Sports has always been an integral part of my life, and my family members have always been huge sports fans. We were more into American football than what the rest of the world calls football, but I grew to love the “beautiful game” watching my boys playing as the grew up. Throughout the current World Cup, I have been seeing many commentaries about the role of youth sports and the development of young players in the US. Although the current US Men’s team is clearly reflective of the country’s diversity, we are still far behind the rest of the world in developing our youth players – there are a variety of factors at play, as noted in this instagram post on some of the key technical issues facing youth development in the US.
Another recent article points out one of the hot topics in discussions of the US team’s issues and access to youth sports:
A recent study by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play shows that family spending on youth sports has increased by 46% since 2019, making them out of reach for many low-income families. In addition to the uniform costs, there are travel costs for away games, Bùi said. “You’re looking between $1,500 to $2,000 per player,” he said. That’s just for a club team. For competitive leagues, those costs jump astronomically. Bùi said they could be “in the thousands, the tens of thousands.”
These increases in cost have had a disproportionate impact on kids from minority and underrepresented communities.
It’s also important to understand the role of systemic racism in soccer. Despite soccer being one of the most accessible and racially diverse sports in the world, the situation in the US is impacted by costs related to club sports, and the lack of opportunity for kids who live in cities vs. those in the suburbs. As another article goes on to point out:
An early-2000s NIH study found that 69.6% of Black neighborhoods and 81.4% of Hispanic neighborhoods didn’t have a single recreational facility.
My own boys who played soccer in Austin, TX and Menlo Park, CA were often the only Black players on their teams. They played at the recreational level, and I found that the actual monetary cost wasn’t the only barrier. Time is also a huge factor in the cost of playing youth sports. I used to call myself the “mom-shuttle” — I had my minivan carting my boys, and their friends when we managed to car pool, to all their practices and games. My husband helped out a lot, even volunteering to coach at times, but having the time to take my kids to all of their events was a luxury that many parents don’t have.
When I was growing up, sports was something you did after school. We had busses to take us to off-site practices or to games (mostly track meets for me and my brothers). My parents weren’t particularly involved in our sporting lives except to go to my brothers’ football and basketball games. I was mostly on my own and wouldn’t have been able to participate much if I had to rely on my parents to get me to practice and meets. I was also a beneficiary of Title IX, which gave me greater opportunity to participate in sports, compared to my older sisters, and competed on the Stanford Track and Field team for two years.
firmly believe that participating in sports is an important component of growing up healthy and happy. I have supported organizations like Fit Kids that provide opportunities for kids to participate in fun, inclusive, and structured physical activity and mindfulness exercises. I have also worked closedly with organizations like Foundation for a College Education to provide college access support for low-income high school students from minority backgrounds. These efforts are all important, but reading about the challenges in youth sports has helped me to realize we need to do more.
Radical empathy calls for us to take action – and I have seen how the situation in youth sports is impacting students not only in their athletic trajectory, but also their academic trajectory. Parents and students from low-income and minority backgrounds need to be given the tools to access the information and training they will need to be successful in life, and to support the future of our high school, college, and national teams. That requires starting early, and colleagues and I are in the process of developing a program we are calling, “Gateway Athletes.” We are building accountable, holistic pathways for underserved youth athletes — mentoring and supporting them from middle school through college and beyond.
Young people in the US should have access to high quality sports training regardless of their backgrounds and it will take support from our communities to ensure that the opportunities to participate aren’t limited to the few. This is particularly important in this era of shifting college conferences, transfer portals and NIL opportunities. As a university professor and administrator, I also know it is important that we educate families as well as potential students so that they have the tools they need to succeed academically and on the field. If you are interested in supporting these efforts, please get in touch! Email us at info@gatewayathletes.org