News
Original content from the Aspen Institute
Watch philanthropist and new Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein interview our Tom Farrey on how the country can lift youth sport participation rates to 63% by the end of the decade
Read about the NCAA league that could save the Olympic sport pipeline
Dive into insights about how school coaches prepare for and experience their roles, from our recently published National Coaching Survey
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At all age and competitive levels throughout both valleys, we heard a strong desire from coaches and administrators for more education and professional development. Alternatively, there are children who feel unwelcome in sports, so they turn to other physical activities such as theater and dance. Some sports coaches need a better understanding of skill development related to their sport or activity. An even greater need: Coaches must understand how to make youth sports and recreation safe places physically and emotionally for children while using these activities as tools for developing children’s social, emotional and cognitive skills. In schools, fewer teachers serve as coaches given the pressures and expectations on their classrooms, meaning schools now rely more on community members to coach.
The wealth gap is massive in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys. Opportunities for children to play sports or engage in outdoor recreation often come down to costs. Many sports and recreational organizations generously provide scholarships for children to play. However, many sports and rec providers and some parents — especially those who are Latino/a — described trying to navigate a confusing flood of scholarship applications.
Transportation is one of the most significant barriers preventing more children in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys from accessing sports and other forms of physical activity. RFTA recently began offering a $1 fare for youth 18 and under on all regional routes. As of March 2022, children under age 16 comprised less than 2% of all RFTA bus ridership, and youth ages 16-18 made up 5%. In our survey, 11% of youth from Roaring Fork School District and 9% from Aspen School District said they usually travel to their sports or organized athletic activities via RFTA — far higher than youth ridership from Garfield School District Re-2 (4%) and Garfield School District 16 (1%).
Read the 63x30 press release and learn about our national roundtable’s plan to raise youth sport participation to 63% by 2030
Watch the 63x30 Project Play Summit session where our panel explored the value of organizations mobilizing at all three levels — national, state and local
Embrace the Ripken Way as Cal Jr. and son Ryan offer guidance on how to be a sports parent
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The Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys provide many opportunities for children to recreate. Yet only 15% of surveyed Latino/a youth in the region get 60 minutes of physical activity daily, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s nearly half the percentage of White children (27%) who meet the recommendation.
Project Play Summit 2024 Recap
Watch full session playbacks from the Summit
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, First Partner to the Gov. Gavin Newsom, shares her enthusiasm for the Project Play Summit heading to California in 2025 — sign up for presale tickets today!
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The Project Play Summit closed with an inspiring perspective on how one state is leading the charge of organizing and supporting the growth of youth sports.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore discussed the value of sports in his life and for children, along with the role of government to help provide access. Joined by moderator Greg Olsen, Moore said his passion to use his platform to benefit youth sports came from being impacted as a child through playing sports.
Project Play is creating the nation’s first policy framework for youth sports and used a panel discussion at the Project Play Summit to explore the creation of a politically durable agenda to improve safety, access and governance.
Moderated by Dr. Ashleigh Huffman, a policy consultant for the Aspen Institute Sports and Society Program, the panel highlighted the work, present accomplishments and future goals of building a youth sports agenda.
Inspired by the School Sports Equity Toolkit, the Aspen Institute’s Service Learning through Sports is a one-year program that provides micro-grants and mentorship programming to select U.S. high school students who lead, or aim to lead, a project or initiative addressing an issue of sports access. At the Project Play Summit, two high school students explained how they are making a difference for their communities and teammates.
Like the trajectory of women’s sports in the U.S. today, Diana Flores seems to be faster and more elusive than anybody who can keep up with her.
The captain and quarterback of Mexico’s national flag football team joined USA Today’s Christine Brennan at the Project Play Summit for insights into ways to engage girls from Hispanic families. Hispanic girls are often the most elusive, and underserved, populations of youth in sports.
Baltimore may not be his hometown, but Under Armour Founder and CEO Kevin Plank is committed to the city. With an ambitious project to raise high school graduation rates in Baltimore public schools and a new company headquarters opening in the fall, Plank is using the brand he built to energize a city he loves.
At the Project Play Summit on May 15, Plank discussed Project Rampart, an initiative Under Armour started in 2017 that has renovated Baltimore school gyms and outfitted every varsity athlete and coach in the city with uniforms.
BALTIMORE, Maryland – Maryland became the first state to sign the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports after Governor Wes Moore endorsed a framework that all youth should have the opportunity to develop as people through sports.
“Some of my earliest memories are on a basketball court in the Bronx, where it was a place of escape,” Moore said May 15 at the Project Play Summit, the Aspen Institute’s annual youth sports conference. “It was a place where you felt safe. It was a place where you met some of your lifelong friends. It was a place where you learned all the beautiful things you can learn from team sports – how to win properly, how to lose properly, the importance of being able to trust the people to your left and right and make sure you’re practicing so they can trust you back.”
How city and county governments are growing access to youth sports
Sign up for the Project Play Summit livestream!
Youth sports participation is bouncing back after the pandemic. How is your state doing?
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A handful of cities and counties have begun to pay closer attention to how sports in their areas are organized and made available to youth. While not regulating youth sports, some local governments are working to coordinate and rationalize the way sports are offered to children and adolescents in their areas. Others are providing funds to neighborhood youth sports groups. Governments in three communities stand out for their leadership in improving youth sports: Fairfax County, Virginia; Montgomery County, Maryland; and the city of Philadelphia.
Baltimore has a rich history of developing its children and communities through sports – from the childhood of Babe Ruth to the proliferation of recreation centers in the 1960s and ‘70s, from the rise of decorated Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps to the basketball successes of Carmelo Anthony, Angel Reese and many others. The Aspen Institute recognized as much in State of Play Baltimore, the first community landscape analysis from our Project Play initiative, which included findings and recommendations shaped by an eight-member local advisory board that included then-City Council member Brandon Scott. Since 2017, Scott - now Mayor - and local leaders have worked hard to make Baltimore’s children active through sports.
1 million coaches trained? That’s the goal of this ambitious initiative
UPCOMING EVENT: Future of Sports: Olympic Reform in the Public Interest
Meet the student leaders growing access to sports in their communities
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