Tom Farrey - Game On: How the Pressure to Win at All Costs Endangers Youth Sports, and What Parents Can Do About It

T he origins of Game On can be traced to a foul ball hit twenty-some years ago that for one tantalizing moment hung up in the warm blue sky above a Little League diamond in South Florida. The first baseman gave chase, and, as the arc of the ball turned downward toward the chain-link fence in front of the dugout, he thought about not pursuing it any further. The ball seemed just out of reach, and the floppy-haired boy had never tried to make such an ambitious catch. Then something deep in his gut, where curiosity and adventure conspire, whispered, Hey, lets go for it. In a split-second a decision was made to accelerate and then dive, as if he were Mark Spitz entering a pool. He extended his skinny left arm as far as his prepubescent frame would allow, accepted a mouthful of dirt and looked up to find the prize nestled in the tippy-top of his glove.

That first baseman was me at the age of 12, and I learned something important that day about the limits of my perceived boundaries and the rewards that lie just beyond. Ultimately, moments like that would shape the arc of my life. I remained drawn to the magic that occurs when balls and bodies are in motion and became a sportswriter. To be precise, I became a sports journalist, convinced that much more was involved in these games than scores and championships and whos-gonna-win-the-Heisman. Over the years, Ive had a lot of fun covering spectacles such as the Super Bowl, Olympics and Final Four. But the stories that I enjoy pursuing most are those that treat sports as a significant social force in the lives of Americansones that could run just as easily in the A section of the newspaper or on a network news broadcast as they could in the sports page or on ESPN. More often than not, these stories have nothing to do with the star players in fancy stadiums, and everything to do with regular people interacting with sports on a local and personal level.

For a parent, theres nothing more local and personal than your child. Once you have children, your favorite athlete is no longer Roger Federer or LeBron James or Lance Armstrong; your favorite athlete becomes the one youre raising, the one sleeping down the hallway. Thats the athlete whose games you will consistently attend, lawn chair in tow. Thats the athlete in which you will have the greatest emotional (and financial) investment, whose successes and failures you feel most deeply. Thats the athlete, more than any other, who you hope is given the opportunity to catch that foul ballor alley-oop or sideline passthat extends the soul and makes the world feel so full of promise.

This book is the product of five years of intensive reporting from more than a dozen cities on the state and challenges of modern youth sports. I hope the stories and findings contained here help parents and others create pathways to secure an active, athletic future for the latest generation of American children. But make no mistake: The obstacles are plenty, and growing all the time. As an institution, youth sport is no longer set up in a manner designed to promote, above all else, broad-based health and character education.