 27 percent.

And it matters. Research shows that physically active kids are more likely to be physically active adults. They’ll have greater cognitive function, better mental health, better educational outcomes, and fewer health problems. And we lose as a society when kids aren’t active, through billions of dollars of related downstream healthcare costs and lost productivity.

Today, we’ve lost a little of that magic.

At the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, we’re looking to increase the number of physically active kids. There’s no silver bullet, but we have a pretty good idea of what “good” looks like in youth sports thanks to our partners at the Aspen Institute and their Project Play framing. We also have an amazing local infrastructure in Western New York and Southeast Michigan – thanks in large part to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, and the working groups they’ve helped us form – poised to, collectively, continue helping us make change.

There are already amazing things happening in Western New York and Southeast Michigan to address these issues, and the Foundation has invested over $50 million to date to both lift up, and add to, that work. Everything from building the physical infrastructure for free play, like our Built to Play partnership with KaBOOM! and the Tony Hawk Foundation to build innovative play spaces and skateparks; to programmatic grants; to the contribution of data and research like the regional State of Play reports we launched in 2017, and beyond are included.

In partnership with the German Marshall Fund, the Foundation is also taking a cross-sector group of thinkers and influencers – grassroots sports practitioners, professional sports team representatives, municipal park managers and planners, and more – on a week-long study tour to Ruhr Valley in Germany and Barcelona, Spain. There, we’ll be looking at several things, including how those parts of the world successfully leverage sports and active recreation to achieve healthier and inclusive public spaces; innovative examples of sports governance and cross-sector partnerships; and integrated approaches to urban planning, placemaking and infrastructure to support sports and recreation for all ages.

The mission? Lift our heads up enough from our own work to learn and be inspired by others. Build relationships and connect with each other, while we see what cross-sector collaboration looks like somewhere else. See innovation happening outside of our own markets to get kids out, moving their bodies and having fun.

Basically, we’re taking a deep breath from our own important work to find some other ways on how we might get our magic back. We can’t wait to bring our findings back to our communities. And can you bet if any one of our travel partners happens to jump on a Futsal court along the way, I got next.

Jim Boyle is Vice President for Programs and Communications at the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation. He oversees grant making in the foundation’s focus areas of: Youth Sports & Recreation (including the Project Play Western New York and Project Play Southeast Michigan partnerships); Park, Trails & Green Design; and Nonprofit Support & Innovation. The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program will hold the 2019 Project Play Summit in Detroit on September 17-18, in part to share lessons learned from its community-based work in Michigan and New York with the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation.

Story was originally published here.

Changing the game for girls

Caitlin Morris

February 6 is National Girls and Women in Sports Day – the perfect moment to celebrate the women who are inspiring girls to get in the game. Now in its 33rd year, this day celebrates the power that sports can play in a girl’s life. This year’s theme, “Lead Her Forward,” is also an urgent call to action to get more girls active. Just over one-third of girls ages 6-11 meet healthy physical activity guidelines; that number only declines as they grow up. We need to change that trajectory.

Play is serious.

Physical activity is a key part of living a healthy and successful life. We know that active kids do better in every way, and all kids are made to play. Kids who move are more confident, they excel in school and they carry these benefits into their adult lives. But four in five kids aren’t getting the amount of physical activity they should — and girls are the most likely to be sitting on the sidelines.

“Girls” are not a single, homogenous group by any means; getting and keeping them involved in sport and play is a complex issue. But as the Aspen Institute and other leaders in this field know, there are actions we can take now to make progress.

Girls need strong rile models and female coaches.

It starts with seeing and celebrating female athletes. Girls are inspired by sports stars like Serena Williams, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Alex Morgan. We must continue to celebrate these women for their achievements – both on and off the court – because they show our girls what’s possible.

Four in give kids aren’t getting enough physical activity — and girls are the most likely to be sitting on the sidelines.

At the same time, girls also need female coaches who can directly connect with them, understand their experience and encourage them to persevere. Yet only 23 percent of youth coaches in the US are female. That number is the lowest on record since 2012, and it’s down from 28 percent in 2016. Title IX was an important milestone for pushing gender equality in sport, but 46 years later, we’re missing a key piece of the fight if we aren’t loudly and deliberately inviting women to the playing field.

When women are given the tools and resources they need , they step up to the plate.

That’s why so many of us across the public and private sector have taken action through initiatives like Nike’s Made to Play and the Aspen Institute’s Project Play. Committing to shattering the “glass sideline” and growing the number of female coaches takes new thinking and new strategies.

“How to Coach Kids,” a free online course that teaches volunteers the skills they need to effectively coach young athletes, is one way we can invite more women to participate as coaches. The course shows how coaching is a learnable skill, and a rewarding experience. It also reinforces messages and techniques taught at the beginning of the season, so coaches have a “pocket coach” to lean on whenever they need it. “She Can Coach,” a campaign led by Up2Us Sports, is another powerful example. This incredible campaign is training and placing female coaches in under-resourced communities, and it doesn’t stop there. After placing female coaches with teams, “She Can Coach” continues to support them by providing career mentoring and guidance on coaching techniques.

How girls are coached matters even more than who coaches.

There is surprisingly little curriculum focused on how to coach girls. Debating how much of the difference is intrinsic versus extrinsic social norming is a debate for another time, but many who’ve worked to coach girls report that the experience is different. Positively engaging girls in sport and play is the goal of every coach, regardless of gender. So, it’s important to pay attention to the data coming from organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation that assess the state of gender-inclusive coaching curriculum and gather the research we need to inform smart program investments.

In addition to making sure girls have greater access to coaches and mentors, we also need to empower girls with sports programming that puts them at the center of the experience.

This work is already underway through programs like Mamba League, a youth basketball league led by Kobe Bryant in partnership with Nike and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Los Angeles. Aiming to help girls, and all kids, develop confidence both on and off the court, Mamba League’s programming gives youth players new basketball skills as well as life skills like passion, optimism, fearlessness, focus and honesty.

As more girls jump into sport, we need to support them with the gear they need to play with confidence.

By age 14, girls start dropping out of sport at twice the rate of boys. When we listen to them, we can understand why: 41 percent of girls ages 11 to 16 report that low body confidence or fear of judgement hinders them from participating in sport. These feelings tend to grow during puberty, and as a result, the problem gets worse. Having the right gear can make a difference.

Whether it’s a hijab, team jerseys, footwear, or their first sports bra, it’s important that girls have the gear they need so they can play with confidence. We’ve seen progress on this front – there are more products on the market that speak directly to the needs of girls – but we must do more to identify and remove barriers in the way of girls getting and staying active.

Helping girls reach their potential on and off the playing field takes all of us.

Diverse leaders across business, philanthropy, civil society and government are taking on this challenge. We’re making progress, but this generation of girls still needs more.

We can change the statistics.

Each of us can help girls reach their potential on and off the playing field. Decide to “Lead Her Forward” and create opportunities for the girls in your life and in your communities.

A girl’s future depends on it.

Caitlin Morris is the General Manager of Global Community Impact at Nike, where she focuses on getting kids active and reversing the physically inactive epidemic. Nike is a founding member of Project Play 2020, an initiative of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, which is a multiyear effort by leading organizations to grow national sport participation rates and related metrics among youth. Learn more about Project Play at www.ProjectPlay.us.

Story was originally published here.

10 charts that show progress, challenges to fix youth sports

Jon Solomon & Tom Farrey

Flag football surpassed tackle as the most commonly played form of the game for kids ages 6 to 12 in 2017. Fewer kids are physically inactive. Sampling of most major team sports is up. Most coaches are still winging it. And kids from lower-income homes face increasing barriers to sports participation.

Those are among the key findings from the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program’s State of Play: 2018 report released on October 16 at the Project Play Summit. Progress is being made in some areas; much more improvement is needed to realize the goal of every child having access to quality sports, regardless of zip code or ability.

Below is Project Play’s annual release of charts showing the national landscape in youth sports compared to past years. All data are for kids ages 6 to 12 and were provided to the Aspen Institute by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, which in 2017 commissioned a survey of 30,999 individuals through Sports Marketing Surveys.

The biggest news: Flag football (3.3 percent) surpassed tackle football (2.9 percent) for kids ages 6 to 12 who played sports on a regular basis. The sports with the largest three-year participation increase were flag football (38.9 percent) and competitive cheerleading (29.8 percent). Tackle football was down almost 2 percent.

Ten of the 15 sports tracked by Project Play saw increased participation on a regular basis in 2017. That’s progress, though the big three sports for kids (soccer, baseball, and basketball) are still down significantly from a decade ago. In 2017, only bicycling, tackle football, soccer, swimming, and tennis experienced one-year declines.

Churn rate means the difference between the number of kids a sport loses compared to the number who return or try the sport for the first time. In 2017, among the nine sports evaluated by Project Play, cheerleading, baseball, and flag football fared the best in retaining and bringing in new participants. Baseball lost the fewest percentage of kids (18.4 percent). Soccer was at the bottom of the list with a negative 7.7 percent net churn rate.

Consider this: In 2012, 46.9 percent of kids ages 6-12 in household incomes of under $25,000 played a team sport at least one day. At the time, there was very little difference in participation numbers between those children and kids in homes with incomes of $25,000 to $49,000 (49.3 percent). And even the gap between the lowest- and highest-income kids was “only” 17 percentage points. By 2017, that gap had doubled to 34.9 percentage points. The kids in homes under $25,000 were now 10.5 percentage points behind just the next highest class. Poorer kids are being left behind in all aspects of society, and sports is no different.

Less than four in 10 youth coaches say they are trained in any of the following areas: sport skills and tactics, effective motivational technique, or safety needs (CPR/basic first aid and concussion management). Lacrosse had the highest percentage of trained coaches in four of the six competencies; soccer was last in five categories. For the third straight year, soccer ranked last among coaches trained in concussion management (25 percent). Lacrosse was the highest (48 percent). Lacrosse, flag football, and volleyball coaches were the most trained in general safety.

Women remained an untapped area to develop more youth coaches. In 2017, only 23 percent of adults who coached kids 14 and under in the past five years were female. That was down from 28 percent in 2016 and the lowest on record dating to 2012.

Younger and older citizens also could be recruited as coaches. In 2017, 81 percent of youth coaches were between the ages of 25 and 54. Some of that is natural since that’s the period when people tend to have children playing sports. But high school and college students and retired citizens are available to help too.

The percentage of children who played a team sport at least one day in 2017 slightly increased for the third straight year. But the percentage of kids who played team sports on a regular basis in 2017 (37 percent) remained a far cry from 2011 (41.5 percent).

Children in our age group played an average of 1.85 team sports in 2017 – the first improvement in four years, albeit a slight increase. As recently as 2011, kids were averaging more than two sports (2.11). Still, 2017 marked progress.

This statistic perennially shows a decline. In 2017, only 23.9 percent of kids in our age group regularly participated in high-calorie-burning sports. The figure was as high as 28.7 percent in 2011.

Good news: The percentage of physically inactive children has now fallen for three consecutive years, from 19.5 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2017. That’s still too many children not moving, but it’s a major advance. In total, roughly 700,000 more kids are now off the couch and doing something.

To learn more about Project Play, visit www.ProjectPlay.us. Read the entire State of Play: 2018 report at as.pn/Play2018. Watch videos and read companion content from the 2018 Project Play Summit. Project Play released new tools, reports and commitments to help more kids get active through sports.

Story was originally published here.

How France really won the World Cup

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

This was a tough summer for anyone who cares about soccer in the United States. The men’s national team failed to qualify for the World Cup, and on the day of the championship game won by France a front-page story in the New York Times described a participation drop among kids. But the seeds of systems-level reform are starting to take hold. On October 16 at the 2018 Project Play Summit, Ludovic Debru and Nico Romeijn, top officials from the U.S. Soccer Federation and French Football Federation, shared ideas on how to promote both development and participation (WATCH). Can we train more coaches and make more room for late bloomers, kids from lower-income homes, and free play – as France did in transforming its youth model? The session was moderated by Tom Farrey, executive director of our Sports & Society Program, who teed up the conversation with this reflection.

Ten years ago, I wrote a book that altered the trajectory of my life’s work. I was hoping its insights somehow would bend the arc of youth sports in America as well, given what I had learned about the modern-day challenges in providing experiences that align with best practices in child and athletic development. My interests began to shift from breaking down problems as an investigative journalist with ESPN to identifying shared solutions with The Aspen Institute. Walked into the boss’s office, asked off E:60, and started dreaming of what’s possible. How to help sports tell its best story.

The model that France uses to develop soccer players was a catalyst.

I wrote about that model in the fourth chapter of the book, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. The methods the French deploy to cultivate talent in its youth population were a revelation to me — counter to so many of the features that we had tacitly embraced in the U.S. Upon visiting France and talking with the architects of their system, I came to understand how Les Blues came to win the 1998 World Cup, and why the U.S. had yet to develop even one field player who could be described as world class, despite having more children in soccer uniforms than any nation on the planet.

The knowledge is even more relevant today, with France winning the 2018 World Cup and the U.S. watching from home, eliminated by Trinidad & Tobago in the qualifying round. It hurts to even write that, as an American who loves soccer and really wants us to figure this out — to discover and share with the world our very best selves. Soccer has a way of doing that, expressing national character in its most elegant, physical form.

Photo courtesy of the French Football Federation

At the time of my visit to Clairefontaine, the national training center for France’s soccer federation just outside Paris, most of the players who later played in the 2018 World Cup were between ages 10 and 14. That doesn’t mean all were training at the national center. On the contrary, only three players on France’s roster spent time at Clairefontaine, whose staff selects just 23 players a year — at ages 13, 14 and 15 — to groom full-time at the center. Kylian Mbappe (above), the explosive 19-year-old forward who moves like a NFL running back, was one. The rest came up through clubs elsewhere in the country.

The chief value of Clairefontaine, instead, is its success in creating a coherent development culture that now permeates all levels of the game in France. That starts with a commitment to providing youth coaches in towns and cities across the country with the skills to present the sport in a manner that recognizes what children need to grow in the game, technically and emotionally.

We still don’t have that in the U.S. Here, youth soccer remains a landscape of well-meaning volunteers, winging it. Through our Aspen Institute Project Play initiative, we track the number of coaches trained in the key competencies in working with youth, via data supplied by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s annual household survey. In 2017, just 32 percent of youth  coaches said they had received any training in sport skills and tactics. Only 28 percent claimed to have been taught effective motivational technique with kids. Better coaching is key to stemming attrition in soccer, which gets kids earlier than any other sport and by age 7 or 8 starts losing them in droves.

Soccer has a way of expressing national character in its most elegant, physical form.

But there’s more to learn from the French model than that. Below is what I wrote in Game On and how it contrasts with our model, if we can call it that; how soccer is dispensed in the U.S. varies across states and even communities. As you can see, many features the French put in place are designed to keep adults from acting on their worst impulses. For me, it was a key insight: The best sport systems don’t actually build great athletes – instead, they work with coaches to build a wide base at the grassroots, then let the talent to emerge. It’s more gardening than manufacturing.

Looking back at what I wrote in Game On, I can’t say every observation was spot on. But this chapter certainly was a preview into what would unfold a decade later. I share it in the hope that it helps us finally get right in the U.S. – a true sleeping giant that soccer leaders aim to awaken.

LES RED, WHITE, AND BLUES

Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines, France

The Americans, Seriously.

So declared the headline in a New York Times magazine piece a few weeks before the 2006 World Cup was held in Germany.

And Lord, didn’t many of us want to believe it. Anyone who had ever been called unpatriotic for appreciating a well-struck in-swinger, anyone who grew up going to North American Soccer League games as a kid (as I did in Fort Lauderdale), anyone who wanted to see U.S. soccer succeed at the highest level because the game is the global language and cultural fluency matters in the midst of an unpopular, isolating war—all of us, in our hearts, hoped that maybe this was our time. The U.S. had made the quarterfinals in ’02 and now was ranked No. 5 in the world, behind only Brazil, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Mexico. Sure, there are always raised eyebrows about FIFA’s rankings, whispers and screams that wins against weak teams are given too much weight. But the vibe from national team coach Bruce Arena was one of smoldering confidence, even Long Island cockiness, projecting the sense that while he didn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver, a run deep into the monthlong tournament in Germany would not surprise him and shouldn’t surprise us. The Americans, he suggested, would marshal their traditional strengths—fitness, competitiveness, physical play—to neutralize opponents. Arena said, “One day, when we get it right and become the best, it’s because we did it our way, no one else’s way.” Nike, chief sponsor of the national team, suggested that perhaps that moment was at hand, insisting in print ads that soccer was now as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July. The ad noted that the sport’s 17 million U.S. participants—a grassroots juggernaut—was greater than the total population of Holland. “By sheer numbers alone,” the ad read, “we are going to sweep over most of the globe.”

Then the games began.

In the opener, a 3-0 washout to the Czechs, the Americans looked like college kids chasing old pros around the pitch. It was 1998 all over again, with the US failing to muster any kind of offensive attack. Passes were made without precision. Balls skipped off the feet of wide-open teammates. Analysts questioned Arena’s tactics, while Arena in turn blasted his designated star Landon Donovan for a supposed lack of aggressiveness. DaMarcus Beasley, the speedster, was a nonfactor, too often passing back. Goalkeeper Kasey Keller punted into areas of the field populated only by Czechs. In the next game, the U.S. gutted out a 1-1 tie with eventual champion Italy when the Azzuri accidentally knocked the ball into their own net. Nevertheless, the Americans through two games had generated just one shot on goal, fewer than any other team. With a 2-1 loss a few days later to Ghana, an African republic the size of Oregon, the Americans disappeared from the World Cup. Just as dispiriting, there were few, if any, highlight clips to savor, no moments of brilliance to make a fence-sitting sports fan back home fall in love with the team. Once again, theories were advanced for why we just can’t get it right—and why in 30 years of purposeful effort the US has yet to deliver one world-class player. The venerable if soccer-snarky Frank Deford crowed that the game just isn’t in our DNA. Others proposed that soccer doesn’t sort out winners and losers clearly enough to endear itself to athletically gifted American boys who grow up hearing that ties are like kissing your sister. Some pundits wondered if the supposed psychic disconnect flows from the nation long ago having declared its independence from England, the birthplace of soccer.

Sure. Maybe that’s it.

Or maybe it’s just that a country reaps what it sows.

Photo courtesy of the French Football Federation

I know we’re supposed to loathe the French. But they once went to war against the English, too. On our side. And let’s face it, they do soccer pretty well. Maybe there’s a thing or two we can learn in frog land.

Two weeks before the World Cup is set to begin, I take a plane to Paris, then a train to a small village an hour southwest of the city, then an auto- mobile deep into the heart of the Rambouillet Forest. As my cabbie turns his Renault onto the entrance road of the national training center for the French Football Federation, it hardly seems like we have arrived at the world’s foremost soccer academy. The place is perfectly tranquil, save for the chirping of birds and the gentle rustling of leaves. Rhododendron bushes with pink and white flowers line the playing fields that lead to an old castle at the center of the grounds, making the training center feel like an arboretum. There are few signs of grand athletic ambition anywhere until the cabbie reaches the castle and—pow!—we are blinded by the gleam of a humongous, golden, gaudy replica of a World Cup trophy whose design and scale seem more fit for the lobby of some Las Vegas theme hotel. France won the right to hoist the monument during the 1998 World Cup with a 3-0 victory on home soil against Brazil in the championship game.

A few minutes later, I am in the second-floor office of André Mérelle, the sage I have come to see. As the federation’s director of youth development, he oversees the grooming of the next generation of would-be French stars. The wall to the right of his cluttered desk is lined with group photos of boys from the past decade who have been selected for focused training as teenagers. Each year 1,500 13-year-olds around France are identified by scouts as having the most promise, with 650 of them earning tryouts at Clairefontaine, as the training center is commonly called. They come in waves of 50, until a final 24 are offered scholarships to live there and train on weekdays after school.

“Take a look,” Mérelle says, firing up a DVD on his laptop. “This is what we do.”

The video is of the last day of tryouts, the final cut. From its bird’s-eye angle, the camera pans across a row of boys lined up shoulder to shoulder in blue jerseys. Immediately, one of the first characteristics that reveals itself is their ethnicity: The first eight or nine are of African descent and very few after that are of European stock. When I ask Mérelle about this, he takes my notepad and draws a picture of a dough- nut with a small hole in the middle. The hole, he says, represents Paris. The doughnut represents its sprawling suburbs where most immigrant families live. Wealth dominates the inner city, so here the poor—mostly first- and second-generation transplants from former colonies such as Senegal, Cameroon, and Algeria—get pushed out to the ’burbs, with their high-rise concrete blocks and nearby manufacturing jobs.

“This is where we get the gifted players,” Mérelle says, shading in with his pen the eastern side of the doughnut. He draws an X at the bottom. “Henry is from here,” he says.

That would be Thierry Henry, now one of the world’s top strikers. To the basic American sports fan, the face might look familiar. He’s the other guy with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer in those ubiquitous Gillette razor ads. He’s also the “close friend” that Tony Parker enthused about in the press conference after his San Antonio Spurs wrapped up the 2007 NBA title, in which the flashy point guard became the first Euro to be named MVP of the championship series. Henry, on break between seasons, wore Parker’s No. 9 jersey while watching the final game in the stands and posed with Parker later, holding the Spurs’ fourth trophy of the past decade.

Soccer aficionados don’t need any introduction to Henry, as they know the résumé. Two-time MVP of England’s Premier League, where he played before moving to FC Barcelona. Arsenal’s all-time leading scorer. Those familiar with the sport marvel at his prodigious talent: the combination of size,  explosion,  and  invention.  Though  6-foot-2, he is masterful with the ball, with a dribbling style that is not fixed. Defenders are forced to give him space to operate. But left alone, he can be deadly, too, knifing in from the wing to launch a powerful shot controlled for speed, spin, and placement. He’s good with his noggin, too. In a 2006 World Cup semifinal match, Henry elevated near the goalmouth to deflect a pass into the roof of the net for the winning margin in a 1-0 victory against Brazil. He looked like Randy Moss rising for six in the end zone.

The true strength of the French soccer system stems from what happens with players at the local level.

When Henry arrived at Clairefontaine at age 13, he was given access to some of the top coaches in the country. They worked with him to develop the choices he makes when he receives the ball, how to read the game flow, and the mastery of skills such as juggling, kicking with both feet, crossing, heading, and shooting with precision over power. By contrast, there was little emphasis on building strength, speed, and other physical traits that typify the US game. If Henry tried something new with the ball and failed, he was not punished. Experimentation was encouraged as much as good form was, and no matches were played during the two years he was in residence here. That depressurized environment allowed him to develop and refine his talents, which he then put to use in weekend games with his home-area club team. By 17 he was starting at the highest professional level in France, and by 20 he was the leading scorer for the French team when it won the ’98 World Cup.

Every prospect accepted into Clairefontaine receives the same type of intense technical and psychological polishing. It’s two hours a day, five days a week of skills, skills, skills. Since Henry left the academy, more than 80 players who came to train here have gone on to play professionally, including two fellow starters (Louis Saha and William Gallas) on the ’06 World Cup team.

Investing in 13-year-olds is a highly speculative business. At that age, a boy who went through puberty early might dominate a late bloomer who actually has superior talent—and more upside. To understand their growth potential, X-rays are taken of the left wrists of the final 50 prospects to pinpoint their “bone age,” which often differs greatly from their actual age.

Mérelle, hunkered over his laptop, points to a tall boy in the lineup. “This one is 17,” he says of the boy’s bone age. “This one is 11 … This one is 13 … ”

He smiles, marveling at the biological differences. “Incredible, huh?” Elsewhere, early bloomers gain access to elite teams simply because they’re bigger, stronger, and faster than their age peers. One study of Portuguese prospects found that soccer “systematically excludes late maturing boys,” who often drop out of the game as a result. Even a few months of physical maturity can make a difference in access to select teams, and thus, to top coaches. The phenomenon is called the Relative Age Effect. Children born in the last three months of a selection year—just before the cut-off date in assigning kids to age-specific teams—are significantly underrepresented at the youth levels when compared with those born in the first three months. The downstream effect of that discriminatory process can be seen at the pro level, where players born in the first three months of a given year are far more common. The pattern of skewed birth date distributions has been documented in other sports as well.

The careful identification and development procedures at Clairefontaine inevitably get much of the credit for delivering world-class athletes. But a high-end soccer laboratory isn’t primarily what sets France apart—there is a similar, if less sophisticated, under-17 residency camp in Florida affiliated with US Soccer that has helped groom such players as Donovan and Beasley. Indeed, the true strength of the French system stems from what happens with players at the local level, even before they get selected for special training at national and regional centers. As Mérelle says, with equal parts emphasis and acknowledgment, “Henry was already good in front of the goal when he came to us.”

Photo courtesy of the French Football Federation

It all starts with falling in love. Which isn’t just a French thing

In 1985, the University of Chicago educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom studied the development histories of 150 elite athletes, musicians, artists, and academics going back to their early childhood. He found striking similarities in their paths to excellence. He wrote that “no matter what the initial characteristics of the individual, unless there is a long and intensive process of encouragement, nurturance, education, and training, the individuals will not attain extreme levels of capability in the particular fields.” They worked hard. They benefited from the guidance of high-quality mentors. They were given opportunities to achieve mastery.

But before any of that could happen, at the entry phase the sport or activity had to capture their imagination. A wild romance was born somehow. The same development was later found in a survey of US Olympians, whose affection for their sport would serve as fuel for self-improvement throughout their careers.

How to spark such passion? The impulse of many modern parents—even those with the most modest of hopes for their child athlete—is to attempt to arrange the marriage through early, persistent doses of organized team sports. In many US communities, the process is set into motion around age 4.

Let’s head back to Connecticut for a minute. Just across the inter-state west of New Britain is the more affluent, middle-class-and-up Farmington Valley. Here parents deluged with marketing messages about providing children with the “very best” enrichment programs often have the resources for a series of sign-ups, sports-related or otherwise. Stay-at-home moms ferry their tots from Gymboree classes to sing-along music sessions to infant swimming lessons, hoping to give their Little Einsteins every developmental advantage. (Set aside for a minute the fact that Albert Einstein himself didn’t talk until age 3.) The Saturday-morning soccer program for preschoolers at the area YMCA—with its chalked fields, regulation-size balls, and structured drills—is just another manifestation of that thinking.

For the final 30 minutes of the hourlong session, the blue team matches up against the orange team in a “noncompetitive”—that’s what the catalog says, at least—match. Play is dominated by the two or three most physically advanced kids, who kick the ball hard and give chase, the pack forming behind them in the shape of a teardrop. Some of them keep dribbling right past the end line toward the neighboring grave- yard, until a parent corrals and redirects the flock back onto the miniature pitch. Some of the kids seem engaged. Most seem bewildered or even bored. A girl standing in the goalmouth makes like an airplane, altogether uninterested in stopping a ball from slowly rolling into the net. A boy in cleats pouts as his father tries to nudge him off the sideline, frustrated at his son’s lack of aggression. “He just needs to get more of that killer instinct,” the father says to me. The boy had spent much of the game hugging his dad’s leg, uncomfortable with the idea of stealing the ball from other kids. “He’s used to sharing. He tells me, ‘It’s their turn to kick it, Daddy.’ ” Hey, on children’s TV, that’s what Franklin the turtle might do.

When the referee tweets his whistle at the end of the nongame, the parents whose children happen to be enjoying the action let out a collective deflated “Awww.”

The preschool exercise at the Y serves as a portal into a system that regards competition as the preeminent training tool. Starting next year, when these kids are in kindergarten, they will be able to start in the town’s recreational leagues, with their once-a-weekend games and sideline orange slices. But with fall and spring outdoor sessions, many kids will be playing dual seasons. At age 8, travel ball begins, with its select groups of boys and girls playing outside the structure of the rec league and representing their towns in tournaments and games around the state. By age 9, some teams will be playing as many as four games a weekend during the fall and spring. They play on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day; there are few holidays from organized soccer. A couple of years later, some of those kids also will get invited to join private, often for-profit “premier” clubs that draw talent from a wider area. By the end of elementary school, the very best child athletes could be playing 100 outdoor and indoor games a year—twice as many as the best French teenagers.

This is not the way great players are made, Mérelle says.

“Everyone wants to win games. That’s good,” he says. “But how do you win? If you’re too focused on winning games, you don’t learn to play well. You get too nervous, because you’re always afraid to make errors.” The French system recognizes the value of unstructured play. And that innovation and passion bloom when children are given the time and space to create games on their own. Without uniforms. Or league standings. Or game clocks. Or emotionally invested adults. It’s an inspired place in which improvisation rules, rewards are intrinsic, playing personalities are developed—and a child learns to see things that don’t reveal themselves as readily in formal games.

At ESPN The Magazine, we arranged a conversation between Henry and Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, who has twice been voted NBA MVP. The French soccer star was well aware of the talents of Nash, who compensates for his relative lack of height (6-3) with brilliant play- making and an ability to create space where none seemed to exist a split second earlier. Henry—who once gave Nash a tour of Clairefontaine (“one of the best days of my life,” Nash says)—told Nash that he and Parker were among his favorite athletes to watch.

“Tony has the same view you have on the court—that soccer player’s view,” Henry said.

“I’m excited to hear you say that,” said Nash, who had the advantage in both nature (he’s the son of a former soccer pro) and nurture (he grew up playing lots of soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and basketball, both organized and pickup) working for him.

“You see more than what is in front of you,” Henry said. “I hear people watch you and say, ‘What a pass!’ And I’m like, What do you mean? Because for me, it was obvious.”

Sports scientists have a name for this seemingly supernatural talent: field sense. It’s the ability to anticipate the movements of people and objects in motion, and it takes many forms. It could be the act of finding the open man just before the player breaks free. Or flicking a puck into the corner of a net guarded by a goalie who fatefully leans a quarter- inch the wrong way. Or predicting the trajectory of a Beckham bender in a soccer game. And while some people may have more of an innate capacity to develop the skill than others, researchers now believe that it’s a talent that can be trained for—through, ironically, free-form play.

One of the leading scientists in this area is Australian skills-acquisition expert Damien Farrow, who, in interviewing elite athletes, discovered the value of loosely organized games in the development of flexible thinking and acute spatial awareness. “We should be modeling our programs on that,” Farrow has said. “And what do we do instead? We put children in regimented, very structured programs, where their perceptual abilities are corralled and limited.”

In Brazil, the legendary home to jogo bonito (Portuguese for the beautiful game), unstructured play is the standard when young. Poverty is widespread, so children kick balls and makeshift balls in alleys, on beaches, on small, enclosed courts, anywhere, with friends and neighbors and parents and grandparents. This is how most of the Brazilian greats, from Pelé to Ronaldinho, were introduced to the sport. Organized games are delayed until age 8 or 9. The result? Brazil has such an abundance of talent that soccer observers say the South American nation could probably field four separate teams all of which would be competitive in the World Cup.

France, like the US, is happily burdened by wealth in most areas. Parents can enroll their children in soccer clubs at just about any age and often do starting around age 6. So to protect the development of child athletes from the natural impulse of adults to have kids compete immediately—“We suffer from that here too,” Mérelle says—the French push coaching education, perhaps more vigorously than any soccer federation in the world. Nearly 20,000 coaches from the youth level up have received certificates for completing classes at the federation’s Paris training center. Training isn’t mandatory at the lowest levels, but it’s common. And information gets pushed down the pipeline 340 days a year to the thousands of local clubs that work with kids. A youth coach would have to be a recluse not to know the federation believes players must be allowed the freedom to express themselves with the ball. That ball control while moving is the basis of the French game. That the focus must be on attacking skills. That 7-year-olds shouldn’t play in formats any larger than five-on-five, to maximize touches and keep everyone involved. That no child should get slotted into one position until well into his teenage years. That individual technique is far more important to teach through age 16 than tactics are. That coaches need to be quality demonstrators, so that kids can visually lock down the fundamentals. That yelling at players should not be tolerated. And, above all, that training must be fun.

French children typically play no more than one game a week, and the seasons aren’t endless. Even as high as the 13-and-under level, most club teams play 30 or 35 games a year, max. Such restraint leaves ample time, energy, and motivation for kids to kick a ball around in the neighborhood, the sort of unsupervised environment where imaginations soar most effortlessly. It’s been this way for decades. Henry, when not being coached on a well-worn pitch, spent many hours booting a ball against concrete walls in his suburban ghetto. Zinédine Zidane, the three-time World Player of the Year who retired after the ’06 World Cup, received instruction as a teenager in one of the French federation’s regional training facilities—but no one, including Zizou, would suggest that the origins of his sorcery began there. His exquisite feel for the ball was developed years earlier in the crowded, government-built projects of Marseille, messing around on the gravel of his town’s central square and in the living room of his family’s apartment where, through his trial and error, all the lights got smashed out.

The highlights these players would go on to deliver are the kind that creates soccer devotees.

“Remember when I came to France for your game against Ukraine?” Nash asked Henry in their conversation. “At one point, Zizou played it to you, and you played it back. You hit it hard, and it was heading between his knee and his waist. He let the ball hit him, but the way he rotated his hips, it stopped on the grass. Didn’t bounce, didn’t do anything. He was like a martial artist. I can’t even explain it.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Henry responded. “To receive the ball that way you need to relax the right part of your body.”

Relax. A foreign word to those caught up in the maelstrom of American youth sports.

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program and author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. The book has been used in university courses across the country and led to the creation of Project Play, which develops, applies and shares knowledge to build healthy communities through sports. In the coming months, look for a 10th anniversary edition that includes updates on the book’s themes and characters, including the child athletes who were profiled. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@aspeninstitute.org and followed @tomfarrey.

Reimagining the public value of sports betting

Andre Fountain

In May, the Supreme Court overturned a 25-year old federal law, the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), that prohibited sports betting in every state except for Nevada. With the legalization of sports betting, states are moving swiftly to explore the opportunity to enter the lucrative industry. Since May, four more states – Delaware, New Jersey, Mississippi, and West Virginia – have introduced this form of gambling. As more states enter the market, an essential question to consider: How can sports betting serve the public interest?

The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program took on this question to discuss possible solutions by convening experts from gambling, law, politics, professional sports, and health and fitness for our “Future of Sports Betting” conversation on Sept. 14, as part of our Future of Sports conversation series.

During the two-hour discussion at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, DC the six panelists and two moderators helped to identify a path forward on ways sports betting can reimagine its public value for the good of society. Read coverage by USBETS here, an op-ed by Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program Executive Director Tom Farrey here, and research on other countries’ experience with sports betting here.

Below are highlights from the conversation.

MLB Shares its Position

Now that sports betting can be legalized in all US states, this will have massive effects on professional sports. As a creator of the sporting events that influence gambling, pro sports leagues want a cut of the action through a small “integrity fee” from gambling revenues.

“[The sports betting] industry, is 100 percent entirely reliant on the sports leagues to create the events on which the bet takes,” said Morgan Sword, Major League Baseball senior vice president. “So, we think it’s reasonable that the league that is spending all this money to create the events on which the bets are happening, receive some small compensation from the casino that’s offering the bet.”

Morgan Sword, Keith Whyte, Laila Mintas, and James Kilsby

Sword added that other countries have similar models where the sports leagues are receiving compensation. From MLB’s perspective, “it’s good policy,” Sword said.

Right now, out of the five states that offer sports betting, none pay royalties to the leagues. Despite the 0-for-5 start, Sword remains hopeful that an integrity fee will be granted in other states.

“There’s legitimate arguments on both sides … whether or not legalized sports betting is a good thing, in aggregate, for the country,” Sword said. “It no longer matters what our position is on that, because it’s here. So rather than hand-wringing around whether we are for it or against it, we decided that we would do everything we could to study the countries around the world that offer sports betting and [find out] the absolute best way to do this.”

Central Sports Betting Portal

To ensure the integrity of the games, gaming and sports law attorney Daniel Wallach said there is a need for an integrated integrity sports platform. The platform would be a central portal for information sharing on bets by all of the gambling states.

Such a platform would track possible “match-fixing” and in real-time that would help lead to arrests. Ohio state Senator Bill Coley, president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS), agreed in theory about the suggestion, but doesn’t foresee this type of platform being mandated on the federal level. He argued that states could work together to create a portal.

Funding Youth Sports Through Sports Betting

Tom Cove, CEO of the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, made the case that the revenue from sports betting should go towards youth sports and physical fitness. Data show that household income is a major factor in whether children are physically active and play sports.

“We have a public policy imperative and there’s a public policy solution here, and there are many historical and particularly current analogies that suggest that we could take resources from this need,” Cove said. “There is a logical and moral relationship between sports betting and youth sports.”

Norway and China have models of using sports betting and lottery revenue to fund youth sports. In the United States, Colorado uses its lottery revenue to be distributed in three ways – 50 percent goes to the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund, 40 percent goes to the Conservation Trust Fund, and 10 percent to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Cove encourages states to develop funding priorities around sports betting and use Norway, China, and Colorado as models.

Aiding Gambling Disorders

Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), brought a unique perspective to the discussion by focusing on finding solutions to help bettors with gambling problems and prevent new bettors from creating bad habits. Still, Whyte mentioned that NCPG is neutral on legalized gambling and hopes to work with all stakeholders – professional sports leagues, states, and bettors.

Nevada only started receiving public funding in 2005 for problem gambling programs, Whyte said. All those years prior, “the gambling capital in America did not put a single cent of public money into problem gambling programs,” he said. “Most of the states that have legalized so far have followed suit. So, we’ve got a fundamental baseline problem here.”

Like Sword, Whyte is dissatisfied with the pace of legalization to adopt some of the methods that the NCPG is advocating for, but he remains hopeful that some of the populous states will build a strong framework soon.

Mobile Gambling Is the Future

The future of sports betting is in mobile and online, and the casinos ought to get ready. “Online is king,” said Wallach, a gaming and sports law attorney. Wallach said that to maximize revenues, casinos for sports betting must have a mobile and online presence.

Daniel Wallach and Tom Farrey

Right now, New Jersey is leading the market with eight online sportsbooks, and the state expects more to become available. The other states that offer sports betting are following the brick-and-mortar method.

The experience that New Jersey has with online casino gaming over the past five years is helping the state stay ahead of the pack. And the true value of the mobile and online sports betting presence will be its impact after one month of the NFL season.

Professional sports leagues like MLB and the NBA support mobile and online betting too. Sword thinks that such a platform will be good to control and monitor the books since a “paper trail” would now be in an electronic format.

“When you walk into a sportsbook and you make a bet at a window, we have no information about who you are, what other bets you’ve made,” Sword said. “And, when you’ve been making a bet on a mobile phone, we know a lot more than that. And, our ability to combine information, across bettors, across casinos, across states is dramatically improved.”

Dr. Laila Mintas, deputy president of Sportradar US, said it’s very important to have a mobile presence because, “people want to place a bet no matter where they are and whenever they want to do it.” In the UK, around 70 percent of betting is done on mobile. If the US lacks mobile options for bettors, they will continue to wager offshore, Mintas said.

Collective Action Among Key Stakeholders

The NCPG has been in talks with MLB and other pro sports leagues about a possible partnership to combat compulsive gambling. “This could be like the United Way [commercials],” Whyte said. “There could be major league stars saying, ‘Hey, bet with your head, but not over it.’”

Another collaborative effort could be between the leagues and the sports betting operators on the different types of sports betting to include.

“Smaller bets that happen during the course of the game … the first pitch of the game [being] a ball or a strike – that is problematic for us, because it’s very easy for an individual player to manipulate the outcome of that bet and very hard for us to detect,” Sword said.

A sports betting operator offered bets on this year’s Home Run Derby, which was won by Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper over the Chicago Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber. There were some questions on whether Harper’s batting practice pitcher threw some pitches too quickly – and against Home Run Derby rules – in order to catch up and win the contest.

Those who placed a bet on Schwarber became furious and blamed the MLB on social media. “If anyone asked us, we would tell you don’t offer bets on the home run derby,” Sword said. “It’s an exhibition event that’s meant for people to enjoy and have fun.”

Biggest Winners and Losers as Sports Betting Expands

Five years from now, who will be the biggest winners and losers as sports betting expands? Predictions varied across panelists, with the leagues perhaps seen as the biggest winners should sports betting be structured well. Cove, meanwhile, focused on the revenue it could produce for defined public purposes, such as building healthy kids and communities through community sports and recreation.

“States that institute programs to deliver back for the generations in perpetuity, focused on a social good, particularly for physical activity and health of kids [will be a winner],” Cove said.

You can read a full transcript of the event here.

Find the original story published here.

What's next for youth sports?

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

Let’s start with the end in mind. Ten years from now, the US will host the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and two years prior our nation will have hosted the men’s World Cup. By then, sports betting likely will have been legalized in most of the country, generating at minimum $5 billion a year in revenue for states — and perhaps the federal government if it gets involved — to distribute. If the trends of today continue, the sports industry could be twice the size, in revenue if not cultural influence.

Barring major missteps, it’s fair to assume the top of our sports pyramid will be categorized as somewhere between robust and very robust.

The bottom? That’s entirely TBD, depending on how much stakeholders commit to building healthy communities through sports, starting with quality experiences for all children regard­less of ZIP code or ability.

There is a great story to be told. But it will take vision, leadership, and systems-level adjustments in the provision of sport opportunities.

The next year will be critical in designing that future, with new chiefs setting new courses at key governing bodies (US Olympic Committee, US Soccer Federation), leagues such as the NBA taking more control of their youth pipelines, the introduction of sports betting in more states, and industry-aligning grassroots efforts via Project Play 2020.

Here are five questions that the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program plans to keep in mind as we help stakeholders identify opportunities:

What are we as a nation trying to achieve here?

There are lots of reasons Americans are drawn to sports. The desire to be entertained. To wit­ness the limits of human physical expression. To have something to talk about with the in-law who annoys you or your neighbor on the other side of political divide. Common cause, even if it’s around something as superficial as a favorite team, has value.

But what people want even more is to live in vibrant communities that foster the well-being of their families. The most desirable communities are active communities with ample bike paths, recreation spaces, and sport activities (both organized and unstructured) for kids through seniors.

Developing more policies and partnerships that place health and inclusion — the core values of Project Play — at the center of our sport system will be essential in aligning the interests of stakeholders and addressing myriad other issues, including the health care crisis.

Who gets defined as an athlete?

One of the key developments of the past year was the National Federation of State High School Associations embracing e-sports. Other traditional sport entities are investing in competitive video gaming as well, and as they chase the dollars, the public will be asked to expand the notion of an athlete to include those whose body move­ments are largely limited to a few fingers. The argument has been proffered: That’s a couple more fingers than are used in riflery.

That is true, though there are hazards in adjusting our common cultural understanding of sport as activity that involves physical activity. We know that good things happen when bodies are in motion. By the week it seems, the research grows about the physiological, mental, aca­demic, social, and emotional benefits of being active and/or playing sports.

More essential is expanding our scope of the athletes served by key institutions. The US Olympic Committee (USOC) is a critical player. In 1978, the Amateur Sports Act placed the USOC in charge of developing our sport system for athletes at all levels, including youth. Since the 1990s, and increasingly over the past decade, energies have shifted more toward the tippy-top of our sport system in an effort to turn Olympic hopefuls into Olympic stars.

There is a great story to be told. But it will take vision, leadership, and systems-level adjustments in the provision of sport opportunities.

That extreme focus on medals laid the groundwork for the abuses that emerged in USA Gymnastics and which have caused deep soul-searching at the USOC and the sport-spe­cific national governing bodies it oversees. Moving forward, there will be a push to redefine Team USA as inclusive of any athlete playing on any surface anywhere; new USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland has signaled as much in early comments, though what that means practically is to be determined.

What’s the role of schools?

This year B. David Ridpath, a professor of sport business at Ohio University, published Alternative Models of Sports Development in America, in which he examined the model for school sports in the US that has been in place for more than a century. He compared it to the model favored in Europe, in which clubs provide most of the sport development oppor­tunities for youth and schools are focused more exclusively on academics, plus some physical education.

The influence of club sports has grown in the US with some even prohibiting athletes from playing for school sports teams. Ironically, it’s driven by the chase for college athletic scholarships. As that trend marches forward, it presents a nice opportunity to reim­agine the role of sports in schools. Given the body of research showing the cognitive and other benefits of physical activity, what school-based models best serve the broadest array of students? How can schools partner with community organizations to share resources? Do we need to rethink the role of the P.E. teacher, from provider of sport experiences to connector to local sport options?

School sport is a treasured American institution. But there’s room for innovation, and we will encourage conversation that inspires solutions.

What’s the role of the federal government?

The United States is one of the few nations in the world without a sports ministry or similarly situated body that can guide, coordinate or facilitate sport development. Some argue this is a good thing, skeptical that the federal government, especially amid the partisan warfare of today, can get anything done that is smart or sustainable.

President Trump is diving in anyway, asking his renamed President’s Council on Sports, Fit­ness, & Nutrition to develop a national strategy on youth sports. Progress to date has been slow; his nominees to the council, from Bill Belichick to Lou Ferrigno, still were awaiting confirma­tion as of early September, more than 17 months after Trump took office. The council remains buried within the Department of Health and Human Services, with a small budget and staff. Efforts to raise money from the private sector to support Trump’s agenda are underway.

Time will tell if the marketplace responds, or if Trump can get more done by focusing on the levers that the White House controls. Federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be tasked to gather better data on sport participation so states can create their own “state of play” reports that will mobilize leaders. Grant criteria across federal agencies could be adjusted to align with youth sports needs. Proposed legislation, infrastructure bills or otherwise, could be reviewed with an eye toward the impact that the language may have on community sports.

How do we pay for it all?

This is a major question — but with a major opportunity before us. That would be legalized sports betting, which the Supreme Court opened the door to in May by ruling that the federal government could no longer prohibit states from authorizing (and taxing) such activity. New Jersey was the first mover, but no less than two dozen states are now taking steps to allow gam­bling on sports events. Within five years, that market could generate between $3.1 billion and $5.2 billion per year in annual revenue, according to one projection.

In Norway, revenues from sports betting are used to fund community sports and recreation. In 2016, $330 million was pumped back into communities for new projects, from facilities to equipment purchases. The support has played no small part in making Norway one of the most active and healthy nations in the world, with more than its fair share of elite athletes emerging at the top of the pyramid. At the 2018 Winter Games, Norway finished atop the medal count — not bad for a nation of 5.2 million people.

Further inspiration comes from Colorado, which has used lottery revenues to fund recreation projects. There, 24 cents of every dollar spent on the lottery goes back to the state, which since 1992 has generated $3.1 billion to build 900 miles of trails and 1,000 parks, skate parks, pools, and ballfields. The funds have improved facilities at some underfunded schools and preserved more than 700 miles of rivers. Small wonder Colorado has among the nation’s most active citizens and the state is one of the fastest-growing in the nation.

In September, our Future of Sports series put the question on the table of whether US states should use sports betting to fund the base of our sport system. It’s a conversation we’ll stay with as states make their plans.

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. On October 16, the Sports & Society Program will host the 2018 Project Play Summit, the nation’s premier gathering of leaders at the intersection of youth, sport, and health.

The original story was published here.

The benefits of shifting from tackle to flag football for youth

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

It’s football season again. With it comes Friday Night Lights, weekend tailgates, acts of soaring athleticism in the face of danger – and the inevitable, and growing, conversation about the game’s future. Many parents have real concerns about introducing tackle football to their children, given the mounting research on head injuries and their potential long-term impact on cognitive and emotional function.

Last year, in a milestone development that flew beneath the radar of national media, flag football surpassed tackle football as the most commonly played form of the game among children ages 6 to 12, according to annual survey data by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Last week, the LA84 Foundation, a major grant-maker to youth sports programs in Southern California, announced that it would no longer fund programs that offer tackle football before age 14.

Today, our Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program releases a 27-page white paper that explores the consequences of this trend continuing. Eight months in the making, it asks: What if flag football becomes the standard way of playing the sport until high school? What are the implications for the sport, its stakeholders, and most importantly, the children who play the game?

We analyze this potential development from five angles:

• Public health: Would delaying tackle football until high school make players safer?

• Youth participation: Would flag bring more children into the sport, or drive them away?

• Friday Night Lights: What impact, if any, might there be on high school football?

• Football industry: What could this mean for the NFL and college football, in terms of talent development, fan cultivation, and long-term bottom line?

• Civic life: How would a shift to flag impact the values promoted through the sport?

We peer into the crystal ball on these questions with the aid of a diverse set of experts convened in January at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC. The inaugural event in our Future of Sports conversation series, Future of Football: Reimagining the Game’s Pipeline, featured panels that included Dr. Robert Cantu, co-founder of the CTE Center at Boston University; Scott Hallenbeck, executive director, USA Football; former NFL players Chris Borland and Domonique Foxworth; Buddy Teevens, Dartmouth College coach; Jennifer Brown-Lerner, policy manager for the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, and mother of a grade-school boy who plays football; Tom Green, a high school coach in Maryland; and Dr. Andrew Peterson, representing the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Their insights were supplemented with perspectives gleaned from a post-event online survey distributed to attendees of the event and members of the public, including those who watched on livestream. Survey results and comments shown in this report come from 62 responses by parents, high school and youth coaches, athletic trainers, medical professionals and others. Those perspectives — plus Aspen Institute research — form the basis of this report. Each topic includes a discussion of the points of view shared, plus Aspen Institute analysis.

Our overarching conclusion: Children, the game and communities are likely to benefit if flag football becomes the standard way of playing before high school, with modifications. A key modification: Proper tackling technique is taught in in practice settings, and in a controlled manner, in the age group leading into it.

Among other factors, our conclusion is informed by the experience of hockey. A decade ago, USA Hockey recognized that it had a participation problem, with parents concerned about head injuries and kids quitting the game prematurely. The national governing body banned body-checking through age 12, and doubled-down on coach training, describing for stakeholders a clear pathway of progression through the sport. Since then, hockey is one of the few team sports to experience youth participation growth. Tough policy decisions were made that challenged the habits and notions of traditionalists, and the sport benefitted.

We hope this paper provides the necessary thought leadership to advance the game of football, helping parents, sport leaders, educators, policymakers and other stakeholders make reasoned and ethical decisions about improving the delivery of the game for youth, our society’s most valuable resource.

You can read the report here. We welcome your thoughts.

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program. He can be reached at tom.farrey@aspeninstitute.org. Follow him on Twitter @TomFarrey and the program @AspenInstSport. The Future of Sports series continues Friday, Sept. 14, at 12:30pmET with a livestreamed discussion on the Future of Sports Betting.

The original story was published here.

Sports betting in the public interest

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

This article originally appeared in the Denver Post

Once in a generation, maybe once in a century, an opportunity comes along to deliver on the full promise of sports as a tool of nation-building. Not just entertainment. Not just an opportunity to reflect on our culture. But actual nation-building, meaning the use of sport to develop healthy children and communities, which in turn can help address a range of well-established challenges, from obesity to crime, and mental health to military readiness.

That opportunity is now before us, and I’d like to put it on the table.

It flows from legalized sports betting, which in May the Supreme Court opened the door to in ruling the federal government could no longer prohibit states from authorizing (and taxing) such activity. New Jersey was the first mover, but no less than two dozen states are now taking steps to allow gambling on sports events. Within five years, that market could generate between $3.1 billion and $5.2 billion a year in annual revenue, according to one projection.

The exact locations where such betting may occur, and the types of bets allowed, will be worked out, state by state, in the coming months and years. First in the door with their lobbyists were the casinos, who aim to limit sports betting to their facilities so they can hoard the winnings. Behind them are the professional sports leagues, who argue they need a cut of action — a so-called “integrity fee” — to have the resources to keep gamblers from compromising the results of games.

Within five years, the sports betting market could generate between $3.1 billion and $5.2 billion a year in annual revenue.

Those who lawmakers really should be hearing from are their peers in Norway, who have no vested interest in our policies, just a powerful example to share. With a population of 5.3 million, the westernmost Scandinavian nation is the size of many US states. It’s also among the healthiest nations in the world, which starts with a commitment to get children out of the house. Though Norway is bone cold most of the year that close to the Arctic Circle, most youths are physically active at least 60 minutes daily, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. They engage in a wide range of activities, from cross-country skiing to speed skating, soccer to team handball, and cycling to swimming.

Sports betting helps make all this possible. Along with other forms of gambling, sports betting is legal in Norway, controlled by a government-sanctioned non-profit company, Norsk Tipping. When placing a wager, a bettor is given the option of directing 7 percent of the company’s take to an approved local organization — sport, humanitarian or cultural — of their choice. In 2017, the “Grassroots Share” generated $58 million for such organizations, said spokesman Roar Jodahl.

Then, at the end of each year, Norsk Tipping sends its surplus to the government, which distributes the funds based on a formula determined by Parliament. Currently, sport and recreation groups get 64 percent of those funds, which in 2016 generated $330 million for new projects, most at the community level. Since inception in 1948 when Norsk Tipping was created to finance the rebuilding of the country after World War II, the fund has delivered $6.4 billion (in 2016 value) to sport providers alone, who have used the support to build local facilities, buy equipment, and train their mostly volunteer coaches.

“This is critical to the stability and health of the Norwegian people,” the great Olympic speed skater and humanitarian Johann Olav Koss told me recently.

States would be wise to draw on this model. Americans, like Norwegians, want to live in active, vibrant communities — and most of us understand intuitively the essential role of parks, bike paths, and recreation programs in creating them. Overwhelmingly, parents want their kids involved in organized and unstructured activities that lay the groundwork for healthy lifestyles into adulthood. And right now, that’s just not happening as much it needs to. Fewer than 3 in 10 high school students are physically active daily, and 39.8 percent of adults are obese.

Money alone won’t solve the problem. But as someone who has studied our sport delivery system for two decades, I can assure you that only so much progress can be made without greater investment in the hardware (nearby places to play) and software (better youth coaches, quality P.E. programs) of community recreation, especially in low-income urban and rural areas. In places like Harlem, Buffalo, Detroit, and Mobile County, Alabama, where our Aspen Institute program has landscaped the state of play, we’ve found no lack of desire by kids to play sports or adults who want to help – just a lack of resources to scale the best programs or provide safe places to go between the hours of 3 and 6 pm when parents are still at work. Baltimore had 130 neighborhood rec centers in 1990. Today, there are just 42. Neighborhoods without them have some of the highest crime rates.

Earmarking funds derived from sports betting to get more kids active turns a threat into a clearly articulated opportunity.

For states right now, the argument to legalize sports gambling lacks any defined public purpose. Former Senator Bill Bradley worries that turning every game into a betting opportunity, with the inevitable barrage of related ads, will change our relationship with sports and make it more transactional, less values-driven. So why do it? To prop up failing casinos? Grow franchise values and player salaries? Pump new revenue into a state’s general treasury, for legislators to argue over and spend who-knows-where, from government pensions to road construction?

Earmarking funds derived from sports betting to get more kids active through sports turns a threat into a clearly articulated opportunity. It’s coherent policy, leveraging the top of the sports pyramid – big-time entertainment – to underwrite the base. And we know the potential downstream results. For instance in Western New York, where we’re working, 16 percent of youth are active daily. If that number can be pushed to just half of all youth, the region will have 27,845 fewer overweight and obese children, which, if they stay active, projects to $472 million in direct medical costs saved and $500 million in economic productivity losses averted, according to Johns Hopkins University.

If that’s the value proposition, states should fully if carefully exploit the opportunity. Don’t force bettors to drive to casinos or race tracks to place wagers. Allow it on mobile devices so those who are inclined to bet (I’m not one of them) can do so from sports bars and living rooms. The more revenue derived, the greater chance states have to build healthier communities through sports, as well as develop the resources to limit problem gambling, behavior that certainly could grow. Agree to work only with companies that restrict bets to pro and perhaps college games, and with the leagues to keep game integrity issues from growing.

Then, watch your state flourish, as Colorado has with the aid of lottery revenues dedicated to funding recreation projects. There, 24 cents of every dollar spent on the lottery goes back to the state, which since 1992 has generated $3.1 billion to build 900 miles of trails and 1,000 parks, skate parks, pools, and ballfields. The funds improved facilities at some underfunded schools and preserved more than 700 miles of rivers. Small wonder Colorado has among the nation’s most active citizens, and the state is one of the fastest-growing in the nation.

Any state could take the leap into sports betting, smartly deployed. But I nominate Minnesota. It’s the same size population of Norway. Similar climate. History of investing in community sports. Scandinavian heritage, even. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Team USA was practically Team Minnesota, whose hockey, curling and ski athletes helped our delegation win 23 medals, fourth-best in the medal count. The nation that finished on top? Norway, which won a record 39.

Amazing what grows at treetops when the grassroots get fed.

Tom Farrey (@TomFarrey) is a journalist and executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. On Sept. 14, the Aspen Institute held panel discussions on the topic titled “Future of Sports Betting: Reimagining its Public Value.” Read the recap and transcript from the event. Learn how 
other countries handle sports gambling.