Romania deploys Project Play to get more kids active in sports

Tom Farrey
Executive Director, Sports & Society Program

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

Who knew one hallway would someday lead to Project Play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Step One: Organize the Thought

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

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

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

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

Step Two: Organize the Organizations

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

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

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

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

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

Step Three: Organize the Gatekeepers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about the Joacă Pentru Viaţă Summit here.

Basketball’s Chris Webber: Pressure on kids to make the NBA is “scary”

Jon Solomon
Editorial Director, Sports & Society Program

This year’s Project Play Summit was an away game, venturing away from Washington D.C. for the first time in its five-year history. Detroit welcomed the convening with more than 500 leaders at the intersection of youth, sport and health – the largest turnout in the Summit’s history. The Summit hashtags, #DontRetireKid and #ProjectPlay, were the top two trending items in Detroit. Through two days of panels, workshops and activation announcements, participants discussed barriers to get all kids equitable access to sports and physical activity, and shared activations that are happening to create solutions.

At the Aspen Institute’s 2019 Project Play Summit, former NBA and University of Michigan star Chris Webber implored parents of youth basketball players to become more involved — and more aware of the pressures of youth sports — so their child enjoys a positive experience.

“I think growing up in my time was easier because the culture allowed it to be different,” Webber said. “I can’t imagine the pressure of being 12 years old and being told you can make it to the NBA and believing it, [when] you don’t have the skills but a coach told you that to keep you around. That’s scary.”

Webber spoke on a panel in Detroit that honored the 25th anniversary of the documentary film Hoop Dreams, and explored the pressures and opportunities in youth basketball today. This year’s Project Play Summit was the largest in the event’s five-year history with more than 500 attendees, and marks the first time the Summit left Washington D.C.

At the time of Hoop Dreams, Webber was the country’s highest-rated recruit, having been identified as a top prodigy when he was only 11 years old. But Webber had the advantage of being raised by “a village” in Detroit – his parents, high school coach, AAU coach, police officers at Detroit PAL, and older local players who made it ahead of him. “It was really more of a community culture,” he said. “It was not about the coaches, it was about the people who are the coaches.”

Today, Webber said, youth basketball coaches frequently gain their status simply because they are associated with a talented player. In reality, the coach may be a bad influence on the child.

“This is not a secret club — these [youth basketball] coaches are not as good you think they are,” Webber said. “Go back to your high school days and go to a guy that may have been a jerk. He’s still a jerk today, but coaching your kid. They’re teaching your kid how to communicate, how to problem solve (poorly).”

ESPN.com recently documented America’s “youth basketball crisis,” in which kids are playing too many games and entering the NBA with broken bodies. In recent years, the NBA and USA Basketball created youth development guidelines for the sport and developed a coaching license. Webber said these tools should empower parents to know what a good basketball experience looks like.

“The No. 1 8-year-old kid is not going to the NBA. So, let’s quit putting that out there,” Webber said. “When we talk about the kids playing too many minutes, those are for guys who have already chosen their major in sports. How can you choose a major in sports before 14? How can you choose what you’re going to be great at? Your body hasn’t even developed. You haven’t even grown. I would just encourage community leaders and parents not to be intimidated by sport. You know enough. You know how to discipline your child. You know how to encourage them.”

Watch select sessions of the Summit here.

Michigan Secretary of State supports state authority to help access to sports
Speaking on a Summit panel about the role of government in youth sports, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said she would support adopting a commission and/or creating a high-level state government position that would help prioritize access to sports.

Benson is chairing a 14-member task force in Michigan, commissioned by the state governor, that aims to increase opportunities for women and girls in sports. The commission is still several years away from issuing its report, but Benson anticipates it will recommend a cabinet-level position focused on access to sports — an idea she has discussed with Big East Conference commissioner Val Ackerman, an advisor for the task force.

“We notice in states that are leading, and in foreign countries that are leading, they often have that high-level position — whether it’s advisory or authoritative — to actually implement changes and to advise those making decisions how to prioritize access to sports,” Benson said. “In my view, any government at any level – state, local or federal – should consider that type of permanent voice at the table as they make decisions from transportation to budget and everything in between.”

As states across the country consider legalizing sports betting, Benson said the opportunity exists in Michigan to use gambling revenue for access to youth sports. It’s a concept that’s used in Norway.

“Where the revenue goes – whether it’s to schools, to schools and sports, or to sports – I think is part of the negotiation right now,” Benson said. “In my view, it is a way to generate revenue. There are also ways to get revenue by having high-profile sporting events – hosting the NFL Draft, for example. That also enables us to create policies that will generate revenue for our state and our economy that can be reinvested as opportunities for people to play sports.”

Benson was also asked by an audience member if college athletes should be allowed to make money off their own name, image, and likeness. California may soon finalize a law making it illegal for colleges in that state to punish an athlete for accepting endorsement money. Benson said she would “lean toward wanting to ensure individual athletes’ likenesses are empowered and their likenesses are protected and they have some autonomy over that – whether it’s through payments and/or other ways to protect their own brand, even if they are in the early stages of an amateur or professional career.”

Special Olympics chairman: Sports doesn’t yet teach that everybody belongs

The biggest problem facing sports is clustering people around ability levels, a structure that narrows the field and stigmatizes everybody else, said Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics. Speaking on a Summit panel about sports for social impact, Shriver said he believes the day will come when every U.S. high school has a Special Olympics Unified team, meaning athletes with intellectual disabilities play on the same team as those without intellectual disabilities.

“I don’t think the world of sport has yet fully absorbed the challenge of the Special Olympics movement because it is a radical vision of human equality,” Shriver said. “It’s not a cute sidelight. People ask me do you go to the real Olympics? And for a long time I said, ‘Well, sometimes, but only occasionally and we’re not the same as them.’ About 10 years ago I started saying, ‘Yes, I do – all the time.’”

Shriver said sport has an unhealthy paradigm by selecting kids for teams solely by performance and spectators. “That’s a super powerful destructive influence on children. … Who’s the fastest person with Down Syndrome in the world? I have no idea – and I don’t care, honestly.”

Shriver said he becomes emotional when a Special Olympics athlete raises his or her arms in joy after a third- or fourth-place finish. “Not because I feel sorry for her, but because I wish I was more like her,” Shriver said. “And not because she has an intellectual disability, but because she has the bravery to reveal that she herself believes that her best is enough.”

College baseball coach finds rec league better than travel ball

Even college baseball’s national coach of the year isn’t immune from the pitfalls of travel sports. University of Michigan baseball coach Erik Bakich said he mistakenly signed up his son for travel baseball around 8 years old.

“We thought he was really good,” Bakich said. “He ended up not really liking baseball at all. Here he is, we’re paying $2,000 a year, and he says, ‘I hate baseball.’ Dagger to the heart. So we said, ‘OK, we won’t play travel.’ We gave him a year off travel ball and went back to playing a rec league and he loves it. The competition and coaching and caliber – there’s not much difference. He’s enjoying baseball again.”

Other Announcements from Project Play Summit

• Please join us in congratulating our Project Play Champions. These organizations committed to taking a new, meaningful, specific action consistent with the strategies of Project Play.

• New local State of Play reports were released in Hawai’i and Seattle-King County. Coming in 2020: Reports in Central Ohio and Camden, New Jersey.

• The 2019 State of Play report was released with the latest youth sports participation data and trends. Read the report and see the charts.

• The football team at American Heritage School is the first Healthy Sport Index Contest winner. Nominations for other high school teams based on exemplary health are being accepted at pn/hsicontest.

• Project Play and Nickelodeon developed the World Wide Day of Play partner playbook. Register here to gain access to the playbook.

• Project Play and Kellogg’s announced a partnership to search for the best middle school programs in the country. The goal: Revitalize middle school sports by inspiring leaders to adopt models that serve as many students as possible.

“I’ve lived with depression, and without sport, I don’t think there was a way to approach that challenge with such optimism and belief and a hard wire that I can control my fulfilment and what I want to get out of life. All of that came through being a kid and finding play.”

— Kyle Martino, NBC Sports broadcaster and former pro soccer player

“I would challenge those in the room to make a commitment. Don’t have a coaching staff for a girls team that has all men. Don’t serve on a panel that has all men. Insist on diversity because we need you to do that.”

— Nicole LaVoi, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport co-director

“As a big brand, we have a responsibility to make awareness to the whole world about giving opportunities to everybody.”

— Mariona Miret, FC Barcelona Foundation head of programs

“Here was a gut-punch reminder of how brutal life in the NFL can be. ‘Not For Long’, indeed.”

— Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde on C.J. Anderson, who learned he was cut by the Detroit Lions shortly after a moderated conversation with Forde at the Summit.

“Don’t bet on programs, bet on people. People have values. People have passion. Great programs are the result of passionate people.”

— Dave Egner, Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation CEO

“When you rearrange the letters in ‘listen’ it spells ‘silent.’ In order to truly listen, we have to silence our brains and stop trying to be right and figuring out how to respond. Just shut up and listen to our children.”

— Valorie Kondos Field, former UCLA gymnastics coach

“I’m familiar with how you can get caught up in this (youth sports) mania. You want so much for the happiness of your kid that you’d do anything for that, and this seems like their happiness is being good at this time. But in retrospect, it was mania. In retrospect, my son wishes he had played more sports and not played 100 games of baseball a year.”

— David Brooks, New York Times columnist and executive director of the Aspen Institute Weave: The Social Fabric Project

“I’ve messed up at it (sports). My daughter was a D-1 (college) athlete and I fell in love with it. Who wouldn’t? I think I pressed too much and junior year she burned out of college. It’s hard for parents, but the big thing I want to say is we all have to do what you all are doing here today: We all have to tell our stories.”

— Peter Gilbert, Hoop Dreams filmmaker

“I’d like to see parents who don’t pay to see their kids win, who don’t try to fuel arguments because they may have lost, or their kid may not have won the meet.”

— Daniel Solomon, 12, Urbana, MD

Story originally published here.

Press release: Project Play Summit kicks off in Detroit on September 17

Watch the Project Play Summit online and join the conversation on social media with #DontRetireKid; press are invited to apply for credentials.

Press release: Aspen Institute releases youth sports report in Hawai'i

State of Play Hawai’i shows that 26% of Native Hawaiian youth meet the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day.

Hoop Dreams at 25: Is youth basketball any wiser now?

Jon Solomon
Editorial Director, Sports & Society Program

It’s been a quarter-century since the release of Hoop Dreams, the sports documentary that launched the genre with its revealing portrait of two African American young basketball players (William Gates and Arthur Agee) trying to improve their lives. In many ways, Hoop Dreams was the first reality show.

Originally intended to be a 30-minute short film, Hoop Dreams filmmakers shot 250 hours of footage for a three-hour film spanning six years in the lives of Gates and Agee as they chased NBA dreams that neither reached. At a young age, Gates was viewed as the second coming of NBA great Isiah Thomas – they were both inner-city Chicago kids who played for the same coach at a white, suburban Chicago private high school – but Gates’ career was derailed by injury. Agee, also from the inner city, played at the private school as well but was forced to leave early in his career when the coach determined his basketball skills weren’t worth keeping.

The movie is “not only a documentary,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote in 1994. “It is also poetry and prose, muckraking and expose, journalism and polemic. It is one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime. … Hoop Dreams contains more actual information about life as it is lived in poor black city neighborhoods than any other film I have ever seen.”

On Sept. 17 at the Project Play Summit in Detroit, the Aspen Institute will host a panel discussion, ”Hoop Dreams at 25 – Is Youth Basketball Any Wiser Now?” The panel features former NBA star Chris Webber and Peter Gilbert, one of the movie’s filmmakers, and examines what has changed – and still needs to change – for the game to better serve kids.

Scheduling conflicts will prevent Gates and Agee from appearing at the Project Play Summit. Gates now works at a prison in Texas; Agee is a motivational speaker who still lives in the West Side of Chicago. They recently spoke in separate interviews with Jon Solomon, editorial director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, about the impact of the movie 25 years later and the current state of youth basketball.

Jon Solomon: Does it feel like it’s been 25 years since the movie came out?

William Gates: It really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. The crazy aspect of it is, it still resonates. That freaks me out. I think it’s great because the message is still strong, but it’s bad because the message is still strong and we haven’t advanced as much as we’d like to. I think Hoop Dreams opened minds and hearts and hit a sympathy nerve, but like with all things, if there was never a plan to change, it still hovers there.

When Hoop Dreams first came out, everybody was fired up and said, “We really need to address how high school and college athletes are being treated and this meat market (for how basketball recruits are identified and treated). I can still hear (basketball recruiting analyst) Bob Gibbons in the movie saying, “I’m serving up meat and trying to serve it up nice and neat.” Now the high school coaches have been removed from having control and the shoe companies came in and were more impactful. They run basketball as a whole now.

Solomon: What’s different about youth basketball today compared to 25 years ago?

Arthur Agee: They’ve taken it from the outdoors and put it inside gyms now. You lose something. There’s that community aspect where anyone in the neighborhood can walk on the court, and he’s 35 years old and really playing hard, but you don’t understand why he’s playing hard because of the way he played growing up. You go inside a gym, now everything is for show. Forget about the win. I want to cross these guys up and get an “oooh” and go directly on Twitter.

We never played in a sanctioned AAU tournament (in the 1980s and ‘90s). We had neighborhood teams. I played against Chris Webber. That was just two neighborhood coaches who wanted to play each other and let’s compete. One thing I do like about AAU is it gives these kids something better than they’re used to. Some kids never get to travel and go anywhere. But what’s lost is the fundamentals of the game. Kids are 12 and 13 playing with 15- and 16-year-olds. No, play with your age group. Some of the AAU coaches, it’s all about wins. OK, but is the kid learning anything?

Solomon: William, your kids have played basketball, including in college, and you coach AAU. You faced a lot of pressure as a player, especially after you injured your knee. How did your experiences shape how you coach other kids?

Gates: In my program, we start from fifth grade until you quit. We don’t lose you. We keep you. We want to see you develop, because to me, basketball is our classroom. We have to teach these kids how to tie a tie, what fork to pick up, how to teach them etiquette and culture.

Curtis (Gates’ deceased brother) used to tell me all the time: “Use basketball, don’t let it use you.” I didn’t understand it at 14 or 15. But as I’ve got older, I understand it more and more. Parents (of kids on his team) say they don’t know what to say to college coaches. I say, “Yeah, you do. You know what’s best for your family. You’ve been raising this child your whole life. If you know you have a kid who doesn’t like to be yelled at, you may not want to play for a coach who yells a lot. If you value education, then find a school that values education.”

On my AAU team, a lot of times a parent will say, “My son is going through this. Can you talk to him?” I’m more than happy to do that, but when I’m done, I’ll call the parent and tell them what’s going on. I don’t want to take that responsibility away from them.

Solomon: Arthur, what’s your 11-year-old son’s basketball experience been like?

Agee: He was playing AAU. It just cost too much money. They wanted $1,000 to $1,300. And the thing is, that’s just the entry fee on the team. That’s not the travel. What if mom and dad can’t go? Now, you have to arrange for them to go with other parents and money to eat. Hell, no. That’s just way too much. My fiancé and I, we’re trying to buy a home. It works for my son playing locally around Chicago. He’s not going to Orlando.

I want my son to enjoy the game, have fun with it. My basketball career was wonderful, and I feel so sorry for kids who are under so much stress if they don’t go to practice. They’re doing it for the parents. They’re playing too many games now. It’s like a job these days for kids. You can burn a kid out. You shouldn’t be playing five or six games a weekend. Let your body heal back up. Let your energy be right.

Solomon: William, there’s a scene in Hoop Dreams where your St. Joseph’s High School coach, Gene Pingatore, asks you what you’ll study in college and you say, “I’m going into communications, so when you come asking for donations, I’ll know the right way to turn you down.” The perception was he was using players. Was that how you viewed him?

Gates: People thought Coach and I fell out and didn’t get along. My son played for Coach. I went to his funeral recently. It was heartbreaking when I heard he had passed. To me, every coach has their personal flaws, but I was closer to him than (Gates’ college coach at Marquette University) Kevin O’Neill. Yeah, (Pingatore) was an old-school coach and said some outlandish things. But there aren’t too many players who played for the guy who didn’t walk away and say four years later, “I’m a better person.”

Solomon: Any regrets about making Hoop Dreams?

Agee: No, I use it to teach my son. He’s obsessed with Hoop Dreams. He probably watches twice a week. He picks out his favorite part and says, “Dad, what were you thinking about when you had to leave St. Joseph’s? Do you think (Pingatore) didn’t believe in you?” I said, “Yeah, I didn’t show good promise as a ballplayer like William Gates did. Had my skills developed a little earlier, I probably would have stayed there. But you can see that didn’t stop me from growing my game.”

Solomon: William, there’s a moment in the movie that beautifully characterizes the hopes and, typically, letdowns of chasing the NBA dream. You say, “That’s why when somebody says, ‘When you get to the NBA don’t forget about me,’ and all that stuff, I should say, ‘Well, if I don’t make it, don’t forget about me.’” Twenty-five years later, have people forgotten about you?

Gates: That’s been a blessing, honestly. Here we are 25 years later and people still recognize me. I’ll be coaching and people will recognize me and take a picture with their kid. That always brings a smile to my face. It’s a reminder it’s still just a game and that Arthur and I haven’t been forgotten. There are so many athletes who have been.

But it is bittersweet. Hoop Dreams has brought a tremendous amount of blessings in my life and I would never take it away. But it’s also a reminder that my dream didn’t happen. I think sometimes people think they’re watching a fictional movie. Man, that’s my life. You’re seeing the results of what happened in my life. Every time I watch, I know my knee is about to give out my junior year. It’s a reminder for me of what could have been. But it’s more sweet than bitter.

Register for the Project Play Summit on Sept. 17-18 in Detroit at as.pn/2019ppsummit. Speakers will include Chris Webber, Valorie Kondos Field, David Brooks and Tim Shriver. See the Summit agenda for more information. Learn about Project Play at ProjectPlay.us.

Story originally published here.

Staying in the game: Progress and challenges in youth sports

Jon Solomon
Editorial Director, Sports & Society Program

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

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

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

• Multisport play continued to make a slight comeback.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Story was originally published here.

Meet ESPN’s Cassidy Hubbarth, emcee of the 2019 Project Play Summit

Sports & Society Program

In August, the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program launched a new campaign, “Don’t Retire, Kid,” to raise awareness about declining youth sports participation and solutions to create positive experiences for kids. One of the PSAs included Cassidy Hubbarth, a talented NBA and college football broadcaster at ESPN, as a reporter at a fictional press conference for a 9-year-old boy to retire from sports.

“What are you going to do with all your free time?” Hubbarth asked.

“Whatever’s fun,” the boy responded.

That’s as good a way as any to introduce Hubbarth to Project Play. On Sept. 17-18, Hubbarth will emcee the Project Play Summit. Jon Solomon, editorial director of the Sports & Society Program, recently spoke with Hubbarth about the pressures she faced to specialize in one sport, the pros and cons of social media use by young athletes, and the growing number of players who arrive to the NBA injured after playing too many games as a child.

Jon Solomon: What was that experience like for you at the Don’t Retire, Kid video shoot?

Cassidy Hubbarth: It was great. I was able to have a conversation with the young boy (Navonne Love), who was so impressive. It was pretty cool to see someone at his age perform the way he did. To be a part of this initiative means a lot to me because I was a three-sport athlete in high school. I took pride in the fact that I participated in a lot of sports. It’s my first introduction to this initiative, which I really didn’t know until that shoot day that kids were “retiring” and were no longer participating in sports. Given that I work in sports, sometimes it can be a little bubble and I don’t really understand what is happening outside that bubble.

Solomon: What sports did you play growing up?

Hubbarth: I played pretty much every sport except for hockey and, oddly enough, tennis because my whole family played tennis. I think because my parents and two older brothers played tennis, I never got in their doubles game. My main sports were basketball and soccer, and in high school I ran track. I also swam, played softball, and did gymnastics.

When I moved to high school, I was the only three-sport athlete in my grade, and I had a large graduating class of almost 700 people. A big problem was I was being pressured from my soccer team to drop basketball to specialize in soccer. I was better at soccer, but I was never going to drop basketball. I felt pride each season having a team to be part of. I think a lot of people who got the team awards on my soccer team played club sports, and it always felt a little political that I wasn’t on a club team and that’s who was voting on awards. It’s not like I’m holding a grudge all these years later! (laughs)

Solomon: Did you stick with basketball despite pressure from soccer?

Hubbarth: There was no way I was going to drop basketball. We won the state soccer championship my junior year. One of the best players on the team decided not to play her senior year to play travel (soccer) instead. And I just remember this letdown that we could have made another run for a title. But she had to do what was best for her and it opened up scholarship opportunities for her, so I can’t hold a grudge.

Solomon: You have a large social media presence. Social media has also become a big part of youth sports. What are the pros and cons of social media use by younger athletes?

Hubbarth: We’ve seen clips of LeBron James’ kid (playing basketball). That’s a lot of pressure in many ways to be the son of LeBron James. But there’s an interest. … Social media creates opportunities, but it creates pressure. Everyone likes a good story, but there’s no gate to close off the mean and cruel people in this world.

It’s hard, but I think young people are used to showcasing themselves in front of a camera. They’ve grown up with these devices, so I think it’s natural to them. I just worry about how it affects their psyche. I didn’t have a cell phone until I was late in high school, but I was taking video of myself. Facebook launched when I was in college. I made sure I stayed off Facebook because I knew I wanted to be in sports broadcasting, and I was worried people would post things of me I didn’t want out there. …

It’s very helpful there are NBA names like Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan being upfront about mental health and anxiety, so there’s not this stigma around it. People are truly consumed through their phones and there is a little bit of social anxiety in interpersonal communication skills. Everybody is putting out their best foot forward on social media and then when it comes down it, there’s no hiding in front of cameras on the main stage. I can’t imagine what the pressure is to be Zion Williamson (who had more than 1 million Instagram followers as a high school basketball recruit) when I deal with my own anxieties just on television.

Solomon: There was a good two-part series recently by ESPN.com documenting that NBA players are arriving to the league with broken bodies because of how many games they’ve already played as youth. Do players talk about this wear and tear they accumulate before they even enter the league?

Hubbarth: Yeah, the AAU circuit is big business. Part of it is it’s what they love to do, and they’d probably be playing basketball somewhere at the park (if not for AAU). But it’s different when it’s a competitive stage like that because these AAU tournaments have gotten major. You can feel the tension at these tournaments because these players are fighting to be listed in the top recruits or be in front of college coaches. That plays into how hard they’re pushing it at these summer games.

Solomon: I saw that you have a new baby daughter. Congratulations. I know it’s incredibly early, but have you thought about what sports experiences you think you may want for her to have one day?

Hubbarth: I think she’s going to be an athlete. She’s pretty coordinated and close to walking and she’s not even nine months. As a parent, you judge every little thing day to day and you always think your child’s a genius! I want to support her on whatever she wants to do. I just hope she kind of explores as much as she can to be a part of a team. It’s something I really would like for her. Being part of a team taught me so many lessons that apply to my work today and my home life.

Register for the Project Play Summit on Sept. 17-18 in Detroit at as.pn/2019ppsummit. Speakers will include Chris Webber, Valorie Kondos Field, David Brooks and Tim Shriver. See the Summit agenda for more information. Learn more about Project Play at ProjectPlay.us.

The story was originally posted here.

Valorie Kondos Field: Gymnastics needs a path for non-elite athletes to enjoy the sport

Sports & Society

Forty-six former U.S. national team gymnasts competed at UCLA under Valorie Kondos Field, who recently retired as the program’s coach after winning seven NCAA championships. Most of them arrived beaten down physically and emotionally – and tragically, some were sexually abused. UCLA gymnasts described Kondos Field, affectionately known as “Miss Val,” as a healer and a coach who could make the sport fun again.

The gymnastics community continues to sort through the aftermath of the sexual abuse inflicted by USA Gymnastics team physician Larry Nassar on more than 400 gymnasts. In addition, because the chase for gymnastics gold starts at young ages, the demands placed on early specialization in this sport can result in broken bodies and psyches.

Kondos Field will be a featured speaker at the Project Play Summit on Sept. 17 in Detroit. Jon Solomon, editorial director at the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, recently spoke with Kondos Field about possible solutions for gymnastics and her philosophy to coaching. This interview has been edited for length.

Solomon: How does a professional ballet dancer and choreographer become a seven-time NCAA championship gymnastics coach?

Kondos Field: When (UCLA) first asked me to be the head coach, I was flabbergasted and didn’t know anything about gymnastics. They said, “We trust you, you’ll figure it out.” I tried to mimic Bobby Knight and Pat Summit. That failed miserably. I thought, this isn’t going well.

True story: I was in the student union and happened upon Coach (John) Wooden’s book on leadership. The book opened up to his definition of success (“Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming”). I realized I was trying to be somebody else. I went back to my office and scrapped everything I was doing. I hired really good people to coach the gymnastics part. I started staying true to myself. And most importantly, I had to figure out my why? Why was I going to be coaching? I didn’t grow up in athletics and didn’t believe in win at all costs. It was very clear that athletics was one of the greatest ways to learn life lessons.

Solomon: Did you play sports growing up?

Kondos Field: I was really, really good at tetherball. I was the tallest kid, so I was the tetherball champion.

Solomon: You’ve seen so many former national team gymnasts come to you with physical and emotional pain. What does that pain look like by that stage in college?

Kondos Field: The sad part I realized in coaching all these elite athletes is they had been under a lot of emotional and verbal abuse growing up – just denigrated and talked down to and demeaned, so they would be robotic and compliant. I think the worst pain came from losing their voice. And not just losing their ability to speak, but literally having no voice inside that was cognizant and resonating with them.

I can tell you so many stories when I asked them, “What do you think we should do in the gym today?” They would come back with this blank stare. They didn’t even know how to tap into their inner voice. I always felt that was the biggest tragedy.

Solomon: Was it only the national team gymnasts who usually experienced this pain, or did other gymnasts encounter this as well?

Kondos Field: I noticed a very clear pattern. The level below elite national teamers is Level 10. Most college teams are filled with Level 10s. You don’t see emotional damages from Level 10s as with the others. The Level 10s have an opinion, they have a voice. It’s the elites that are just paralyzed and petrified. I remember one of our elites, a year after graduating, said that when I asked her questions, she thought it was a test and wouldn’t answer for fear of being wrong.

Solomon: You wrote a powerful piece in 2018 in which you said Larry Nassar is not the head of the monster, but rather the monster is the culture of USA Gymnastics. What do you mean by that?

Kondos Field: Everybody wonders how over 400 girls were sexually abused. In my opinion, USA Gymnastics only cared about winning and medals. And the coach, Martha Karolyi, and her husband (Bela), had a proven track record of winning. When the almighty dollar gets involved, you start to see a shift in the moral compass. USA Gymnastics gave 100% autonomy to the Karolyis. They did not want anyone questioning them. You never, ever question Martha. …

When I was in London standing next to (former USA Gymnastics CEO) Steve Penny, I asked, “Why did you let Martha get away with emotional abuse?” He barely even glanced at me. He said because she wins. I said at what cost? And he didn’t answer. When people say we’ve been successful, I beg to differ. We’ve won medals, but we’ve failed.

Solomon: How do you think USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have lately handled reform efforts?

Kondos Field: I think they’re doing a really great job. I do think they’re putting too much on (the U.S. Center for) SafeSport that people will report abuse, and that’s not the case. I feel the one, big missing piece is no one from USA Gymnastics has ever reached out to the victims. They say they can’t because of litigation, but every attorney I’ve talked to says they can reach out and say, “We’re family, we’re so sorry what you’ve gone through, and we hope to resolve this soon.” They haven’t even said that, so there’s a big divide.

Solomon: Do we need to have a conversation in America about changing the funding structure and at what age to introduce national championships into gymnastics? Could USA Gymnastics basically shift its paradigm in a way that deemphasizes national championships and sorting the weak from the strong?

Kondos Field: The issue I have with gymnastics in this country is there really isn’t a path for kids that really love the sport and that weren’t born with the ideal body to be elite. Gymnastics is about physics. You can’t do it if you’re not born with a lean, small body. But for the child that’s a little bit thicker and possibly overweight but loves the sport, I would love to see a program developed nationally where they can compete and have fun without putting all the pressure on having to win or be Simone Biles or be skinny. They shouldn’t be ashamed to be in a leotard. Sadly, the closest thing to a program like that is the Special Olympics, and we celebrate that. We can’t celebrate that same feeling for all children who weren’t born with the genetics of being a gymnast.

Solomon: Is there a role for USA Gymnastics leading the way on that?

Kondos Field: I definitely think there’s a role. It’s what Project Play does. Develop a system where you’re not trying to make the national team, you’re enjoying yourself. It takes a real challenging individual to be proficient on all four events. Allow kids to flip events and perform.

Solomon: Could gymnastics hold off on national championships and tiering of elite gymnasts?

Kondos Field: The problem with gymnastics is in order to be a great gymnast, you’ve got to learn really, really tough skills at a very young age. You have to learn when your body is nimble and light and before you inherit fear and your brain is smart enough to realize you’re doing some serious stuff here. There is a double-edged sword with that. It’s such a tragedy that your body is shattered by age 18 or 19 if you’re an elite gymnast, but you have to put in the time for the skills. …

Part of what I’d like to see reversed is let’s see gymnasts compete on teams at younger ages. College is the only time gymnasts ever really feel the rewards of being part of something greater than themselves. It’s such a true, team sport that if we could offer it at a much younger age, I think that would help the sport and those athletes who aren’t the biggest superstars. I hate it when I’m signing autographs for a little girl and the mom says the daughter just won her meet on balance beam. I want to look at the mom and say, “I don’t care.” Instead, I look at the girl and say, “What was the most fun part of competing?”

Solomon: Can the U.S. produce a gold medal Olympic team in which there is no physical and emotional abuse? Is that even possible?

Kondos Field: Yes, all you have to do is treat them and respect them as human beings. Any athlete with that kind of talent and heart of a champion, they want to be challenged, they want to compete. But they don’t want to be demeaned. What gymnastics doesn’t do at that level is you don’t celebrate failure as something to learn from.

Learn more about Project Play at ProjectPlay.us. Register to attend the Project Play Summit in Detroit (Sept. 17-18) at as.pn/2019PPSummit.

This story was originally posted here.

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

Sports & Society Program

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

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

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

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

Brian Hainline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Story originally published here.

Where have the neighborhood games gone?

Jim Boyle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Story was originally published here.