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Online news comments as a public sphere forum: Deliberations on Canadian children’s physical activity habits
While considerable scholarly research has examined online media’s function as a public sphere forum, surprisingly little analysis has extended to examining the public’s actual deliberations of the covered issue(s). Recognizing this gap, this discussion conceives online news comments in response to a CBCNews (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation online news) article reporting the release of Active Healthy […]
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Neighborhood stigma and the sporting lives of young people in public housing
This paper spotlights the sporting lives of young people who live in ‘Redcrest’, a public housing community in the Niagara region of Canada. We report on data culled from neighborhood-centric documents (municipal data, planning council reports, media coverage) and ethnographic fieldwork (interviews, community mapping, go-alongs) collected over eight months with 14 young people. This paper […]
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Mission impossible? Reflecting upon the relationship between physical education, youth sport and lifelong participation.
It is widely believed that school physical education (PE) is or, at the very least, can (even should) be a crucial vehicle for enhancing young people’s engagement with physically active recreation (typically but not exclusively in the form of sport) in their leisure and, in the longer run, over the life-course. Despite the prevalence of […]
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More than a sport: Tennis education and health
Youth interest and participation in tennis is growing in the United States, and tennis is among the top nine most popular school sports that girls and boys participate in at the high school level (NFHS, 2012). Tennis also engages both girls and boys, and often facilitates competition across generations. In order to expand interest and […]
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More than just play: Unmasking black child labor in the athletic industrial complex
African Americans’ hypervisibility in sports remains a frequent point of critique. There has been a tendency to blame Black youths for their supposed “sports fixation.” Complicating this narrative of cultural pathology, I examine the foundational importance of Black Boys’ athletic labor to the profitability of the sporting industries. I first trace the structural conditions (imperialism, […]
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Maximizing the benefits of youth sport.
Research Findings on Social Benefits of Youth Sport * Playing informal, player controlled sports provides young people with opportunities to organize group activities, resolve interpersonal conflicts, solve problems, and sustain the consensus and cooperative relationships required to play competitive games (Martinek & Hellison, 1997). * Playing organized, adult controlled sports provides young people with opportunities […]
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Meanings of play among children.
The purpose of this study was to examine meanings of play among children. Thirty-eight students aged 7–9 years from a suburban public school in Western Canada participated in focus groups. Data analysis revealed participants saw almost anything as an opportunity for play and would play almost anywhere with anyone. However, they perceived parents to have […]
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Lifestyle and Adventure Sport Among Youth
An important characteristic and intensifying trend in the twenty-first century within Western sporting cultures is an increase in the range and diversity of sports practices, particularly more informal and individualistic activities. A vibrant example of this trend is the emergence and growth of what the academic and popular literature has variously termed extreme, alternative, adventure […]
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London 2012 and sports participation: The myths of legacy.
Today’s young people play far less sport than before. Or do they? The evidence, says Ken Green, shows quite the reverse. We have been promised “a deep and lasting legacy” from the Olympics. The evidence shows the Olympic sports model to be irrelevant to youth participation. Have we a misguided response to a fictitious illness?
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Learning to be a ‘goody-goody’: Ethics and performativity in high school elite athlete programmes.
Over the past few decades, New Zealand schools have started elite athlete programmes (EAPs) to develop talented sportspeople. The purpose of this study was to evaluate teachers/coaches and elite athletes’ perspectives of their learning experiences in two EAPs. Ball’s concept of performativity and Gore’s techniques of power were integral in examining the relationships between power, […]
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It Just Makes you Feel Invincible’: A Foucauldian Analysis of Children’s Experiences of Organised Team Sports
The childhood years are highlighted as a crucial time when ongoing participation in physical activity can be nurtured and maintained. The nurturing of a child’s proclivity to participate in organised sport normally falls into the domain of adults. While both parents and coaches have been identified as key influences on children’s enjoyment of sport, some […]
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It’s not like you are less of a man just because you don’t play rugby’—boys’ problematization of gender during secondary school physical education lessons in New Zealand.
Despite clear messages from current physical education (PE) curricula about the importance of adopting socially critical perspectives, dominant discourses of gender relating to physical activity, bodies and health are being reproduced within this school subject. By drawing on interview data from a larger ethnographic account of boys’ PE, this paper aims to contribute to our […]
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Kicking “No-Touch” Discourses into Touch: Athletes’ Parents’ Constructions of Appropriate Coach–Child Athlete Physical Contact.
It has been suggested that sport is increasingly becoming a “no-touch zone” as some coaches, driven by a desire for self-protection, restrict their use of physical contact with (child) athletes in the belief that this reduces their risk of being accused of abuse. Research on coach–athlete physical contact is limited, however, and no studies have […]
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Incorporating Unstructured Free Play into Organized Sports.
Play is an essential element of positive youth development. Youth should engage in all 3 types of play (unstructured, semistructured, and structured) to best promote physical literacy, motor skill proficiency and muscle strength, long term athletic development, and fun. Unfortunately, however, emphasis is too often placed on structured play, such as playing on a sports […]
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Individual and contextual determinants of stable volunteering in sport clubs
This article addresses factors that influence voluntary sport club(VSC) members’ loyalty to voluntary engagement. The question asked is an issue of VSC volunteers’ commitment; whether they decide to quit or continue their engagement. A multilevel approach was used that considered both individual characteristics of volunteers and corresponding contextual features of VSCs to analyse members’ voluntary […]
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International medallists’ and non-medallists’ developmental sport activities – a matched-pairs analysis
The study examined developmental participation patterns of international top athletes. Pairs of 83 international medallists (including 38 Olympic/World Champions) and 83 non-medallists were matched by sport, age and gender. A questionnaire recorded their volume of organised (coach-led) practice/training in their respective main sport and in other sports through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, and also involvement […]
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i9 and the Transformation of Youth Sport
In this article I present an analysis of how traditionally run competitive, organized team sports reproduce multiple socio negative effects for youth who play them. After explicating how the structure and culture of traditionally run competitive team sports operates in western cultures, I explain that cultural resistance toward changing sport is beginning to wane. I […]
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Imaging of physeal injury: Overuse.
Context: As the intensity of youth participation in athletic activities continues to rise, the number of overuse injuries has also increased. A subset of overuse injuries involves the physis, which is extremely susceptible to injury. This paper aims to review the utility of the various imaging modalities in the diagnosis and management of physeal injuries […]
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How Can you Enjoy Sports if You are Under Control by Others? Self-Organized Lifestyle Sports and Youth Development
While research shows a positive association between participation in organized sports and youth development, research on alternative and unorganized sport settings is lacking. This paper analyzes developmental processes in a sample of unorganized lifestyle sport contexts, drawing on a Relational Developmental Systems approach to human development. Based on observation and interviews with young practitioners in […]
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I Guess It’s Kind of Elitist: The Formation and Mobilisation of Cultural Social and Physical Capital in Youth Sport Volunteering
Policy and research portray sport volunteering as a means by which young people can develop skills and perform active citizenship. This paper draws on qualitative research with participants in a UK sport volunteering programme to critically examine young people’s volunteering journeys and how these are shaped by their formation and mobilisation of capital. The results […]
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I Just Can’t Bear These Procedures, I Just Want to be Out There Working With Children: An Autoethnography on Neoliberalism and Youth Sports Charities in the UK. Sport, Education and Society
This paper uses an autoethnography to recount my experiences with SportHelp, a UK youth sports charity. Using a layered account format, which jumps through time and space, I demonstrate the extent to which neoliberal values have influenced the continuity and change of SportHelp. This paper does not constitute an attack on the charity, its staff, […]
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Governing the child-citizen: ‘Let’s Move!’ as national biopedagogy
In this paper, we offer a critical examination of Let’s Move!, the comprehensive anti-obesity program initiated by the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, that aims to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. We argue that Let’s Move! is not just a campaign against obesity but is emblematic of the […]
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Habitus and social class: a case study on socialisation into sports and exercise
According to Bourdieu, habitus is an important, and class-specific, foundation for behaviour. However, he hardly explained how the habitus is acquired. Based on Bernstein’s elaboration on the various contexts in which group-specific behavioural principles are acquired, this article demonstrates how young children of two divergent social classes obtain their habitus underlying their sports and exercise […]
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Hegemonic Masculinity and Beyond: 40 Years of Research in Sweden.
This article discusses the status of the concept of hegemonic masculinity in research on men and boys in Sweden, and how it has been used and developed. Sweden has a relatively long history of public debate, research, and policy intervention in gender issues and gender equality. This has meant, in sheer quantitative terms, a relatively […]
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Girls, international development and the politics of sport: Introduction.
In one of the first contemporary essays to explore the use of sport for adolescent girls’ development, Brady (1998) noted that the increased attention given to sport for girls and women – for example at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and at the first International Conference on Women in Sport in Brighton […]
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Glocal Boys: Exploring Experiences of Acculturation Amongst Migrant Youth Footballers in Premier League Academies
This article explores the experiences of acculturation recounted by migrant youth footballers following their migrations to Premier League academies. Whereas problems of acculturation have been documented in research exploring the migratory experiences of senior professional athletes, the framing of migrant youth footballers as a problematic collective in academic, public and media discourse has tended to […]
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Gender Ideologies, Youth Sports, and the Production of Soft Essentialism
By the mid-Twentieth Century in the U.S., a dominant ideology of natural, categorical differences between women and men was an organic part of the unequal distribution of women and men into domestic and public realms, especially in middle class families. Sport was a key site for the naturalization of this ideology, which I call “hard […]
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Generating recognition acceptance and social inclusion in marginalised youth populations: The potential of sports-based interventions
In recent years sport-based interventions have been implemented as a mechanism via which to target marginalised youth in relation to the development of social inclusion. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding social inclusion programmes highlights engagement with education, employment, or training, as key metrics. This has led some scholars to observe that conceptualising social inclusion […]
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Freedom between the lines: clothing behavior and identity work among young female soccer players
Our research examines the relationship among identity, age, gender and athleticism through a study of the association between sports clothing and the identity work of pre-adolescent female soccer players. Based on participant-observation and interviews conducted at three co-ed youth soccer camps, we find that age is an important element of identity, particularly as it intersects […]
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Gay Pride on Stolen Land: Homonationalism and Settler Colonialism at the Vancouver Winter Olympics
A new form of sporting settler homonationalism emerged in the Pride Houses at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. For the first time ever, Pride Houses were set up where gay and lesbian supporters watched and celebrated the Olympic events. Drawing on poststructuralism, queer and settler colonial studies, the paper analyzes how the Pride Houses were […]
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For Ed McVaney, Valor Christian High School is labor of love.
Ed squirms in his seat and occasionally whispers to the person next to him in freshman English class at Valor Christian High School — he’s not bored, just so excited he can’t sit still.
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Foreign players in the English Premier Academy League: ‘Feet-drain’ or ‘feet-exchange’?
The aim of this article is to make sense of the effects of foreign player involvement in English football’s elite youth academy system. Based upon a series of interviews conducted with academy directors, managers, and coaches at Premier League clubs, and senior figures in the Premier League’s Youth Development department, the article argues that the […]
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Fastest, highest, youngest? Analysing the athlete’s experience of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games.
The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) are the newest addition to the Olympic Movement and, in light of recent discussions of the education of high-performance athletes, represent a change within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from a philosophy of ‘winning by all means’ to a philosophy much more informed by education. Therefore, this paper analysis the […]
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Fathers on Child’s Play: Urban and Rural Canadian Perspectives.
Social trends show that contemporary fathers are spending increased time with their children and that active play and outdoor recreation are important features of their relationships. Dominant ideals of masculinity can differ by settings, which in turn guide men’s understandings and practices of fathering regarding the functions of and opportunities afforded by active play. This […]
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Experiences in Sport, Physical Activity, and Physical Education Among Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu Asian Adolescent Girls
Multicultural scholarship in sport and exercise psychology should help us understand and apply cultural competencies for all to be physically active. In the present study, two Asian countries, Japan and Singapore, were chosen. The participation rate for physical activities among adolescent girls tends to be lower than that of boys in both countries. Thus, the […]
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Exploring Critical Alternatives for Youth Development Through Lifestyle Sport: Surfing and Community Development in Aotearoa/New Zealand
While competition-based team sports remain dominant in community and sport-for-development programs, researchers are exploring the value of alternative, less “sportized” activities such as lifestyle/action sports. In this paper, we explore the ways in which surfing is being used in development programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand, examining the perceived social benefits and impact. Our methods involved: (a) […]
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Exploring the cultural intersection of music, sport and physical activity among at-risk youth.
Although sport can serve as a valuable mechanism for social change, this does not imply it can single-handedly solve large-scale problems; rather, sport should be utilized with passionate leadership, efficient and innovative program design, and ancillary cultural enrichment activities to achieve optimal results. This research was motivated by developments in some marginalized and at-risk communities […]
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Elite Child Athlete Welfare: International Perspectives
A book of papers from the first symposium of the Brunel International Research Network for Athlete Welfare including contributions on children’s’ rights and abuses in sport, and priorities for future research and policy
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Emancipating Play: Disabled Children, Development and Deconstruction
This paper reflects critically on the meaning of play, especially as it relates to disabled children and their experiences. We explore the close alliance of play to cognitive and social development, particularly in the case of psychologies of development, and reveal a dominant discourse of the disabled child as a non‐playing object that requires professional […]
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Embodied Faith: Islam, Religious Freedom and Educational Practices in Physical Education
The growing incidence of withdrawal of Muslim girls from physical education prompted this study into tensions between religious freedom and educational practices. It was located in a city in the West Midlands of England. Data on experiences, issues, concerns and solutions related to participation of Muslim girls in physical education were collected by a team […]
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Do as I Say: Contradicting Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Sports Concussion in Australia
The objective of this study was to explore beliefs and attitudes of students studying exercise science in Australia towards sports concussion. A secondary objective explored differences between gender and previous experience of concussion. A total of 312 participants (m = 217; f = 95) responded to a series of statements ranging across a number of […]
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Doping and Supplementation: The Attitudes of Talented Young Athletes
There is evidence of a small but significant proportion of adolescents engaging in doping practices. Young athletes face very specific pressures to achieve results as they strive for a career at an elite level. This study used an anonymized questionnaire to survey 403 (12–21 years old) talented young athletes’ attitudes toward performance-enhancing substances and supplements. […]
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Differences in Adolescent Relationship Abuse Perpetration and Gender-Inequitable Attitudes by Sport Among Male High School Athletes
Abstract Purpose School-based athletic programs remain an important context for violence prevention efforts although a better understanding of how gender attitudes and abuse perpetration differ among athletes is needed. Methods We analyzed baseline survey data from the “Coaching Boys into Men” study—a school-based cluster-randomized trial in 16 high schools in Northern California. We describe relationships […]
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Cultures of Play During Middle Childhood: Interpretive Perspectives From Two Distinct Marginalized Communities
This article offers interpretive perspectives on play as a cultural activity during middle childhood by contrasting two communities targeted for aid by external sport and play programs: a Chicago public housing community and a community of Angolan refugee camps. Ethnographic anecdotes, along with some survey results, demonstrate that aside from any organized programs, informal sport […]
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Cumulative Prevalence of Arrest From Ages 8 to 23 in a National Sample
Objective: To estimate the cumulative proportion of youth who self-report having been arrested or taken into custody for illegal or delinquent offenses (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from ages 8 to 23 years. Methods: Self-reported arrest history data (excluding arrests for minor traffic violations) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = […]
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Dark Cloud or Silver Lining? The Value of Bonding Networks During Youth
Social capital is fast becoming a salient and exciting area of youth study. While debates about social capital during youth usually focus on its presumed positive consequences, there is a current trend to label certain forms of networking, particularly bonding networks, as ‘perverse’, ‘bad’ or ‘dark’. What is often referred to as the ‘down side’ […]
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Debunking Early Single Sport Specialisation and Reshaping the Youth Sport Experience: An NBA Perspective
The ‘common wisdom’ Among many parents and coaches, it is believed that early single sport specialisation is essential for future competitive sport success and, further, that a high level of achievement in youth sports predicts future success. Owing to these misconceptions, youth sport has become focused on results at young ages rather than the overall […]
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Contexts of Childhood and Play: Exploring Parental Perceptions
The article explores cross-cultural notions of play in childhood among parents based on empirical investigations in two economically diverse residential areas in a metropolis in India. All parents had an unquestionable belief in an epistemic grounding of play in children’s lives. However, parents begin to question playtimings and children’s engagement with play when faced with […]
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Coping With Growth in Adolescent Elite Sport
Growing up in elite sport represents a challenging project. Young athletes must negotiate a career-defining transitional period while in the midst of adolescence. In this context, notably, the growth process can lead to health problems such as overloading and injuries. In this article, we investigate how adolescent elite athletes cope with problematic growth experiences. Taking […]
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Counting Young People is Not Youth Work’: The Tensions Between Values, Targets and Positive Activities in Neighbourhood-Based Work
The UK New Labour Government’s ideological preoccupations included tackling deprivation, addressing anti-social behaviour and persuading young people to engage in ‘positive activities’. In 2007, the report ‘Aiming High for Young People’ outlined policies intended to contribute to the achievement of associated goals. The Youth Sector Development Fund (YSDF) provided Civil Sector Organisations (CSOs) with the […]
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Cuddling and Spooning: Heteromasculinity and Homosocial Tactility Among Student-Athletes
This article examines the prevalence of homosocial tactility and the contemporary status and meaning of heteromasculinity among British male youth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forty student-athletes at a British university, we find that thirty-seven participants have cuddled with another male. In addition to this cuddling, participants also engage in “spooning” with their heterosexual male […]
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Cul-de-sac Kids
Previous research indicates that adults who live on cul-de-sac streets are more likely to have positive experiences with neighbors than residents of other street types (Brown and Werner, 1985; Hochschild Jr, 2011; Mayo Jr, 1979; Willmott, 1963). The present research ascertains whether street design has an impact on children’s neighborhood experiences. The author interviewed 73 […]
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Child Athletes and Athletic Objectification
This article examines the risks associated with conceptualizing the child athlete’s body primarily in aesthetic terms and as an instrument of sporting victory, and develops a concept of “athletic objectification.” It draws on a recent research project involving Australian males and females aged between 18 and 25 who participated in organized sport as children. It […]
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Child Participatory Research Methods: Attempts to go ‘Deeper’
Along with the growth of child participatory research an increased focus on its complexity, specifically unaddressed power inequities in the research relationship and unreflexive use of methods, has developed. This article discusses a participatory research project with children in Ireland and reflects on attempts to achieve deeper participation through the use of children and youth […]
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Children’s engagement in leisure time physical activity: Exploring family structure as a determinant
This paper draws on Bourdieu’s key concepts in an effort to understand particular social practices and the effect of family as a social environment and determinant for participation in leisure time physical activity. As an exploratory study, the aim was to elicit children’s subjective views of their engagement in leisure time physical activity settings. Adopting […]
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Children’s Participation in Organized Sport and Physical Activities and Active Free Play: Exploring the Impact of Time, Gender and Neighbourhood Household Income Using Longitudinal Data
This study examines the associations among socioeconomic status (SES), aging, gender and sport and physical activity participation from late childhood into adolescence. Drawing from previous research, we test three hypotheses regarding the impact of aging on SES and sport participation using longitudinal data. The data come from a prospective cohort study of children, all of […]
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Building Worlds: A Connective Ethnography of Play in Minecraft
Digital gameplay is enacted across many social platforms that can be described as affinity spaces, meaning informal learning environments where players share resources and knowledge. This article examines the ways that a young gamer stitches together several different spaces to play Minecraft. Our study focuses on the play of a single participant, collecting ethnographic data […]
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Calling the Screens: Self-Reported Developmental Outcomes in Competitive Basketball
The purpose of this study was to examine female players’ motives for participation in competitive sports, how they felt involvement has aided in their development, and explore negative experiences that had served as detractors to enjoyment. Focus groups were conducted with 31 players who currently participate on a competitive youth basketball team. Player responses revealed […]
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Can Sport Really Help to Meet the Millennium Development Goals? Evidence from children in Peru
In contrast to the popular policy claim that sport might serve as vehicle to meet the Millennium Development Goals, empirical evidence based on large-scale survey data is largely missing. We use panel data based on a cohort of children and employ propensity score matching to identify the effects of sports participation on child development in […]
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Book Review: Youth Sport and Spirituality: Catholic Perspectives
How do you stretch the boundaries of self by playing inside the lines? In Youth Sport and Spirituality: Catholic Perspectives, Patrick Kelly provides an engaging edited text that shifts the paradigms by which we evaluate sport and faith through a carefully designed exploration of our individual beliefs and socially held values. Employing a diverse yet […]
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Boys’ Bodies and the Constitution of Adolescent Masculinities
In the social transition between childhood and adolescence, boys draw on discourses of masculinity that address the male body in constituting themselves as adolescents. They make themselves as no longer children and acquire a sense of themselves as adolescents by performing bodily practices that position them within some of these discourses. Repeated personal interviews conducted […]
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Building a System to Safeguard Children in Sport: The Eight CHILDREN Pillars
In October 2014, the International Safeguards for Children in Sport were launched. These Safeguards were developed, implemented, and evaluated based on a pilot process which took place over the preceding 2 years. Throughout this piloting phase, a range of qualitative techniques were employed to capture the experiences of people within 32 of the organizations that […]
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Sport for Development: What Game Are We Playing?
Sport is increasingly regarded as a powerful tool in international development. In this comprehensive introduction to the area of ‘sport-for-development’, leading researcher Fred Coalter critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures of sport-for-development policies and programs. Beginning with an outline of the historical development of policies of sport-for-development, this book explores the […]
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Sport Psychology Concepts and Applications
Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications shows how concepts supported by current scientific research can be used to address issues and situations encountered everyday by physical activity specialists, coaches, athletic trainers, and athletes.
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Sports In Society: Issues and Controversies (13th Edition)
For over 30 years, Sports in Society has been a resource in the cultural, interactional, and structural dimensions of sports. The Thirteenth Edition provides a thorough introduction to the sociology of sport by raising critical questions to explore the relationships between sports, culture, and society. This text takes an issues-oriented approach to the study of […]
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Rethinking Children’s Play
Rethinking Children’s Play examines attitudes towards, and experiences of, children’s play. Fraser Brown and Michael Patte draw on a wide range of thought, research and practice from different fields and countries to debate, challenge and re-appraise long held beliefs, attitudes and ways of working and living with children in the play environment. Children need to […]
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Routledge Handbook of Youth Sport
The Routledge Handbook of Youth Sport is a comprehensive survey of the latest research into young people’s involvement in sport. Drawing on a wide diversity of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, policy studies, coaching, physical education and physiology, the book examines the importance of sport during a key transitional period of our lives, from the later […]
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Youth Leagues the New Target of High School Football Programs
Youth football leagues are Colorado’s modern gold mines, where young, impressionable players are discovered. Both public and private schools have long scouted these leagues, but it’s the draw of the private schools that has changed the recruiting game in metro Denver. “There’s been a drastic change in how much the private schools have gone to […]
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Youth Sports Still Struggling with Dropping Participation, High Costs and Bad Coaches, Study Finds
More American children ages 6 to 12 were physically active in 2017, but not to a healthy level, according to data published Tuesday by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Aspen Institute. Youth sports advocates have for years pushed kids to play more team sports, and those efforts showed some success over the […]
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Youth Sports Study: Declining Participation, Rising Costs and Unqualified Coaches
Between skyrocketing costs, sport specialization and coaches needing training, youth sports is in the midst of a crisis, according to new data published Wednesday by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Aspen Institute.Athletic participation for kids ages 6 through 12 is down almost 8 percent over the last decade, according to SFIA and […]
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The Hidden Officiating Crisis: How the NFL’s Problems Trickle Down to Youth Sports
Mistakes and minute scrutiny on the biggest stage, and the criticisms that follow from coaches, the media and fans, reverberate down to the lower levels. Spectators are further emboldened to go after already beleaguered refs in youth sports—driving many of them away. In Florida, says one administrator, “we’re running out of officials.” Is there any […]
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The Most Expensive Game in Town: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families
Nearly 50 million kids play organized sports each year, and each of them has a supportive family that digs deep into its pockets to pay for the essentials-uniforms, equipment, league fees, travel to away games. But the buck doesn’t stop there. With private lessons, elite sports camps, corporate-sponsored tournaments, and all the hotel expenses and […]
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The Victims of Larry Nassar Who Dared to Come Forward First
In the summer of 2016, Rachael Denhollander was scrolling through Facebook at her home, in Louisville, Kentucky, when she happened upon the cover story of the day’s Indianapolis Star. It was an investigation into U.S.A. Gymnastics, one of the nation’s most prominent Olympic organizations, concluding that for years the federation’s top officials had mishandled allegations […]
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Students with Disabilities Have Right to Play School Sports Obama Administration Tells Schools
When Kareem Dale, now a special advisor to President Barack Obama, was in high school, all he wanted to do was wrestle. But as a student who was partially blind, that wasn’t easy. Dale’s school made it possible for him to participate in the sport by creating a rule that wrestlers always needed to be […]
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The Final Four, Travel Teams and Empty Pews: Research on Sports and Religion
The Rev. Stephen Fichter understood just how dominant a role sports has assumed in the culture when a family told him they would be out of town Good Friday to Easter Sunday to attend their child’s volleyball tournament.“It’s truly sports that has become like the religion” for many people, said Fichter, a researcher and the […]
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Should Parents Nix After-school Sports?
High school athletes devote a lot of hours to practice and games. Parents and coaches say playing sports builds character and teamwork. But do sports take too much time away from the classroom? In a recent article for The Atlantic, writer Amanda Ripley makes the case against after-school sports. She joins host Michel Martin, along […]
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Private Schools Defining Colorado Prep Sports’ Shift in Power
High school sports, once viewed as a bastion of wholesomeness, is being transformed into a cutthroat business at the highest levels of play, with teenage athletes the prized assets. Colorado private schools — notably upstart Valor Christian, in addition to Regis Jesuit and football power Mullen — have catapulted to recent prominence by capitalizing on […]
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Olympics judo: Saudi Arabia Hijab Dispute Resolved
Saudi Arabia judoka Wojdan Shaherkani will compete at the Olympics after a dispute over a hijab was resolved. The International Judo Federation said the 16-year-old must fight without the headscarf for safety reasons, but the Saudis threatened to withdraw Shaherkani. An International Olympic Committee spokesman said: “The judo federation will allow her to wear something […]
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Lower-income Students Getting Shut Out of Sports
The cost of participating in travel teams, academy teams and even school teams is rising and the sports themselves may pay the price.
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How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry.
Joey Erace knocks pitch after pitch into the netting of his $15,000 backyard batting cage, the pings from his metal bat filling the air in the south New Jersey cul-de-sac. His private hitting coach, who’s charging $100 for this hour-long session, tells Joey to shorten his stride. He’s accustomed to such focused instruction: the evening […]
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How Rich Parents Spending Big on Their kids’ Sports Teams Hurts Lower-income Families
On this week’s episode of Slate’s sports podcast Hang Up and Listen, Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levin spoke with the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson about his piece “American Meritocracy Is Killing Youth Sports.” In that story, Thompson writes, “Declining athletic participation is a prime example of how the choices even benevolent rich households make can hurt […]
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Fear, Greed, Broken Dreams: How Early Sports Specialization is Eroding Youth Sports
Commentary on how specialization in youth sports leads to youth quitting sports earlier.
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Football High: Bigger and Faster, But Safer?
Corporate sponsorships, nationally televised games, minute-by-minute coverage on sports websites — for players, parents and coaches, high school football has never been bigger. But is enough being done to ensure players’ safety as the intensity of the sport grows? In Football High, FRONTLINE investigates the new face of high school football.
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Big Ten Guarantees Graduation Opportunity for its Athletes
All 14 of the Big Ten Conference’s schools have agreed to generally guarantee that any athlete who receives an athletic scholarship will be able to keep that award until they graduate, the conference announced Wednesday.
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Black Men as College Athletes: The Real Win-loss Record
Frustrated by the endless grumbling about black men’s failures, I have spent much of my career examining how black men get to college and what helps them succeed. We now have hard data, and many of the most effective strategies cost relatively little.
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Concern Raised Over Pain killer Use in Sports
When Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey partly tore the plantar fascia in his right foot last May, he turned to a treatment that in recent years has become a go-to elixir for professional baseball and football players: Toradol, an injectable anti-inflammatory drug. ”It certainly helped, especially in the first months after the injury,” said Dickey, […]
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Concussions Pose Silent Risks to University and Pro Athletes
Concussions have reached epidemic proportions in Canada, warned speakers at a recent panel discussion held at McGill University called Heads Up: On the Concussion Issue. Every year, 160,000 Canadians sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI), from accident victims to athletes at all levels, a rate of 600 per 100,000 population.
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`The Government is Reining in Youth Sports. The Adults Are Worried’
Puerto Rico is introducing far-reaching regulations on organizers of youth sports in an attempt to protect children from excessive competition.
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10 Charts That Show Progress Challenges to Fix Youth Sports
Flag football surpassed tackle as the most commonly played form of the game for kids ages 6 to 12 in 2017. Fewer kids are physically inactive. Sampling of most major team sports is up. Most coaches are still winging it. And kids from lower-income homes face increasing barriers to sports participation. Those are among the […]
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8 in 10 Parents Think Kids’ Extracurricular Activities May One Day Lead to Income
Eight in 10 parents with young children who participate in extracurricular activities think those pursuits could someday lead to income for their kid, according to a new report from LendingTree, and the more you spend on your kids’ activities, the more likely you are to think they will pay off. The survey – which asked […]
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A Shocking Number of Youth Sports Coaches Are Unqualified for The Gig
A great youth sports experience starts with a great coach. The problem is, the number of great coaches in youth sports seems to be decreasing. Many good ones have simply hung up their clipboard after deciding increasingly overzealous parents weren’t worth the trouble. Going off that, many youth coaches are a parent of a player […]
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At Louisville, Athletic Boom is Rooted In ESPN Partnership
In February, the president of the University of Louisville, James R. Ramsey, traveled to Florida to meet with donors and alumni. Dr. Ramsey is an economist, and he led off on the dismal side of the ledger, from the challenges facing the economy to dwindling government financing for higher education, including a sharp drop in […]
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At Meeting of Knight Commission, Old Ideas Are New Again
Amid growing scrutiny of college sports, leaders of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics gathered here on Monday to discuss what they called “new approaches for the next era.” The featured speaker was Brian Hainline, chief medical officer of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, who called for more research into concussions and increased awareness of […]
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Barack Obama is Not Pleased: The President on His Enemies, The Media, and The Future of Football
Barack Obama’s pre-presidential manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, has only one extended riff on gun control—not a homily on behalf of the cause or even a meditation on the deep divisions opened by the debate, but a story of crummy luck. While State Senator Barack Obama was vacationing in Hawaii, visiting his grandmother and hoping […]
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The Youth Sports Megacomplex Comes to Town, Hoping Teams will Follow
Just past the Hampton Inn and the Chick-fil-A, beyond the climbing wall but not as far as the water park, is your field of dreams. Actually, there are eight of them: all major league-sized, synthetic-turfed and LED-lit, and wedged in next to the three soccer pitches. The Champions Center is ahead on your left, where […]
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‘My Under-10 Matches Are the Worst’: No End in Sight to Youth Referee Abuse
While many acknowledge that the abuse and assault of referees is endemic in American sports culture, few people seem willing to do anything about it.
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High School Powers That Offer Solutions to Public, Private Problem
In recent seasons, powerful private schools Valor Christian, Mullen and Regis Jesuit seem to be winning state football, state soccer, state everything.
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Rap Sheets, Recruits, and Repercussions
A six-month investigation by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and CBS News reveals that an alarming number of the players at top college football programs have criminal records. A comprehensive look at where the problem begins, how it has been ignored and what can be done to rectify it—for the good of both the athletes and the schools
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Seeing Old Age as a Never-ending Adventure
Ilse Telesmanich, 90, sprained her ankle hiking in South Africa last August. She tried to keep going on the three-week trip, she said, hobbled as she was. “I got very good at hopping on one foot the last time I sprained it,” she said. But the guides had unfortunately failed to bring along any crutches […]
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“Hey, Data Data –Swing!” The Hidden Demographics of Youth Sports
Competitive Youth Sports may be as American as apple pie, but we know a lot less about youth sports than we do about apple pie. The problem is that while the FDA takes responsibility for knowing everything about our food (as the EPA does with the environment and a group called ARDA does with religious […]
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