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Latinos en el fútbol: ¿Cuál es el modelo en los Estados Unidos para no dejarlos atrás?

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Johnny Martínez jugará fútbol universitario este otoño - y lo estará haciendo como un estudiante de negocios con una beca académica de la Universidad de Lady of the Lake. Es el primer graduado de la Academia Urban Soccer Leadership (USLA), que en el 2010 comenzó a ayudar a los jóvenes del área urbana de San Antonio a jugar fútbol y avanzar hacia oportunidades universitarias.

Más podrían surgir. El ex alcalde de San Antonio, Ed Garza, quien fundó la USLA, indicó que el hermano menor de Martínez ya ha visitado varias universidades en Boston y quiere asistir a Duke por motivos académicos.

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MaxInMotion empodera a las ligas de fútbol SoCal latino para que puedan ayudarse a sí mismas

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Antes de que Hugo Salcedo fuera un futbolista olímpico estadounidense y un ejecutivo de fútbol que se convirtió en director de desarrollo de la Confederación de Norteamérica, Centroamericana y del Caribe de Fútbol (CONCACAF), era un chico de secundaria con inglés medio que se enfrentaba a un futuro incierto.

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Street Soccer USA construye confianza a nivel nacional con niños desatendidos

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Hay un tema común entre los innovadores que ayuda a los jugadores de fútbol juveniles desatendidos: Construir confianza. Lawrence Cann puede relacionarse. Cuando tenía 9 años, la casa de sus padres se incendió.

"Tenía una red de confianza porque mi entrenador me llevó a la práctica de fútbol", dijo Cann. "Lo que parecía algo malo era una mera afirmación sobre la vida: 'Wow, hay una comunidad apoyándome".

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La Fundación de la Ciudad de Park City observa la integración a través de la recreación en Utah

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Veintiún por ciento de los estudiantes escolares de Park City, Utah, son latinos. El número de latinos que practican deportes, no obstante, es mucho menor. El Club de Fútbol de Park City por ejemplo, solamente tiene una participación por parte de la comunidad hispana del 9%.

Esports dilemma: How to pass video games down to new generations

Let me start with something really positive about esports before considering some thornier issues. A larger proportion of fans and AVID fans of esports participate in sports and/or exercise on a weekly basis than those who are not esports fans. Esports fans are NOT game-chair-potatoes. I will come back to this after taking on some fundamental questions about esports.

An Olympian explains how video games can get kids active

After four gold medals, Hockey Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero retired from the US women’s national hockey team in 2011. Her new career may be even busier and more impressive. Ruggiero is the co-founder and managing director of Sports Innovation Lab, chief strategy officer of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic bid committee, and an executive board member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). On Sept. 6, she will speak at the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Summit on a panel titled, “From Pokémon Go to Esports: Lessons and Opportunities.” Portions of the Summit will be streamed live. See the full agenda here.

Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, recently spoke with Ruggiero. Their wide-ranging conversation touched on sports tech innovation, improvements to youth sports through the LA 2028 Olympics, and whether the rising popularity of esports video gaming undermines — or actually helps — participation in traditional sports.

The Sports Innovation Lab seems like a great canvas to pursue your many curiosities. Why create such a firm?

Part of my motivation to found the Sports Innovation Lab was all the time I spent on various boards shaping decisions with very little objective and analytic information. I’m obviously curious about business in general. I got my MBA at Harvard and studied how technology has changed multiple industries. I realized if there is a way to help the industry I love — the sports industry — adopt the right technology quicker, accelerate innovation, create the right partnerships, find the right people, and find the right markets, I wanted to do that. We want to help companies that are on offense come in and test out products and services in sports that they could actually leverage into wider markets. Sports is just the test bed, but can be the platform to tell the story.

How do you look at the opportunity around the LA Olympics in 2028?

LA 2028 is unlike any Olympics ever. Usually, there’s a seven-year horizon between the bid selection and the Games. This is the first time ever it will be an 11-year horizon, and on top of that, we’re not building a single new venue. It’s a sustainable bid at the core. We’re going to build a Games that fits the needs of the city, not the other way around. We’ll build some temporary venues, but we’re using existing infrastructure in LA.

So people go, “Well, where’s the budget going to go?” What’s important to us is using the Olympics as a platform to inspire America, inspire Angelenos, and get kids more involved. Starting in 2018, we’re going to create more opportunities for youth sports in LA — a full 10 years before the Games — as a lasting and impactful pre-legacy.

It’s been reported that the IOC will provide $160 million for youth sports programs. It’s very early, but are there specific ideas LA has of how to disperse that money?

Disbursement is at LA 2028’s discretion, but it will fund youth sports in Los Angeles today. It’s basically an advance on the payment that’s typically given during the Games to help endow youth sports today. That’s another innovation in and of itself, where a lot of the focus of this is on the pre-legacy and not the post-legacy.

When I had youth camps, everything was a disguised competition. Kids love that.

The topic of your panel at the Project Play Summit overlaps here a little bit. There’s talk of Paris adding esports to the 2024 Olympic set of sport offerings. How should we feel about that?

I look at sports and think, ok, people huddle around a TV and they watch football and they don’t participate, and they never will participate, but they just love watching. Kids might do the same thing with esports. You can’t deny the numbers.

At Sports Innovation Lab, we’re actually spending a lot of time really understanding the dynamics between sports and esports, and how traditional sports could leverage what esports is actually doing right. Within this trend, esport athletes are engaging with their fans more, they’re creating an atmosphere where no one’s looking on their phones. They’re actually present in the building. It is worth studying and understanding at the very least.

Is there anything that youth sport organizations can learn from esports?

If all you do is sit and play games and watch people play games and you’re never active, that’s definitely not in line with getting active fans to participate in your sport. But, if traditional sports organizations can figure out the mechanism to turn them into participants – maybe they play Madden (the NFL video game) and there’s an easy way for them to sign up and play football. That’s part of the reason the NBA is investing in the NBA2K esports league. The hope is that they’ll convert some of these kids into participants of basketball as well.

Think about adults with Fitbit and a lot of fitness options that they gamify to get more activity into their day. If you think from that same framework then yeah, absolutely, traditional sports and youth sports could learn from esports and Pokémon Go. When I had youth camps, everything was a disguised competition; it was a game. Kids love that. They push themselves a lot harder. Maybe youth sports creates a virtual community so then there are more ways to stay in touch with those kids. There’s a company creating a mechanism for marathoners to meet up with other marathoners in advance so they can train eight months out with someone they know is going to be running alongside them on the day of the race. Suddenly, you’re using technology to bring communities together to do physical sport — to actually move.

You’ve done so much in your early part of your career. What drives you?

What I think I have realized is that you can have a personal impact at a very individual level. When I was coaching kids’ camps — I had a girls hockey school for 10 years — I got to know the girls’ names, I saw them develop, and I stayed in touch with them. But now in my capacity with the IOC or LA or with my company, I’m trying to change the world in a more scalable way – affecting change that’s on a policy level or creating a new business model that doesn’t exist. What drives me is finding those right endeavors and then just putting my heart into those pieces, and seeing real change. I think in some cases I’m driven to win a game (while playing hockey), and in others I want to help shape the world. I want to help change the world in a positive way.

The story was originally published here.

Michelle Obama on making sports accessible and affordable

First Lady Michelle Obama says play, nutrition, and physical activity aren’t available to every child — and that’s a problem. With the annual cost of sports participation around $2,200 per child, these opportunities are increasingly available only to wealthier families.

A report from the Sports and Society Program at the Aspen Institute shows parents have concerns around risk of injury, the quality or behavior of coaches, time commitment, and the emphasis on winning over having fun. What can be done to ensure children are being physically active and learning team skills? Obama discusses accessibility and affordability of sports with her brother and ESPN analyst Craig Robinson. Michael Wilbon, host of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” moderates the conversation.

Catch up on previous episodes by visiting the Aspen Ideas Festival website.

Marci Krivonen is the associate editor and producer of public programs at the Aspen Institute.

The “Aspen Ideas to Go” podcast is a weekly show featuring fascinating speakers who have presented at the Aspen Ideas Festival and other public programs offered by the Aspen Institute — including Aspen Words, the Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series, and various events around the country. For a curated listening experience, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or listen to each episode on the Aspen Ideas website.

Project Play Summit 2016 recap: Elevating access to sport

Above, ESPN Analyst Craig Robinson in conversation with his sister, first lady Michelle Obama, at the 2016 Project Play Summit.

More than 450 leaders at the intersection of sport, youth, and health convened yesterday in Washington, DC, for the 2016 Project Play Summit, where panels explored ways to grow youth access to sport and first lady Michelle Obama issued a direct appeal to stakeholders to close the gap for children from low-income homes. A live-stream audience followed along, with the event trending on social media during the day.

Read below for a roundup of highlights from the day.

FLOTUS calls for more investment in access to sports

In perhaps her most extended comments on the topic, Obama marveled at the disparities in resources spent on children and sports across communities. She offered insights as part of a featured conversation with her brother Craig Robinson, moderated by his ESPN colleague Michael Wilbon.

“So many communities are becoming play deserts,” she said. “But, in wealthy communities, there is a wealth of resources. You can be in field hockey, or you can learn how to swim. There are aquatic centers… I’ve seen the difference, the disparities are amazing to me. So are we saying that some kids are worthy of that investment of physical activity and then there are millions of others who aren’t? And what’s the role that we as a society have for making sure that we have equal access?”

With her mother Marian Robinson seated in front of her in the first row, the session felt less like a keynote and more like an intimate living room conversation with reflections on how much the youth sports experience has changed, for the better and worse, since she and her brother were growing up in South Side Chicago in the 1970s. Wilbon also was raised in South Side Chicago.

The three of them reminisced about the days they all spent playing with local neighborhood, engaged in low- or no-cost physical activity — indoors and outdoors — often organized by the children themselves.

“We would play all day long, for hours,” Obama said.

“All you had to do was report back to the house every couple of hours,” Robinson replied.

Today, with increased concern of public safety and many public parks and playgrounds in rapid decline, parents are left with fewer — and more costly — choices for youth sport. That being the case, Obama called on the sports industry and other sectors to find the funding to get more children engaged in sports, describing it as an “investment” in their own future given the relationship between participation and fandom as well as the development of more elite athletes.

“Whatever the dollar figure is, as a society, as taxpayers, as corporate America, we should figure out how much that costs and then pay for it,” she said. “Period.”

Watch video of the full interview on YouTube.

Tennis Legend Billie Jean King calls for more female coaches

Tennis champion, gender equality and gay rights activist Billie Jean King encouraged the audience to not forget about females when thinking about accessibility for sports. “We don’t have enough women coaches,” she said. “I am sorry to say it. Don’t forget about the girls and the women, we are half of the population. I am serious. We are forgotten.”

Only one in four youth sport coaches were women in 2015, according to data in Project Play’s latest report, “State of Play: 2016,” a draft of which was released at the summit. There’s been no growth in the percentage of women coaches in recent years. (A final version of the report will be released in the coming weeks, incorporating insights from the Summit where the crowd used instant polling software to assess the state of play in each of the eight strategies identified in the seminal Project Play report, “Sport for All, Play for Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game”).

The former World No. 1 tennis player also stressed the importance of sports in making communities safer, and its role in making us more resilient and self-aware.

See news coverage in The Washington Post. Also check out our Storify coverage and find the most tweetable moments by searching for #projectplay. The full list of sessions and panels, and associated materials, can be found on the 2016 Project Play Summit event page. Check back later as more video from those sessions is made available.

Tweets of the Day: Read below for some of the most tweetable moments from #projectplay.

How to build multi-sport venues

If you’re a parent of an active child today, you may be familiar with the dilemma. Your kid shows an interest in a sport, flashes some promise, then next thing you know – maybe even before she or he is out of grade school — the message you’re getting from coaches is the pathway to the next level flows through a focused, year-round commitment to that sport. You may even be asked to sign a contract promising to prioritize that team’s training sessions and games over any outside sport activities.

It’s not consistent with what the research says about quality athletic development. “Not one publication says specialized, intense early play will lead to elite-level success,” says Dr. Neeru Jayanthi, an Emory University professor and one of the world’s leading experts on the health implications of youth athletic training. “There are plenty of anecdotal stories” but no data to support that approach as better than just letting children do what most of them naturally want to do, which is to explore a range of activities.

Schools know not to teach kids just one subject. But this is becoming the standard in youth sports, at least among those who can afford the rising economic barriers to entry (which many cannot). In 2015, for the first time since data began to be collected by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, the number of team sports that the average child (ages 6 to 17) played dropped below two, to 1.89.

What to do? At the 2015 Project Play Summit where we introduced our seminal report, Sport for All, Play for Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game, we offered to host a follow-up roundtable on the topic that was of most interest to attendees. The winning idea, as submitted by thought leaders and voted upon via electronic, on-site polling: Conceptualize a multi-sport club. It was a response to the fact that increasingly, youth sports is influenced by private clubs that have expertise in just one sport, and if they own facilities, promote year-round play in that sport because, well, their mortgages need to be paid year-round. Structurally, it’s a model that makes sense for entrepreneurs, not kids and families.

So, last September at the invitation of the U.S. Tennis Association, we hosted a roundtable at the U.S. Open that convened senior leaders from organizations with the capacity to change the game. Actually, it was a couple of roundtables, one mostly for leaders from the professional leagues, one for leaders from national sport governing bodies, with a mix of other key groups, including the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition. Many had just agreed to a statement in support of multi-sport play at least through age 12, the first shared action around a strategy as identified in the Sport for All, Play for Life report. Their endorsement was featured in a PSA placed by the USTA in the Sports Business Journal.

Step Two was forming a working group focused on creating a resource that sport providers could use to create multi-sport venues. That resource was delivered at the 2016 Project Play Summit, a document offering guidance for not just sport clubs but camps, parks & rec departments, and other providers. It highlights programs from across the U.S. that we identified as exemplars in encouraging multi-sport play and have developed successful models or innovations that can be scaled. We include a brief overview of each organization, its breakthrough strategy or tact, and its financial structure. Ideas also are offered for creating multi-sport programs from scratch.

Check out the first-of-its kind resource here, and please share with your networks.

Because multi-sport play isn’t just what kids need. It’s what the market wants, if given a choice.

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program and founder of the Project Play initiative, which provides thought leaders with the guidance to build healthy communities through sport. The program has produced a series of reports, most recently State of Play: 2016, an annual snapshot of how well stakeholders are serving children and communities through sports, with grades offered in each of the areas of opportunity as identified in the Sport for All, Play for Life report.

This story was originally published here.

Play is the work of children

During 2015 Spotlight Health, the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program released a white paper that bears consequence for the health of the nation, “Physical Literacy in the United States: A Model, Strategic Plan, and Call to Action.” Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the paper builds on research associating movement competence with physical activity.

Wayne Moss, senior director of sports, fitness, and recreation for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, is a member of the 15-person working group that contributed to and reviewed the report.

When school is out, summer camp is in for young people at Boys & Girls Clubs. Their days are filled with laughter, participating in games, informal play, and making friends while creating a lifetime of memories. Nearly two-thirds of the children we serve are eligible for free and reduced lunch. If not for the local club, many of these youth could not afford the luxury of structured activities that have tremendous benefits. While kids have a three-month vacation from school, it wreaks havoc on activity levels — and their development of physical literacy.

We believe in physical literacy because we believe that every young person should feel confidence and self-assurance to move with their bodies.

Physical literacy is defined as the ability, confidence, and desire to be physically active for life. It means being able to move with poise and confidence, being able to “read” a wide variety of physically challenging situations, and having the talent to respond with imagination, agility, and intelligence. I grew up playing tag, hide-and-go seek, sandlot baseball, basketball, and riding bikes and remain active today.

At the Boys & Girls Club of America, we believe that physical literacy is so important that we’re committing to revising the curriculum of our signature healthy lifestyles program, Triple Play, to align with these life-changing concepts. For more than a decade, Triple Play has provided sports and fitness activities, making nearly 10 million connections with kids. As we continue to improve this program, infusing concepts of physical literacy is essential for elevating our kids’ physical abilities. By investing in physical literacy for all youth in our clubs, we will be able to reach our bold goal of the youth in our clubs achieving four billion hours of physical activity by 2018.

We believe in physical literacy because we believe that every young person should feel confidence and self-assurance to move with their bodies. This can be accomplished by working on fundamental movement skills such as running, jumping, skipping, throwing, catching, and balancing. As young people increase their physical literacy they:

  • Increase their knowledge, understanding, and comprehension around their physicality

  • Increase the creativity in which their bodies move

  • Increase their ability to move with deftness in different environments

Physical literacy also includes children and adults being able to be agile and strong and even able to navigate something like a slippery surface in a safe way. Physical literacy can also prepare young people for a physically active career, such as those of firefighters, police officers, and construction workers.

In my role as senior director of sports, fitness, and recreation for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, I see the direct benefits these young people get with a summer filled with activities like baseball, basketball, tag, and hopscotch. Some members, like ballet great Misty Copeland, received their start by running, jumping, and dancing at Clubs like the one in San Pedro, California. Copeland is now a member of the American Ballet Theatre and recently made history by becoming the company’s first African-American principal dancer.

I challenge all other youth-serving organizations to join us on this journey. Organizations such as schools, recreation and community centers, after-school and sports programs, day-care facilities, and youth scouts organizations should commit to integrating physical literacy principles in their respective programs. I invite those organizations to design physical literacy frameworks and programs by 2018 and have them fully implemented by 2020 so that together we can change the future for the next generation.

There’s an incredible urgency to move now to change the opportunity equation for our kids and our nation.

The original story was published here.

Why make room in sports for kids with developmental disabilities?

The USA Bobsled and Skeleton Federation has partnered with the Aspen Institute Sports and Society Program’s Project Play initiative to explore ways to get and keep children active through sports. Below, the USA Bobsled Federation CEO Darrin Steele reflects on what he’s learned about the power of sports in raising a child with a developmental disability.

Some people find their calling working with kids with developmental disabilities. Other people find themselves in that world unexpectedly. For parents like me, it’s the latter. 

The learning curve is steep, and to call the education an emotional roller coaster would be a gross understatement. I have to confess that when we got the diagnosis that my son has autism, I assumed there was an established path we would plug him into. The comfort we got from finally having a diagnosis was eclipsed by the realization that America was ill-prepared to handle the fastest growing developmental disability in the nation. We quickly realized that he wasn’t entering a path; he was exiting one.

My son loves physical activity and he has natural athleticism. He reminded me of me when I was young, and I was happy his motor skills were very good. I was troubled by the therapy he got, which took a lot of time and involved a lot of sitting. He didn’t do well. He was immersed in an inclusive classroom, which we supported and still do. He stays in the classroom as much as possible, but goes to the special needs room when necessary. He’s in a great school and we are lucky to have him there.

Even though this might be as good as it gets, the reality is that the system wasn’t built for kids like him and he really doesn’t belong there. All too often, we are reminded that kids like my son don’t really belong anywhere. He makes too much noise, he doesn’t follow directions, he can’t keep up with his peers, and he gets in the way.

This is where sport comes in. I experienced the power of sport as a child and quickly figured out that my social stock rose due to my achievements in sports. That was great news for a shy kid like me. Sport has the unique ability to not only provide an experiential education that serves real life, but it is one of the only possible experiences that rewards heart, drive, and teamwork. 

Sport offers something else that no other experience does: the concept of the “personal best.” There is a universal understanding in sport that a personal best is something special because in sport, you compete against yourself. Sure, there are other competitors, but they are there to help bring out the best in you. Sport allows us to define success at an individual level.

These kids with disabilities are reminded of their weaknesses on a daily basis. While most kids gravitate toward their areas of strength, the Individualized Education Program process for kids with special needs is primarily focused on areas of weakness. What would happen if these same kids were introduced to sport? Fortunately, we don’t have to guess. I had the pleasure of studying one of the few sports organizations on the country that provides sports programs for kids with developmental disabilities. Sports Plus, in Montgomery County, Maryland, allowed me to observe the programs and talk with the parents of participants.

Sports Plus quickly realized that having positive coaches — who had fun with the participants while demanding incremental sport improvement — was an absolute requirement for success. The kids took pride in their improvements and experienced social gains from both engaging the coaches and feeling a sense of belonging with their peers. More than 95 percent of participants are repeat customers. 

I have seen the impact of physical activity on my son Darrin Khan as well, although he’s never participated in organized sports. This is a kid who has been on the move since he came out of the womb. He is a lot like I was as a child and we both fit the definition for ADHD. Dr. John Ratey, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has studied the outcomes of exercise on those with ADHD and regularly prescribes exercise rather than drugs to his ADHD patients. Not only does physical activity make my son happy while he’s doing it, but he’s much calmer and less inclined to have meltdowns after.

I have yet to find a sports program that can handle him. Although he has a high level of athletic ability, mainstream sports require too much cognitive application and team sports require too much communication and social interaction. For now, he swims, climbs, and dances for fun. I recently took him to a martial arts class because I trusted the coach and the coach knows my son. He certainly enjoyed the experience, but he didn’t understand why he was punching and kicking the heavy bags and he doesn’t like to stand in line.

Above, watch Steele’s son in his first Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) class.

Kids like my son need much more one-on-one instruction at the beginning and they will learn faster if they are shown what to do rather than told. The other kids will accept these kids, strange behavior and all, if the coach sets the tone. Those aren’t major modifications and they could make all the difference. 

I have seen some resistance to creating programs specific to kids with developmental disabilities. I certainly think we should include them in mainstream programs where, when, and if it makes sense. Sports are fun when the challenge is reasonable and the athletes and teams are evenly matched. Yes, there should be winners and losers because there are important life lessons to be learned. If evenly matched means that teams are exclusively made up of kids with developmental disabilities, then we should encourage it. If we can include them into mainstream programs with some adaptations to their training, then we should most definitely do that.

The thing that we should remember about all sports is that we are ultimately competing against ourselves. It’s much easier to define success in general terms that we can all understand, but all participants should celebrate the idea of personal struggles and personal bests.  

A few weeks ago, I was able to see a video that my son’s 3rd grade teacher took. She does a great job of including music and dance in class throughout the day. This is a regular inclusive classroom and we worry about how he’s doing when we’re not around. This video showed him leading the class in a dance to the song Ghostbusters. This is something he’s good at and his teacher recognized the opportunity to play to his strengths in front of his peers. It’s something that kids like him don’t get to experience often and it brought tears to my eyes to see it. That is what sports can do if we get it right.

This school is an exception, unfortunately, but the experience above is one of the reasons he has kids saying, “Hi” to him constantly and why he feels like he belongs.

An estimated 10 million children in the United States between the ages of three and 17 have a developmental disability and that number is rising. These children often have physical, emotional, social, and cognitive challenges that result in a lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and much lower sport participation rates than neurologically typical children. Youth sports have proven to increase the HRQoL in children.

Often-overlooked aspects of inclusion are the benefits to the children without disabilities. These children have been found to not only increase their social skills when in the same classroom as diverse students, but also see improvements in leadership, self-esteem, and confidence.

So, why make room for kids with developmental disabilities? Because every kid deserves to feel like they belong somewhere. Sports are uniquely capable of offering this to kids who have more challenges than solutions, more questions than answers, and more places where they don’t belong than those where they do. In short, because everyone wins.

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The story was originally published here.

A new vision, platform for youth sports in America

A new report released today, “Sport for All, Play for Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game,” offers an ambitious plan to reimagine organized youth sports, prioritizing health and inclusion, while recognizing the benefits of unstructured play. Below, Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program Director Tom Farrey explains the importance of play in children’s health and well-being.

Why do kids play sports? Back to the basics

I was working in one of my first real jobs after competing in the 1998 Olympics, and a colleague pulled me aside to ask some advice. He was frustrated with his 11-year-old son, who was a gifted youth soccer player. It seemed that the boy had lost his drive and his father was failing in his effort to get his son to work harder in practice. He wanted my help in convincing the boy to work harder. Without thinking much about it, I simply told him that the only thing he could do was to make sure the boy was having fun, because it shouldn’t feel like work at that age.

Safety in Youth Sports: Parents have spoken, we have listened, and now we have to act

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) was a key contributor at this month’s Project Play Roundtable, “What Do Mothers Want from Youth Sports?” Hosted by the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program in partnership with ESPN, the roundtable brought together a diverse group of stakeholders in the area of safety in youth sports.

The sports gene: Why parents need to relax a little

As Americans, we tend to think excellence can be manufactured. That greatness can be created out of any piece of human clay. The Constitution states that all men are created equal, and thus, we like to think, maybe, so are elite athletes. Which explains why we have soccer academies for toddlers as young as 18 months. Seriously, I’m surprised entrepreneurs haven’t yet figured out how to sell in-utero sport training - it’s easy money.