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.

Revisiting Title IX 46 years later

Caitlin Morris

Title IX, signed on June 23, 1972, was a game changer. It altered the rules for federally funded activities in education, making it illegal to discriminate against women and girls in this area. It also gave them the opportunity to participate in sports and physical activities, creating a path for some of our greatest athletes, like Mia Hamm and Sheryl Swoopes.

Title IX built a strong policy-based foundation, but 46 years later, we know that our work has really only just begun. While many systemic and cultural changes — from reductions in physical education programs in public schools to increasingly higher costs of participation in competitive sports — have led to a drop in physical activity among all kids, girls are still getting the short end of the stick.

At Nike, we believe if you have a body, you’re an athlete. But fewer and fewer girls hold that statement to be true about themselves. More than 38 percent of girls (versus 25 percent of boys) in America don’t participate in sport. Girls are consistently two years behind boys in physical literacy skills. We may not be entirely sure why this gap exists, but we know the scale of its impact. Generally speaking, when girls lack the competence, they also lack the confidence to engage in sports. Children as young as 8 years old begin defining themselves as athletes, or not.

When girls walk away from sport this early in life, it affects more than just their health and happiness. Research shows that physically active kids are 15 percent more likely to attend college, and earn 7 to 8 percent more money, on average. Essentially, play equals power.

So, the big question today is, how can we all come together to truly, finally deliver on the promise of Title IX to promote gender equality in sports? For starters, we’d love to share some important lessons we’ve learned from our investments with community and school-based partners that we believe could have implications for all stakeholders:

1. Smart program design and coaching are key. If we don’t design programs specifically for and with girls in mind, they will sit on the sidelines, or worse, stop showing up. Also, If we don’t offer the presence and expertise of female coaches, girls will be less inclined to participate. We know that strong women make good role models for girls and help boost their confidence both on and off the court/field/track, yet only 28 percent of youth coaches are female. Programs like the Mamba League have shown us what’s possible in this context. Inspired by Kobe Bryant’s own youth experiences and coaching philosophy, the Mamba League was created to inspire girls and boys to learn basketball fundamentals and to build self-assuredness through leading an active, healthy lifestyle. Nike worked closely with the Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club to create a program that encouraged an equal number of boys and girls teams at every site and targeted female coaches to lead the girls-only teams. Every single girls’ team was led by female coaches, which drew girls to participate in record numbers — they made up 48 percent of the League in its first year. Those numbers held up in year two as well, even after the Mamba League doubled in size.

2. Data gaps will continue to hinder us. We know that what gets measured, gets done. While there is some data available on adolescent and teenage participation in sports in after-school programs, like the Boys and Girls Clubs, the current data sets do not fully capture sports participation for younger kids (12 years of age and under). They also don’t adequately cover gender breakdowns. And we know that physical activity does more than create good health. It contributes to leadership, productivity and innovation. It lowers depression and crime, increases educational achievement and income levels, and generates returns to businesses. This is why it is so critical to create access for girls — and all kids — to have early positive experiences with sport, so they may reap the benefits over their lifetime. More research needs to be performed in order for all of us to better understand — and address — the issues at hand. Without a baseline for how many girls are participating in sports and other physical activities, or details on where and how we are falling short, we will not be able to successfully evaluate any of our current efforts and investments. Once fueled with this information, as program funders, we may better examine and better channel/invest our time, energy and resources toward creating innovative, proven solutions to get more girls — and kids, in general — active.

3. This is everyone’s issue. No one organization or sector can increase girls’ sports participation alone. This has to be a team effort in order to succeed. We need multi-stakeholder engagement — and we need to visit this subject together on an ongoing basis. We applaud the continuing collaboration between the City of Los Angeles, The Getty Foundation, and non-profit as well as corporate institutions who are gathering in L.A. on June 23 to help get more girls moving across the city. The Aspen Institute Project Play 2020 initiative is another great example of multi-stakeholder engagement in the United States. The consortium of organizations — of which Nike is a founding member — aims to develop shared goals and advance collective action around making sports accessible to all kids in the US, regardless of zip code, ability or gender.

Title IX Day is more than just a moment for reflection and celebration on how far we’ve come to build gender equity in athletics. It’s a call to action to break down the existing barriers for girls so they can confidently get in the game. Because we know that once they start, they won’t want to stop.

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 the Aspen Institute Project Play 2020 initiative, 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.

Find the original story published here.

How Norway won the Winter Olympics

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

Apart from that little North Korea diplomacy thing, the transcendent story of the PyeongChang Games was Norway, which performed better than any nation in the history of the Winter Olympics. Its athletes earned a record 39 medals, a stunning 16 more than the United States, reaching the podium not just in its traditional strengths of cross-country skiing and biathlon but also in alpine skiing, speed skating, ski jumping, and freestyle skiing.

The Norwegians won so much, modesty finally escaped them.

“Incredible,” said Johann Olav Koss, the Norwegian speed skater who won four gold medals at the 1992 and ’94 Olympics. “This has been the most incredible Olympics ever from a performance perspective.”

The haul is made all the more extraordinary by the relative size of the western-most Scandinavian country. Norway is a nation of just 5.3 million people, a population not much larger than Greater Detroit. Norway won 7.3 medals for every one million residents, according to research by NBC Sports. The only nation with a better ratio was Lichtenstein, which is more a hamlet than a country and won a bronze in alpine skiing.

One caveat before we move on: Countries with large populations can only rise so high on the above list. If the US won every possible medal in events that its athletes qualified for (228 medals), its ratio would max out at 0.70. The best pound-for-pound fighters are never heavyweights.

Still, the chart is a useful entry point into understanding the quality of a nation’s sport system. How it organizes its assets and confronts the challenges that other nations face. How it introduces children to sports, identifies and develops talent, and moves them through the lifecycle of an athlete. After these 2018 Winter Games, it is both natural and healthy to ask: What in the world have the Norwegians figured out?

That’s what I did for the past week from the advantaged perch of the International Broadcast Center in PyeongChang. It’s a like a sport-focused United Nations, with sport chiefs, journalists, and athletes from all over the globe passing through its cavernous hallways on the way to guest spots, happy to share insights. The Norwegians were particularly generous because, well, they’re Norwegians, who quite often are really nice people. (You can listen to my interviews on The Podium, the Olympics podcast from Vox Media and NBC Sports.)

“We have some responsibilities when we have this medal count,” said Tore Øvrebø, head of the Norwegian Olympic Committee delegation, as we sat down for our second interview in three days. “We want to talk about systems and how we do things, but not brag about it.”

He’ll leave the gushing to others, like Angela Ruggiero. The hockey hall of famer sits on the board of the US Olympic Committee and the executive board of the International Olympic Committee. Over the past few years, she became acquainted with Norway’s system as chair of the coordinating committee for the IOC’s Youth Winter Olympic Games, held in 2016 in Lillehammer.

“I was blown away and started sharing it,” she told me last week. “But the conversation is bigger now that we are at the Games.”

The good news: Many of the ideas underpinning Norway’s sport system have begun taking hold in the US, especially those at the base of the pipeline. Stakeholders who have engaged with the Aspen Institute Project Play initiative will recognize most of them. The better news: Norway offers a road map on taking next steps.

Here are five things to know about Norway’s sport system.

It wasn’t always a model

For more than a half century after winter sports were added to the Olympic Games in 1924, Norway performed well, thanks largely to a nature-loving culture in which families get kids on cross-country skis and skates before they are old enough to start school. Then, at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Norway won just five medals, none gold, and finished 11th in the medal table. For all that snow and ice that Norwegians grow up on most of the year, the land of vikings could produce no conquerors in the sports played on those surfaces. It stung.

“A national trauma,” Øvrebø told me with a smile.

But it was a highly productive national trauma. Opportunity is often born from crisis, and the failure to show at those Games – with Norway set to host the Winter Games in Lillehammer in 1994 – prompted sport, government, and other leaders to get around the table and begin collaborating in ways they had not done previously. They began to fully embrace ideas that had been percolating since Norway had underperformed in the 1984 Winter and Summer Olympics.

Moving forward, Norway took a more coordinated approach to advancing sport at every level. Sport science increasingly guided the design of the system and activities of the federations responsible for developing athletes, whose holistic needs (psychological, intellectual, and social) were now emphasized. World-class research on best practices was produced by universities and, rather than languish in academic journals, moved with purpose into the field. Coaches at every level were encouraged to apply key principles, and top coaches were brought together regularly to share knowledge across sports.

Sport for All is the governing ethos

The concept is baked into the policies and leadership structures that guide sport activity in Norway. The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports has under its purview the responsibility to develop athletes of all ability levels, including those with physical and intellectual disabilities, and the sport activity for all communities and all citizens at every point over the lifespan. The integrated approach facilitates engagement with the widest swath of the population through its member clubs, of which there are 12,000.

“Sport should be a human development program,” Øvrebø said, noting that 93 percent of young adults have participated in the system.

He said the way Norwegian society organizes itself encourages participation. “We have a social democracy model, which means that all kids have more or less the same opportunities,” he said. “They have good health care supported by the government and sufficient food and shelter growing up. They have a good education system and university system that is free. So when they start doing sport, they don’t need so much extra support because they’re already taken care of.”

Sport is seen less as a means to better life than it is in the US, where the chase for college athletic scholarships has reshaped the youth sport landscape over the past generation. Free to play for intrinsic rewards, most Norwegian youth still choose sports. It’s just more on their terms.

“(Youth) are literate and know how things work, and they learn to stand up and they can have a reflective conversation with teachers and coaches,” Øvrebø said. “The coaches cannot bully them because they have choice. If you have a child who chooses to be in sports, has ambition and understands hard work, then you can have a top athlete.”

Youth are the most important athletes in the system

The very best adult athletes are provided a renowned national training center, Olympiatoppen, to advance their talents. But unlike some European countries, Norway spends little on direct financial support for its elite athletes. About 250 athletes, across all winter and summer sports, receive an annual stipend of $10,000 to $15,000, Øvrebø said.

That doesn’t go very far on a per-capita income basis in the sixth-wealthiest nation in the world. (Norway, adjacent to the North Sea, is one of the world’s top oil producers.)

Instead, much of the focus of the Norwegian sport system is on the base of its pipeline. “Everything starts with the kids, the parents and the clubs,” Øvrebø said. Due to Norway’s small population and potential talent pool, sport leaders embrace policies that maximize enjoyment and limit attrition as youth move into adolescence.

They recognize that childhood is a time of exploration. So, youth are encouraged to sample a variety of sports through age 15; no less important, community clubs support that type of engagement. As a result, Norway has underwhelmed on the international stage in early specialization sports like gymnastics, which ask that children train in one sport well before adolescence to advance to elite competition. But youth also develop the overall athleticism that facilitates entry into a wide array of sports, and, research shows, creates athletes for life.

“People [in countries such as the US] are having a discussion about specialization at 6, 7 and 8, which is an absurd discussion in Norway,” said Koss, who now lives in Toronto. “It’s not like [Norwegian children] are not spending a lot of time in sport. They’re very physically active. They’re just practicing different things. They get a much broader base technically and physically than if they specialize early.”

This approach makes sense even for those who chase Olympic dreams, he said. “There’s a 10-year high intensity period [in elite development]. If you specialize from ages 7 to 17, you might not ever get that level. If you do it from 17 to 27, you peak at the right time.”

The latest example: Johannes Klaebo, 21. Considered a great all-around athlete who could have done well in soccer or other sports, he is one of the breakout stars of these Olympics, with three gold medals in cross country skiing. Øvrebø noted that until a year ago, few even in Norway had heard of him.

Competition structures are carefully introduced

Obviously, based on the PyeongChang results, Norwegian athletes know how to compete. But sport leaders in the country are judicious about when and how they introduce game and race formats, to align with best practices in athletic and child development.

One key feature: Clubs do not record game scores until age 13, to focus Norway’s network of mostly volunteer coaches on the personal development of each child rather than team success propelled often by early-blooming children who have a size advantage. Kids and adults keep scores in their heads, of course, but clubs are prohibited from publishing the results online or in the newspaper or using them to keep standings. In cross country skiing and other races, the time of the child may be posted but not their relative rank to other children.

“We like to win and lose, but it shouldn’t follow you and define you as an individual when you are a kid,” Øvrebø said. “We like it to be [about] play and having fun. They should learn social skills. Learn to take instructions, and think by themselves. Learn to know what the rules are. Learn why we are doing these things together. So there is a value system going through the [activity] that is actually about developing people. That’s the main goal of sport, to develop people.”

And if a club violates the no-keeping-score rule? “You get expelled from the Norwegian confederation of sports,” he said.

That might seem like a draconian penalty to people who only know the US model for youth sports, with its landscape of travel tournaments and AAU national championships down the second-grade level. Deeply held cultural notions that some have about the role of winning and losing in sports as a way to prepare children for life  have sparked fierce, philosophical debates about the provision of “participation trophies” to little kids.

We learn from the kids that everything is about having fun, so we try to put that into all our systems

In Norway, there’s no real debate. Kids through age 12 get trophies at the end of each season.“Everyone should see themselves as winners, just for participating,” said Øvrebø. They regard a participation ethos as key to, among other strategies, making room for late bloomers who don’t grow into their bodies, true interests, or talents until the teenage years. In the US system, there’s more pressure to achieve early as a means of gaining access to club teams that aggregate talent.

“I’m not saying the US is doing it wrong, because you have Olympic success and incredible, impressive professional sports,” Koss said. “We don’t have the talent base, so we have to do it different. Personally, I like the Norwegian model because I’m the result of it. I was not good at 15. I didn’t break through until 16 or 17, and if I would have been excluded before then, I might not have made it.”

Øvrebø said the Norwegians consider ambition to be “natural” and that that coaches are expected to teach psychological “competition skills,” especially as athletes begin training for elite competition. But the values and benefits of cooperation are promoted as well. It’s been a defining feature of the Norwegian teams in PyeongChang, rivals on the same team training together – and playing off steam together. Time’s Sean Gregory noted in a piece last week how members of the team have been playing cards and charades before competitions.

“We came here with three objectives,” Øvrebø told me last week. “One was to have fun. That’s very important. We learn from the kids and the freestyle [athletes] that everything is about having fun, so we try to put that into all our systems. We also should leave Korea being at least as good of friends as we were coming in. We’re planning another Olympics, so let’s not break too many relationships.

“The last ambition is to take 30 medals. To be top three.”Mission accomplished there. And then some.

The model is funded – by gambling

The US is one of the few nations without a sports ministry or similar federal entity charged with coordinating sport development. In 1978, the Congress asked the U.S. Olympic Committee to take on that role, with oversight over the sport-specific National Governing Bodies (NGBs) in charge of each pipeline. The challenge: It was an unfunded mandate. Without dedicated resources, the USOC relies on sponsorships, media revenues, and individual donations to support operations. Those funds largely go to NGBs and athletes with the best prospects of delivering Olympic medals, which in turn drives commercial opportunities.

Norway has the grassroots piece covered, thanks to gambling.

Sports betting and other forms of gambling are legal in Norway, and controlled by a government-sanctioned non-profit company, Norsk Tipping. When placing a bet, players may direct 7 percent of their stake to a local club, humanitarian organization, or cultural organization of their choice. This doesn’t affect their possible prize but is a distribution of a small share of Norsk Tipping’s annual surplus. In 2017, the “Grass Root Share” generated $58 million, said Roar Jodahl, spokesman for Norsk Tipping.

At the end of the year, Norsk Tipping sends the rest of its surplus to the government, which distributes the funds to an array of organizations based on a formula determined by the country’s parliament. The current distribution cut is 64 percent to sports, 18 percent to culture, and 18 percent for social/humanitarian purposes. In 2016, that generated $330 million for sport organizations, most of them at the community level.

The next step for Norway is to improve its international performance in summer Olympics.

Since inception in 1948, when Norsk Tipping was created as a means of financing the rebuilding of the country after World War II, the fund has delivered $6.4 billion (in 2016 value) to sports.

“The funds from Norsk Tipping are and have been vital to the financing of sports in Norway for many years,” Jodahl wrote in an email. “As explained above, the financing is reasonably large and the only annual contribution from government to the sports movement. This means it finances a large breadth of sports purposes close to home to the regular Norwegian – like the building of sports arenas all around the country for various sports, soccer balls, training gear and kids’ activities. But it also provides the main financing for the professional sports programs, like the anti-doping program, the Olympiatoppen program, mentorship and scholarships for professional athletes.”

Those funds also allow the government to drive adoption of best practices by sport providers, through the setting of grant criteria. “That provides opportunity for mostly sport-for-all projects,” Koss said. “This is critical to the stability and health of the Norwegian people.”

The results are hard to argue with. Norway is ranked No. 1 in the world on the Human Development Index, a measure of public health. It also ranked first on the World Happiness Report and first in the Democracy Index. One could argue those measures are unrelated to sport, but the Norwegians I spoke with disagree. They view sport as an all-purpose tool to build better citizens and more cohesive communities.

Now, they’re No. 1 in elite sports, at least in winter disciplines.

“It’s something that intuitively (makes sense),” said Ruggiero, of the strategy of growing access to quality sport activity for youth as a means of delivering better health outcomes and ultimately better Olympians. “But when you see results, people notice. It’s just taken a while for that youth structure to bubble up and produce results at the elite level.”

The next step for Norway, Øvrebø said, is to improve its international performance in summer Olympics. The country won just four medals, all bronze, at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But progress is being made there, too. In 2017, Norway rose to No. 1 as the greatest “per-capita sports nation in the world,” according to a website that issues annual rankings based on results in international competitions. Norway scored points throughout the year in 21 different sports, including track and field, handball, rowing, road cycling, and swimming.

“So it’s not the food, and it’s not the genes,” Øvrebø said. “It’s how we organize things.”

Alan Ashley, chief of sport performance for the USOC, is intrigued. The US won 23 medals in PyeongChang, down from 28 in Sochi in 2014 and 37 in Vancouver in 2010 when it set the Winter Games record. Displacing the US at the top of the medal table was not just Norway but Germany (31) and Canada (29) – all countries that have embraced sport-for-all policies and greater coherence in athlete development.

“We have something of a fractured system in our country,” Ashley said. “We have high school sports, club sports, college sports. You’ve got elite sport through NGBs, all these players in the mix. If we can figure out a way to be more systematic and consistent in how we introduce children to sport, get them to love sport, give them skills, and how we train our coaches, then we can use that as a springboard.”

Tom Farrey is executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. At the 2018 Project Play Summit, the program will explore ways to improve the US sports system, drawing in part upon lessons learned from Norway’s model.

NCAA VPs say college need to help repair 'broken' youth sports model

Oliver Luck & Brian Hainline
Aspen Institute Guest Authors

America’s approach to the development of the youth athlete is broken.

As a leader in amateur sports, the NCAA is committed to supporting and promoting solutions to healthy, sustainable, long-term athlete development strategies in youth sports.

As the Aspen Institute notes, participation in sports by children and adolescents can provide a range of benefits that can last into adulthood. These benefits are not limited to the expected physical improvements that come with physical activity, but also include important emotional and social benefits that can translate into stronger social and leadership skills.

But for these benefits to be fully available to our youth athletes, the participation experience must be effective. One troubling trend is the increasing number of young people specializing in a single sport beginning at a young age, typically in their pre-puberty years.

One common myth that often leads to early sport specialization is the misconception that having a single sport to focus on will lead to opportunities to participate in elite levels of competition beyond the high school level. But this myth is not supported by the facts. Indeed, the vast majority of Olympic athletes played multiple sports as children. There are no data to support that early specialization leads to a greater likelihood of a college scholarship or a career as a professional athlete.

The unfortunate reality is early specialization is fraught with risks. For example, researchers are finding that early youth sport specialization is associated with increased rates of overuse injury, burnout, decreased motivation for sport participation and, eventually, complete withdrawal from sports.

Professional athletes, Olympic athletes, NCAA coaches, and countless medical experts have spoken out against the trend, but youth sport leagues and many parents still struggle to find the right balance for their respective young athletes.

Our expectation is that other NCAA sport communities will re-examine their early recruitment rules and practices.

The consequence of sport withdrawal is particularly concerning. According to the American Heart Association, about 1 in 3 American kids and teens is overweight or obese, with the prevalence of obesity in children more than tripling from 1971 to 2011. Stated another way, the United States has become one of the most physically illiterate countries in the developed world (physical literacy means having the ability, confidence and desire to be physically active for life). This is due, in part, to an increasing number of kids dropping out of sport during pre-pubescent years because of sport burnout.

What many youth sports leagues and parents may not realize is that multisport participation — not sport specialization — is the key to developing better long-term athletic performance while simultaneously increasing the potential for a lifetime of enjoyment of physical activity and recreational sports.

Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer and Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney both have been vocal about their preference in recruiting high school athletes who play multiple sports.

“I want the multisport guy,” Swinney told The New York Times. Data from professional sports underscore why Swinney, Meyer, and many other coaches prefer well-rounded athletes.

Early sport specialization has not been beneficial for high-caliber athletic performance at professional levels. The most recent NFL draft supports this concept.

In 2017, 30 of 32 NFL Draft first-round picks were multisport high school athletes, representing high school participation not only in football, but also track and field, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse.

The athletic success and advancement of multisport athletes is not limited to just professional sports. Among Olympic athletes, 7 in 10 report playing multiple sports growing up.

The NCAA is working in partnership with many organizations to help create a healthy, balanced culture in youth sports that supports the positive potential outcomes of sport participation, while strongly discouraging some of the more pervasive, negative elements of youth sport culture like single-sport specialization.

In 2015, the NCAA collected information from more than 21,000 current NCAA student-athletes at Divisions I, II, and III universities. According to the survey results, the sports with the highest percentage of students who had not specialized by age 12 were football, lacrosse, and track.

• 71 percent of Division I men’s FCS football players played other sports before college.

• 88 percent of Division I men and 83 percent of Division I women lacrosse players also played other sports.

• 87 percent of Division I female runners and 91 percent of Division I male runners played other sports before college.

Across all three divisions, the men’s sports in which athletes were most likely to specialize in their sport by age 12 were soccer (63 percent), ice hockey (59 percent), and tennis (45 percent). Among women’s sports, the highest rate of specialization occurred in gymnastics (88 percent), soccer (61 percent), and ice hockey (57 percent).

Nearly 50 percent of college athletes in baseball, football, and men’s soccer said that young athletes in their respective sport play in too many contests, and approximately 40 percent of football and men’s basketball players said they regret not trying more sports when they were young.

We recognize and acknowledge that there is substantial room for change and improvement within the NCAA model of recruiting as well.

Results from a recently released survey of more than 15,000 NCAA student-athletes show that although a strong majority of college athletes view their recruiting experience as positive, early recruitment is related to less positive feelings about the recruiting experience.

Additionally, young people who commit to a school before 11th grade are less likely to enroll there or to have known what they wanted to study at the time of commitment. Those who commit before 11th grade are also more likely to have had a coach leave before their enrollment and to experience a change in their scholarship offer.

Recruiting rules vary by sport, but the college lacrosse community is among those leading the way to address early recruitment via rules changes.

Last April, the Division I Council passed a rule — submitted jointly by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association and Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association — prohibiting college lacrosse coaches from communicating with prospective student-athletes until Sept. 1 of their junior year of high school.

Additionally, a Division I governance group is examining the issue of early recruitment for all sports. We all need to keep in mind that talent identification is quite unpredictable before age 17 — another reason to question the value of early recruitment.

The encouraging news is that some very good work already has been done, and many organizations are taking seriously ongoing steps to help encourage change where it’s needed. Specifically, the American Development Model is a targeted effort between the United States Olympic Committee and its national governing bodies of sport, including the NCAA, to apply long-term athlete development principles in a way that improves the culture of sport in the United States.

Importantly, the American Development Model emphasizes the importance of kids having fun in sport, while also participating in multiple sport activities before the age of 12. This approach allows young athletes not only to develop motor skills that transfer from sport to sport, but also to cultivate a passion for sport and an active lifestyle. The American Development Model brochure, which is free and available online, serves as a valuable resource for parents and coaches of young athletes, regardless of age, sport, or ability level.

The guidance provided by the American Development Model long has been supported by experts in the field, but the concerning results of recent research has amplified the importance of re-examining the way in which we approach youth sport participation in this country. We welcome the news that the Aspen Institute’s Project Play 2020 coalition of leading industry organizations and non-profits plans to make sport sampling and multisport play a year one priority.

Our expectation is that other NCAA sport communities will take a cue from lacrosse and work with the NCAA national office and its governance structure to re-examine early recruitment rules and practices. Similar rule changes in other sports may prove to be a key step in encouraging multisport participation at the high school level.

We strongly believe that athletics should be an integral part of youth development and society as whole, but it’s important that we do it properly. Kids need to be physically active, but they also need time to recover both physically and emotionally.  And if they’re not having fun, they are less likely to be physically active for life.

Oliver Luck is NCAA executive vice president for regulatory affairs and strategic partnerships. Brian Hainline is NCAA senior vice president and chief medical officer.

Story was originally published here.

The best sports town in America

The tiny town of Norwich, Vermont, has likely produced more Olympians per capita than anywhere else in the United States. Over the past thirty years, the town of 3,000 has sent an athlete to almost every Winter Olympics. New York Times sports writer Karen Crouse traveled to Norwich to discover the town’s secret. Also in this episode, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred discusses taking the professionalism out of youth sports, and creating a simpler, more informal atmosphere of play. Featuring onstage talks from the 2017 Project Play Summit, held by the Sports and Society Program 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.

Originally posted here.

Preparing our children for a lifetime of fitness

Chris Watts
Aspen Institute Guest Author

It is widely known that this generation of kids is the least active in our nation’s history. At the National Fitness Foundation, we find this unacceptable and are on a mission to reverse this trend so that all children can benefit from a lifetime of health and fitness.

That is why we recently joined with more than a dozen leading national sports organizations, including the US Olympic Committee, NBC Sports, and Nike, on a multi-year commitment to boost youth sports participation rates for kids, regardless of ability or zip code. Led by The Aspen Institute, Project Play 2020 will execute evidence-based strategies to get more kids in the game and help them continue playing for life. This unique effort is an unprecedented partnership in which industry and non-profit groups are coming together to develop shared goals and specific actions so we can truly start making progress by 2020.

These national collaborations are important, but it is the work at the local level that makes the most meaningful difference. Last month I was proud to announce our Foundation’s commitment to train physical educators for the newly announced Project Play: Baltimore initiative, because when kids receive quality PE, they are more likely to participate in sports, embrace physical activity and perform at their highest potential both inside and outside the classroom.

This commitment demonstrates how the National Fitness Foundation uses cross-sector partnerships to deliver long-term results towards a healthy, active nation. As America’s health and fitness charity and the nonpartisan nonprofit partner of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, we are focused on making sure students are empowered to be fit for life by enhancing and elevating quality physical education.

Six Decades of Championing Fitness

Project Play 2020 is the latest national push to prepare kids for a lifetime of health and fitness, one that the federal government has been trying to drive forward for more than 60 years. In the 1950s, alarming research showed that American youth lagged in several fitness measures. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by convening a White House Conference on Youth Fitness and establishing the President’s Council on Youth Fitness in 1956. It’s striking to see how similar the goals of that conference are to Project Play 2020, as both make universal access a top priority. Project Play strives to make “sport accessible to all kids, regardless of zip code or ability.” In 1956, Vice President Richard Nixon vowed to work on behalf of kids in “urban, suburban and rural homes, in crowded tenement sections and in well-to-do neighborhoods.”

The stats haven’t changed much either. In his keynote speech to the White House Conference on Youth Fitness, Nixon noted that less than 50 percent of high school students were taking physical education. Today, half of US high school students reported not attending any physical education during an average school week. Other numbers paint an equally dire picture today: more than 66 percent of youth don’t get the daily physical activity recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; only 37 percent of 6- to 12-year-olds played on a team sport last year; and one-third of children are obese.

Getting kids active will pay dividends in many ways. Children who are active and fit are better behaved in school, display a greater ability to focus, and have lower rates of absenteeism. And, of course, the health care system will see significant savings if we can make a dent in childhood obesity and physical inactivity.

More than 66 percent of youth don’t get the daily physical activity recommended by the CDC.

Despite the presidential focus and the commitment of other high-profile figures, such as past chairs of the President’s Council Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominque Dawes, the problem of youth physical inactivity worsened. Council members serve an important role advising the president on national priorities and serving as official ambassadors to the country, but with a $1.1 million budget, they are limited in their ability to provide grants and make long-term investments.

Private Sector Partner Needed to Accelerate Mission

In 1970, President Nixon made high school basketball star Tom McMillen the youngest member ever to serve on the Council. McMillen went on to careers as an NBA player and Maryland congressman, and then returned to the Council in the 1990s, this time as co-chair under President Bill Clinton. As a Council insider, Tom believed its mission would benefit from an outside-the-government partner. He conceptualized the idea for a congressionally-chartered foundation to support and supplement the Council and championed the cause for 15 years, when finally, in 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law creating our Foundation. McMillen was named its inaugural chairman and still serves on the board.

“It was clear that Congress wasn’t going to come up with any significant investment for the President’s Council,” McMillen said. “So it was important to create a foundation to fill the leadership and funding gap at the federal level, and really make a full-throttled effort to get kids active.”

Although the Foundation was established to support the mission of the Council, we operate independently and are not part of the government. Our board members come from innovative companies such as Facebook, Helix, and UFC — empowering us to develop unique strategies and partnerships capable of producing tangible results. Although private-sector business leaders help drive our priorities, we work closely with our ex-officio members from the government, such as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to ground our priorities in evidence and expertise.

We need to work across sectors to make sure all children are prepared for a lifetime of health and fitness.

Freed from the constraints of tight government budgets, we’ve already earned a return on the early investment from corporate backers, with a $10 million grant from the General Mills Foundation that kick-started efforts to get kids to be more active. This grant helped us modernize the old Presidential Physical Fitness Test, remembered by generations of Americans as the blue patch test for doing pull-ups, sit-ups, and other activities. Research showed that the test was 25 years out of date, so with guidance from the CDC and the Institute of Medicine, we developed a new program that focuses on student health and personal progress towards lifelong fitness, rather than athletic performance.

Participating schools get access to expert training and professional development for physical educators; national youth fitness standards to measure endurance, strength, flexibility, and body composition; student incentives and school recognition; and grants for equipment and training, among other things. Since 2012, more than 10,600 schools and 5.3 million students have used the program, and we’ve trained over 1,200 physical educators and given out more than $3 million in grants in 47 states. We’re excited to build off that early success by teaming up with players from pro sports, the sporting goods industry, the US Olympic Committee, and others in Project Play 2020.

Of course, there will always be a role for the federal government when it comes to lifelong health and fitness, as we need a full team to deliver on our mission. We are encouraged that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price identified reducing childhood obesity as one of his three priorities, and that President Trump singled out youth fitness and sports participation in his proclamation this spring of National Physical Fitness and Sports Month.

The nation has been fighting this battle for 60 years without much success and in this unique time in our country, the National Fitness Foundation is committed to accelerating progress to finding innovative solutions by working across sectors to make sure all children are prepared for a lifetime of health & fitness.

Chris Watts is the executive director of the National Fitness Foundation. 

The story was originally posted here.

MLB commissioner discusses the benefits of playing multiple sports

Jon Solomon
Editorial Director, Sports & Society Program

Athe 2017 Project Play Summit, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred highlighted the potential of professional sports leagues, who ordinarily compete with each other, to collaborate in building healthy kids and communities.

In the event’s keynote conversation, Manfred specifically pointed to the shared interest in promoting multi-sport play among youth. He said he had spoken with the NBA, NFL and NHL commissioners and they all agreed that the best athlete is a kid who played multiple sports.

“Multiple sports give body parts rest, which is a really important issue in today’s youth participation market,” Manfred told more than 400 people at the Newseum in Washington D.C. on Sept. 6.

Manfred’s comments came on the heels of the announcement of the Aspen Institute’s new Project Play 2020 initiative, the first time that major industry and non-profit organizations have come together to set shared goals around growing sport participation and related metrics among youth. Multi-sport sampling is a key area of focus for the collaborative, which includes MLB and 16 other groups.

The specialization of youth sports has been felt heavily in baseball, with kids often playing on multiple teams for most of the year – and at the exclusion of other sports. Two years ago, MLB had a rash of younger pitchers who needed Tommy John surgery to correct elbow injuries, which typically occur due to overuse going back to their youth.

Orthopedists who studied the issue told MLB, “you are getting damaged goods in the draft, and you’re getting damaged goods as the result of overuse of pitchers, in particular when they’re young,” Manfred said.

MLB started Pitch Smart with USA Baseball so youth coaches understand the appropriate number of pitches and when pitchers should start throwing certain types of pitches. Most importantly, Manfred said, coaches simply need a way to track how many innings a kid is pitching since they’re playing in multiple leagues.

“Multiple sports give body parts rest, which is a really important issue in today’s youth participation market.”

— Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner

The travel-ball phenomenon – and all of its time and cost demands — is often viewed as the best way for kids to be scouted by colleges and professional baseball. MLB isn’t ignoring travel ball.

“You can’t change that piece of the world,” Manfred said. “So we’ve responded to that by scholarshiping kids into programs that we know are doing a great job and actually paying for them to participate.”

MLB has created youth academies for underprivileged kids to participate. Manfred said the goal is to eventually have 30 academies around the country.

On the other hand, Manfred said MLB has embraced informal play opportunities through its Play Ball program. Play Ball is a one-day community events in which kids do baseball-related activities. Casual play associated with baseball has increased 18 percent, according to Manfred.

“I take that as a really good sign,” he said. “It’s focus, it’s investment, it’s making great partnerships in the youth space. … We had unusual partners like the U.S. Conference of Mayors. You have to have partners who believe the game can be played on an informal basis.”

Manfred recalled how as a child he would go to a local park in the morning, resurface for lunch, and come home for dinner without any adult worrying.

“My kids grew up dramatically different than that,” Manfred said. “But I do think in a different environment that if you have community-based activity, those activities can be structured in a way that promotes a form of informal play that can exist in a more complicated society.”

Manfred said getting parents to understand the benefits of kids playing multiple sports will be an education process. He pointed to John Smoltz’s recent Hall of Fame speech on the topic as one way parents can understand that many elite athletes played multiple sports as a child.

Earlier in the day in his 2017 State of Play address, Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program executive director Tom Farrey called for a new approach to evaluating success in youth sports. He encouraged sport providers, coaches and other stakeholders to focus more on creating a “new scoreboard for sports,” based less on the traditional measure, whether a team won a competition, and more of metrics like participation rates, churn rates, and percentage of coaches trained.

Manfred said youth coaches are always going to want to aggregate the best athletes on their own teams, but that they could be convinced to better appreciate the value of multi-sport sampling.

“Competitive people are attracted to coaching,” Manfred said. “(However) I do think you can make coaches understand the argument that you’re going to get a better athlete over the long haul if he’s playing three sports.”

Watch the full conversation here. 

Project Play Summit 2017 wrap-up: News, quotes, and more

It’s time for a new scoreboard for sports. The first day of the 2017 Project Play Summit brought together over 400 leaders to take measure of the nation’s state of play and chart next steps in building healthy communities through sport. Together, we explored alternate ways to measure success through emerging metrics, introduced major new initiatives, and heard from many speakers, including a keynote conversation with Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Announcements

The Aspen Institute formally rolled out Project Play 2020, which will be guided by the Project Play framework of eight strategies for eight sectors. Project Play 2020 will initially focus on training all coaches and encouraging sport sampling, with members developing shared and mutually reinforcing activities over the next three years that will be determined as work groups define gaps and opportunities. The founding members of Project Play 2020 are Nike, NBC Sports Group, Target, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Dick’s Sporting Goods, U.S. Olympic Committee, Hospital for Special Surgery, PGA of America, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, New York Road Runners, National Fitness Foundation, American College of Sports Medicine, Ketchum Sports & Entertainment, Sports Facilities Advisory, Sports & Fitness Industry Association, and the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serves as Technical Liaison to the group.

The announcement was lauded on stage by Craig Robinson, New York Knicks senior executive and brother of former First Lady Michelle Obama, who made an appeal at last year’s Project Play Summit for industry to rally to grow sport participation for underserved kids. “It is absolutely amazing how fast that this formidable group got Project Play 2020 off the ground so quickly,” Robinson said.

Don Wright, Acting Assistant Secretary of Health, said that Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price will make childhood obesity and sport participation an HHS priority.

“This is truly an exciting announcement,” Wright said. “We look forward to supporting and uplifting the shared goals of Project Play 2020.”

Read more about Project Play 2020 and why it’s needed.

Founding members of Project Play 2020

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Project Play: Baltimore released an in-depth State of Play: Baltimore Report, which provides the Aspen Institute’s findings and recommendations for youth sports in East Baltimore. Read the report here.

The report includes results of an exclusive survey of youth in East Baltimore, 40 findings on factors that shape their access to quality sport activity, and maps that highlight the connection between the loss of recreation centers and areas where gun violence rates are highest. The report offers guidance for Baltimore stakeholders in using a new city fund to bolster recreational opportunities to keep children and teens active and involved in their communities. Baltimore’s Children and Youth Fund is a “game changer” and represents a major opportunity to build a healthier community, the report said.

Anyone interested in connecting to Project Play: Baltimore should contact program coordinator Andre Fountain at andre.fountain@aspeninstitute.org.

Project Play is teaming with the Community Foundation of South Alabama and the Jake Peavy Foundation to examine closing the opportunity gap for youth sports in South Alabama. The initiative is called State of Play Mobile County, where the child poverty rate is 28 percent and only 69 percent of all residents have easy access to physical activity locations.

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Jake Peavy, former baseball player

“Having a chance to use the resources of the Aspen Institute and be a part of Project Play is special to me, and it’s very special to me because I’m a dad of four boys,” said Peavy, a former World Series champion pitcher and Cy Young Award winner.

Peavy has not pitched this year. “I am going to go back to playing baseball,” he said. “You’ll see me sometime soon on a major league mound.”

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The Aspen Institute unveiled Project Play: Harlem, joining Baltimore as the Sports & Society Program’s latest model community. It’s a multi-year initiative to help stakeholders increase youth sport opportunities in East Harlem, with the support of Harris Family Charitable Foundation, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, and Mount Sinai Health System.

First, the Aspen Institute will capture the State of Play in East Harlem through an exclusive report to be published in Winter 2017. Then, local stakeholders will be convened to share findings, identify opportunities to fill gaps, and connect community organizations with potential partners. Anyone interested in connecting to Project Play: Harlem should contact program coordinator Ranya Bautista at Ranya.bautista@aspeninstitute.org.

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Laureus Sport for Good Foundation USA (Laureus USA) announced that it will be launching Sport for Good New York City and Sport for Good Chicago in January 2018. (Watch the announcement here.) These place-based initiatives will drive collaboration between local organizations that are strengthening their communities through sport. Nike will be the funding sponsor of Sport for Good New York City. Alongside its 2018 chapter expansion, Laureus USA will also launch the Sport for Good League – an online community focused on the use of sport to create positive social change. If you are interested in joining the league, sign up here to receive updates.

The Aspen Institute recognized one group per Project Play strategy for taking a new, meaningful and specific action.

• Ask Kids What They Want: Parks and People is launching six new sports leagues based in part on youth surveys.

• Reintroduce Free Play: Joy of the People will reach 1,200 underserved kids with free, fun soccer events across Minnesota for the 2018 World Cup.

• Encourage Sport Sampling: Seacoast Public Health Network will have a new program reducing the stigma of families asking for financial aid.

• Revitalize In-Town Leagues: Volo City Kids Foundation is launching new, free rec programming in Washington, D.C., that focuses on development and skill and provides after-game meals for players and their families.

• Think Small: LA84 Foundation and Street Soccer USA are partnering to connect at-risk/homeless youth to soccer and services.

• Design for Development: USA Wrestling is revamping training in 2018-19 to emphasize physical literacy, movement and health skills.

• Train All Coaches: The National Fitness Foundation will invest up to $50,000 in training and grants for quality PE for Project Play: Baltimore.

• Emphasize Prevention: Hospital for Special Surgery will launch free digital education for youth coaches replicating ACL workshops it’s been conducting.

• Call for Leadership: Winning Communities will train high school and college students in five communities to lead health and sports programs.

Watch/Listen Project Play Summit Highlights

• State of Play in 2017: Reflections from the Project Play Summit

• Watch every Project Play Summit session

• MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s full conversation

• Collaboration Nation: What’s possible when silos connect for kids?

• Tom Farrey’s State of Play: 2017 address

• Former MLB players Harold Reynolds, Rick Ankiel and Jake Peavy offer advice for kids and parents in youth baseball

• Reece Whitley, a 17-year-old star swimmer in Philadelphia, talks with 11-year-old Nina Locklear of Baltimore about what kids want in sports

• Aspen Ideas to Go podcast: Karen Crouse on the Best Sports Town in America

• Project Play Summit photo album

They Said It

“This is the least active generation in history and we should never get comfortable with that.”

– Caitlin Morris, Nike General Manager of Global Community Impact

“Some of you crazy parents are making these kids go nuts, playing (one) sport. I want you playing all kinds of different sports.”

– Harold Reynolds, former MLB player

“Parents should assume nothing about who’s interacting with their kids. It’s amazing the interactivity in which parents engage in their child’s life outside of sport … but more and more parents kind of hand off their children to a particular program or coach without any understanding of the qualifications that that adult has to interact with the child and make sure that experience is a good one.”

– Steve Stenersen, U.S. Lacrosse CEO

“Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t do sports. Yeah, I’m a little girly. I do worry about my hair because I don’t want to look a mess. But the thing is, when you play sports, it’s like playing with your own family. You meet new people every day.”

– Nina Locklear, 11-year-old from Baltimore

“Seventy percent of African Americans in Detroit do not know how to swim. About 48 perent of Hispanic folks do not know how to swim. … It’s a very serious item.”

– James Nicholson, chair of YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit.

“Let your kids have an open mind and learn to swim on their own without pushing your fears on them.”

– Nikki Cobbs, swim coach at Baltimore’s Dunbar High School.

“We have to be mindful that just saying go out to play is nice and nostalgic, but the reality is for many, many children, unless we can create a safe environment that their parents feel safe for them, then that’s going to be a very challenging thing to overcome.”

– Ed Foster-Simeon, U.S. Soccer Foundation President/CEO

“What we see often is criticism of our program that we’re not real baseball – it’s just rec league baseball, it’s just community baseball, the better players are in travel teams. Some people get irritated with that. I don’t. I actually tell our people we should wear that as a badge of honor. We always get caught up in what’s the next thing for 9-year-olds.”

– Steve Keener, Little League Baseball President and CEO

“I’ve never been part of any industry that’s moved at this rate – 40 inbound calls per week on new (youth sports facility) projects, most of which shouldn’t be built in the original concept as shared with us.”

– Dev Pathik, Sports Facilities Advisory CEO

“Women are more detailed. They’re better coaches. … We have to open up our minds that an athlete is an athlete and if you can coach, you can coach.”

– Reynolds

“If I was a young kid I wouldn’t know what he was doing besides making his kids’ shoes and looking cool while doing it, and yelling at a female is just a side product. Since I graduated from Stanford, I look at it as what are you doing to these children? Are you creating a path that’s going to be helpful to the kids that don’t make it? Your sons are the ones that are privileged to make it, and the reality is most people don’t.”

– Chiney Ogwumike, WNBA player,on controversial AAU basketball coach LaVar Ball’s rant against a female referee this summer.

“LaVar Ball, if he was in our (Little League) program, would have been suspended for two games. … We need to take those kinds of things seriously.”

– Keener, on LaVar Ball’s rant against a referee.

“If we want kids to be able to have free play, if we want them to just go out and run around and do things, we have to address the root issue, which is that the parents need to be secure enough in that they can afford their kid not to get a scholarship.”

– Chris Kluwe, former NFL player

“The irony is for all the money flowing into travel ball and in youth sports, it’s not actually more professional, it’s just more commercial. Most coaches are still not trained in the key competencies of working with kids.”

– Tom Farrey, Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program Executive Director.

“(What) I don’t like about coaches is putting pressure on you and they’re always thinking you can win or you’ll do very well. But if, say for example, if they put you in a play back to back or you’ve got to run an event back to back and you’re really tired, you wouldn’t do so well.”

– Brenton Baker, 10, Buffalo, NY

Project Play Summit Media Coverage

• The Washington Post: Youth study shows declining participation, rising costs and unqualified coaches.

• The Atlantic: What’s lost when only rich kids play sports

• The Baltimore Sun: Aspen Institute aims to help Baltimore youth fill recreation gaps

• The Undefeated: Study shows no one is asking Baltimore youth what sports they want to play

• Business Insider: Industry leaders rally to grow youth sports participation

• Sports Business Journal: Sports stakeholders join forces in effort to stem decline in youth sports participation

• NewHotGood: Highlights from the Project Play Summit and the Aspen Institute’s work

Project Play Summit Social Media

The Project Play Summit trended nationally on social media during Sept. 6. The hashtag #ProjectPlay alone generated 24 million impressions and was seen by nearly six million people. More than 3,100 posts with that hashtag were made by 1,250 people – double from last year when First Lady Michelle Obama was featured.

The story was originally published here.