What happened to youth sports? Where did everyone go? And what can we do about it?

This post was inspired by the ideas that Coach Blake Norton, Mercer County Football (Harrodsburg, Kentucky), recently discussed on Facebook. Their programs are shrinking...and programs everywhere are shrinking. What’s happening? Who is to blame? Is it the “kids these days”? Is it the parents, the school, the coaches, or the sports culture? As a parent, as a coach, and as a therapist for the past 20 years, this is my answer to those questions and my proposed solutions to SAVE SPORTS.

Are kids different these days?

Yes, the research says kids are different. Mental health for kids is at an all-time low, while stress from sports is at an all-time high. This isn’t a great combination. Kids are already feeling completely overwhelmed…by school, by society, by expectations, by the insidious effects of smartphone tech on their lives…many just don’t want the added pressure involved with playing sports today. As a therapist, the number one word I hear from my teenage clients? “Overwhelm.”  

Are parents different these days?

Yes, parents are different. Parents remember the more authoritarian culture of their own childhood school sports, where coaches could more easily get away with “Bobby Knight” type behavior…so when their kids want to quit, they are far more likely to let them do so. And honestly, they probably breathe a huge sigh of relief. No more shelling out thousands for travel ball season. No more running kids to 60 games—maybe they’ll have an occasional weekend at home now? Parents are experiencing their own overwhelm in life…and sometimes a kid quitting sports is a welcome break for them too.

Are coaches different these days?

Yes, sometimes. They often feel extreme pressure to keep up with a much more competitive environment, so kids play year round...because that is what every other competitive team is doing. As Norton pointed out, kids used to play short seasons of a variety of sports. Now they play year-round specialized sports. There is no “off season” for kids anymore—there is no down-time in the summer—there is little to no break. The coaches who choose to opt out of this higher level of commitment, simply can’t win, and so their teams face dwindling morale from constant losses. Who wants to sign up for either extreme? It’s either the high anxiety produced by high level competition…or it’s the heavy discouragement of always losing. So coaches tend to get selective younger in order to compete, and the kids who need more patience, more time to develop are now told by middle school (either directly or indirectly) they just aren’t good enough. "When kids feel disposable, when they feel like they’re just being used as practice bodies," as Coach Norton says, then they leave…and they take their friends too.

Is the sport different these days?

Yes. Sports have grown more and more competitive—they used to feel more fun, now they feel more like jobs. They have also become elitist, with the uncontrolled growth of travel ball. The local rec leagues, with low cost and manageable schedules, are fading. Now, parents shell out thousands of dollars to shuttle their kid around to various parts of the country with an intensely competitive schedule. The sports themselves are different. Sports used to be accessible, but now, you have to pay to play. The kids who can afford it, pull ahead of everyone else. The kids who can’t get left behind and feel the stress of closing the gap of skills during regular seasons. And this process ruins the sport itself, because in this highly competitive and unfair environment, kids get ranked and labeled way too early. And they feel it. Most kids quit sports these days by age 13. (Norway noticed how uncontrolled travel sports were actually killing hockey—so they did something about it by reducing elitism in youth sports, in order to save the sport itself. Youth sports resurged. Read about it HERE.)

Is school different these days?

Yes, much different. Not just in terms of academic pressure but in terms of all extracurriculars. Success in sports used to equal belonging and even social status at school. Now, there is much more variety of school extracurricular activities where kids can find acceptance and build their confidence, not just through sports. The school opportunities are wider…and the truth is, high-stress sports aren’t as compelling an option for many people as they used to be. Kids can belong to something and be successful these days without risking the potential embarrassment of public sports performances. As Norton noted, "...they grow up being filmed and posted constantly, knowing one bad play can end up on Snapchat or shared in group chats or earn them a nickname." Opting out is much emotionally safer than risking public failure. Cringe culture from social media tells them hanging back is better than being made fun of by their peers. And so, lower pressure extracurricular activities are exploding accordingly.

Is culture different these days?

Yes. Not only has smartphone tech changed the entire landscape of culture, but recent inflation has greatly increased financial pressure on families everywhere. The reality is, lots of kids have to work jobs now or babysit siblings, to help their families pay the bills and make ends meet. As Coach Norton said, when sports demand 3 hours a day during the season, open gyms on weekends, leagues during summers, camps and travel ball in the off season…the math just doesn’t add up for people who are struggling financially. His words (summarized slightly):

The hard truth is that kids aren’t “quitting sports” as if it is somehow their fault—they are opting out of systems that feel one-sided. They’re asking, “Am I valued here? Is this worth it?” And if it isn’t, they’re walking. Kids today are not fooled by “we’re a family” language when favoritism is obvious and they are yelled at publicly for mistakes. You can be a demanding coach who wants excellence and still create an emotionally safe environment. Kids know it when no one is tracking their progress, when no one gives them a path forward, when they just exist to fill drills. They’re asking, “Is there a reason for me to be here?” If the answer isn’t obvious, they leave. They have options today which involve much less pressure, they have escape hatches, while previous generations were trapped and endured bad systems because there was little alternative.

Amen and amen. And for me, it’s this line here that was the kicker, my favorite part of his entire post…this is what we all need to understand about why sports are dying: “Sports are no longer competing against other sports. They are competing against comfort and psychological safety itself.” If a program doesn’t offer that psychological safety: belonging, growth, honest communication, emotionally regulated coaches, a reason to endure the hard days…then kids will choose the option that does. "That's not weakness. That's rational."

Coach Norton continues, noting that shrinking programs aren’t losing star athletes (unless they lose them to overuse injuries, which have skyrocketed). They’re losing “the average kids, the late bloomers, kids who aren’t the coach’s kids, kids who don’t have the loud parents, the kids who need more development. When those kids leave, programs don’t just lose numbers. They lose continuity and identity. Because those kids become the glue of future teams, the culture carriers, and eventually, the senior leaders.” 

As Coach said, slogans and hype do not work. Words mean nothing. Only actions. Coach Norton pointed out ways coaches can create more psychological safety and help their programs grow. As a coach myself, I felt like those were awesome insights, and I tried to include most of them below. But from my point of view, this is an everyone problem, and if we want to save youth sports, then I feel we need to do it together. Here's how:

SOLUTIONS FOR KIDS AND PARENTS: Please understand how tech today makes an impact on child mental health and parent accordingly. Sports are incredibly valuable and they are worth saving! Kids who play in non-toxic programs reap amazing benefits: growth in character, physical strength and fitness, emotional regulation, better grades, better friendships, better mental health. Just look into the research for yourself. Tackling the mental health problem these days will take everyone working together to help these kids: coaches and teachers cannot always play the role of therapists and parents too, though the truth is, they often do these days. Please create boundaries in your home which make sense for your kids, to help protect your family’s mental health. If you need to educate yourself, please read "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt or follow him on social media.

SOLUTIONS FOR COACHES: You can no longer afford to be the “hard coach” who is angry all the time. You can still hold high standards. You can still compete, even in this environment. You can still create excellence. But you ALSO have to create psychological safety too. Great ideas from Coach Norton, who has looked at sports programs that are still thriving in this context and noted the following ideas:

A)   Every kid has a development plan, not just the starters.

B)   Coaches explain decisions before kids have to guess.

C)   Effort is corrected, not mocked.

D)   Playing time is contextualized, not weaponized.

E)   Coaches admit mistakes publicly.

F)   Seniors are taught to protect younger players (not yell at them or exclude them).

G)   Practices include success for everyone, not just the best.

H)  Redesign practice and game structures to retain non-starters.

I)    Try to accommodate kids who are working jobs or watching young siblings.

J)    Reduce ego on the team.

K)   Protect joy.

Essentially, treat kids “like human beings, not assets,” by working hard to create real psychological safety that kids can feel. Coaches, this problem is not all your fault and not all on your shoulders to fix, but you can definitely do things to help.

SOLUTIONS FOR SPORTS CULTURE: People say, "If you don't like travel sports, don't play them." But guess what? Parents who want their kids to succeed in sports will almost never opt out of travel ball. Coaches and parents simply feel too much anxiety involved with kids potentially “falling behind” in the sport because of the highly competitive environment. It MUST BE LEGISLATED by people in power who put long-term wellness of families over short-term wins in sports...or the situation will only get worse. If you are in a position in power, then you need to protect kids from the constant creep of travel ball: you can limit the length of seasons, you can limit the number of games and practices, you might even be able to limit what a company charges or create subsidies. Use your power to level the playing field. Healthy limits must be legislated or we will see the beauty and precious freedom of our summers and weekends all but disappear and the sport itself suffer greatly. (If you want ideas, then check out the systems Norway used to successfully protect and grow youth sports in the website I linked to above.)

SOLUTIONS FOR SCHOOLS: I would start by suggesting that schools and coaches work together to make sports schedules less intense and more predictable for families. Perhaps achieve this by protecting certain nights and weekends.? Maybe it’s a rule where you only allow open gyms on Saturdays but never on Sundays? Maybe it’s a rule where you never schedule games on Mondays or Wednesdays? Maybe it’s a rule where all coaches only use one agreed-upon app (and every activity doesn’t have a new form of communication)? Maybe you can even collaborate and get all the coaches to work as a team on a task: how can we help reduce the anxiety, the stress, and the burn-out we are seeing in our student-athletes and save our sports programs? See what creative ideas they can come up with? Maybe you can even make collaborative coaches meetings a quarterly thing? (As a coach, I would love to participate and pick other coaches brains about what’s working and what’s not.) We see collaborative efforts among teachers working brilliantly for kids in education, and the same thing can work in coaching too! I don’t have any demands, you need to do what’s best for your context...all I am saying here is that schools don’t have to wait for larger governing bodies to act before they implement common sense boundaries for their own kids. They can help tackle this growing problem and save sports in their communities.

I am really thankful for Coach Norton speaking up and speaking out into a difficult and complex situation. I hope I have represented his words and point of view fairly (even if I didn’t get them perfectly quoted in places). I am grateful for his perspective and hope I have added value to the conversation.