Title: Why Have Youth Sports Gotten So Intense?

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we'll turn to two stories that relate to kids and their parents that might be top of mind as another school year starts next week. In recent years, youth sports have quietly morphed from free community gatherings into a big business with private leagues and one-on-one trainers capitalizing on a growing impulse to frame a child's athleticism as a ticket to their future. Are you part of this, parents listening right now?

If you are a parent or a recent high school athlete, let's say, or even younger, you probably know this to be true. Sports can get you the scholarship you need to attend college, maybe even if you get into the college of your dreams rather than some college less of your dreams, it's because sports made a difference for you. That's been true for a long time now, but the stakes are getting even higher as the Trump administration chips away at funding for higher education, trying to reduce the amount of Pell Grants for low-income students, for example.

Related in parent-kid news, last Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued COVID-19 vaccine guidance contradicting that of Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr You may remember back in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped its recommendation that kids under six months and older should get COVID shots. Kennedy said that move was based on "good science," but the Academy of Pediatrics says young children should continue to get the shots because they are still at risk of severe cases of the disease, and they published some stats showing how many children still get hospitalized because of COVID.

In response to that, last Tuesday, RFK Jr posted on X that the group is engaging in a "pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Big Pharma benefactors," from RFK. With us now is Anna North, senior correspondent at Vox, who has covered both the rise of the professionalization of youth sports, as she calls it, and how Kennedy's MAHA movement, M-A-H-A, Make America Healthy Again, is impacting American kids. Anna, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Anna North: Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's do the sports story first. For listeners out there scratching their heads, thinking, "Well, my kid, 15, 20 years ago, was a student athlete and sports were a huge deal even then," what's different now?

Anna North: I think what we've seen is this slow growth over the last several decades that's really culminated in an enormous spike in the last several years in terms of just how much families are paying and expected to pay for their children's sports. There was an Aspen Institute study that found that the average family spent more than $1,000 on their child's primary sport in 2024. Now, that's their kid's primary sport, so if you have more than one kid, they play more than one sport, it might even be more than that. That's up 46% since 2019. There's just really been this just enormous rise in how expensive kids' sports are and how serious they are.

Brian Lehrer: Was there just as much youth sports once upon a time? Organized team youth sports, but more of it was free?

Anna North: I think what I found when I started digging into this because I didn't play sports as a kid, but my brother did, and I remember going to the park and watching him pitch, and that was fun, and he enjoyed it. I believe that was in a park league, but what we found is that starting in the '70s, these park leagues and municipal recreation departments really had to cut their budgets. We saw fewer and fewer free options for sports. At the same time as the '70s bleed into the '80s, bleed into the '90s, there's increased parental anxiety about the precarity of American life, your kid getting ahead.

There's increased anxiety about college as colleges get more expensive and more difficult to get into. As we're losing the free options for sports, families are starting to see sports as this important ticket to college and a middle-class life. What really steps in are folks who are charging a lot of money for your kid to be able to play.

Brian Lehrer: Did you look into whether that actually means that there are financial barriers, economic barriers now that mean fewer kids are participating in organized sports, even as they seem to get more and more and more publicity?

Anna North: What we find is a big divide in terms of who's able to participate in organized sports. Increasingly, it's more common for kids from more affluent families to be able to play. That even extends to just exercise. Access to exercise and physical movement is more common among children from higher-income families, among white children, and there's this real inequity where a lot of kids in America are losing access to something that can be really fun and healthy.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned the phrase before a kid's primary sport, and that was another interesting part of your article, that there seems to be more specialization from an earlier age in one sport for many families, right?

Anna North: Yes, I found this super interesting. Again, as a child whose sport was reading growing up, I didn't really understand this trend before I started to report on it, but I spoke with a mom who had been also a Division 1 athlete and who just really loved sports growing up. She played a lot of different sports. She might play hockey, she might run, she might play with her brothers, she might swim, do all these kinds of things.

What she told me is that as she sees her children start getting into sports, there is increasing pressure to specialize as young as five or even four, and to pick that sport that you're going to excel at and that maybe is going to bolster your college application somewhere down the line.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, does this sound like you? If you're a parent whose child is involved in youth sports, do you ever see it as a pathway to getting into college, getting a scholarship for college, getting into a better college? What do you think as a parent who likes sports, enjoys seeing your kids participate in sports if they like it? Are you seeing what Anna calls in Vox, the professionalization of youth sports, for better or worse, or mixed? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or anyone with a question, call or text, 212-433-9692. You want to talk more about that phrase, the professionalization of youth sports?

Anna North: Yes. I didn't coin this. This is something that folks in the field have used for a while, and I think it really refers to this transition from youth sports being something that was free and for fun to something that costs money and increasingly is something that kids do in a more and more professional way. We see travel teams, we see kids having adult-like sports schedules at very young ages. We see, as some folks told me, even a de-emphasis on practice and an emphasis on more and more games, game after game after game after game, which can lead to overuse injuries and other problems.

Really, the sense that children are expected to almost seem like professional athletes in a way that I think a lot of folks find damaging.

Brian Lehrer: How much of that do you think is motivated by the college ambitions that we were describing before getting into college at all, getting into the best college you can get into, getting a scholarship as opposed to just there's a whole bunch of parents, mostly men, who are just too intense and they're living vicariously through their children's sports accomplishments?

Anna North: I think there's a couple of factors here. We've always had parents who are too intense. I remember dads and moms, too, sometimes yelling at my brother's games growing up. I think that factor has always existed, but I think the whole college process has gotten more stressful for families, and at least the appearance of much more competition. I think that's part of it. Then I think, the mom I spoke with, what she told me is that even if your children are quite young and even if you're not worrying about college or you're not worrying about college yet, there's this sense that you're getting sucked in, that there are fewer and fewer options that are more low key.

She's talking about, "Will my daughter even be able to play lacrosse if she doesn't want to play in one of these very intense travel teams?" I think that's what we're seeing too, as a culture that pulls some parents along who don't even necessarily want to be there.

Brian Lehrer: 212-433-WNYC. Listeners, and Lynn in South Orange is on line one. Hi, Lynn, thank you for calling in.

Lynn: Hi, Brian. I'm really interested in this topic because my son, who is very smart, told us in September of his senior year that he was going to continue to play football in college and he wasn't going to any school where he couldn't play football. At that point, we realized that it was important for him to play football, the sport he loved, as well as to get a great education. He was recruited by a number of Ivy League schools, he went to an Ivy League school, and that opportunity gave him the chance to pursue football the way he wanted to as well as to get an excellent education.

However, it did not reduce our financial obligation. As parents, we still have to pay because Ivy League schools, they only give you scholarships for athletics. My son actually ended up being a-- He was all Ivy as a linebacker, and he loved his experience. His team are like his best friends, and they're still very close. They get together, they see each other's kids and all that. It really is a great experience for him.

Brian Lehrer: What's the moral of the story? That we're overemphasizing the downsides or something else?

Lynn: The moral story is that if your kid is a great athlete and maybe is not a great academician as well, it'll give you an opportunity to be at a school where you can play a sport as well as get a good education.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think your kid would have gotten into an Ivy per se, were it not for his football ability?

Lynn: I think he would have actually. He probably would have, yes. In this high school, we had probably at least 10 kids that were admitted to Ivy League schools.

Brian Lehrer: Lynn, congratulations-

Lynn: He went to public school, not a private school.

Brian Lehrer: -on his success so far. Thank you very much for calling. Let's go on to Lisa in New Rochelle, another parent. Hi Lisa, you're on WNYC with Anna North from Vox.

Lisa: Hi, I just wanted to chime in because my son, who is just leaving for college tomorrow to start his freshman year was recruited to a D1 school as a rower. We're not a very affluent family, but we spent a lot of money on this rowing program throughout high school, and I believe it definitely did get him into a better school, and get more scholarship money to go to school. I think it paid off, and we're getting back all the money that we spent on the rowing program.

I also think it had a lot of other benefits, teaching him teamwork and discipline, and definitely changed the trajectory of his life. Although I agree with your speaker that it was very, very expensive. I know that a lot of low-income families could not in that sport.

Brian Lehrer: How was his stress level going through high school as a serious, to the degree you're describing, athlete?

Lisa: I think it was not too high, but remember, he wasn't the highest achieving academically. He did well A, but not a super high achiever. He was able to juggle the very intensive exercise regimen, but I don't think his stress level was very high. In fact, I think his stress level with getting into college was even lower because he just knew they're like, "We want you. You're going to get in, period."

Brian Lehrer: That would give him a leg up.

Lisa: Yes, exactly. He didn't have to waste a lot of time stressing about getting into college or even applying to a bajillion schools.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you very much. That's another more positive testimonial from a parent, but she was just talking about the schoolwork versus sports life balance. Here's Deborah, a middle school teacher in the Hudson Valley who I think is calling in about precisely that. Hi Deborah, you're on WNYC.

Deborah: Hi. This is a very important topic. We notice that there are a lot of kids starting sports very early. I know that me and my colleagues get a lot of letters from parents complaining that we give homework, that it interferes with their sports schedule and their practice. There are quite a few parents who focus more on sports than academics. This is something that we see every day in school. Kids come to school exhausted. Parents complain that they have practice till all hours and then they are trying to do homework till 11, 12 o' clock at night.

Brian Lehrer: If parents are complaining to teachers about homework because it interferes too much with sports, if I'm hearing you correctly, how do you answer that as a teacher?

Deborah: I say that I believe that there has to be more time spent on learning what-- I only control what I have to teach, and that I believe that education is very important, but I can't make those decisions for parents.

Brian Lehrer: Deborah, thank you.

Deborah: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, thank you. Anna North from Vox, you write about parents and kids. Generally, that's that you beat for Vox. I imagine you hear complaints having nothing to do with sports, that there's too much homework, but what do you think about that whole set of callers? What were you thinking during any of those calls?

Anna North: I think the first parent was super interesting because it brought up something that I heard in my reporting, which is that, definitely, students can find that playing a sport can increase their chances of getting into certain schools, but a lot of families will still end up paying. I found that only about 6% of high school athletes actually go on to play sports in college. Only some of those actually get athletic scholarships. In some cases, it can be great, like I think the second caller mentioned that they were getting back the money that they had spent on sports, but that's not necessarily the norm.

Brian Lehrer: I asked the second caller about the stress level of her son as he was doing crew in a serious way because one of the things in your article is that young athletes' mental health has been suffering according to your sources, compared to the past, that sports traditionally were supposed to be good for kids' mental health, getting exercise, playing with friends and classmates and she cited that. Learning to work as part of a team, things like that. According to your article, some of that is changing for the worse. You want to talk about that?

Anna North: That's right. I do think most of the time when you speak with parents and when you speak with kids who are athletes, they will talk about the positives. One of the reasons that it's great to get exercise and it's great do sports if kids can, is that it can be really protective and positive, but what some researchers have been seeing is an increase in anxiety among high school athletes over the last few years, with one study finding that more than half of high school athletes are reporting stress and 15% saying they were very or extremely stressed.

It does seem that there's this increase in maybe some of the balance being tipped and some of those positives, those mental health positives of sports, getting eclipsed by the stress of how serious sports are now and how goal-oriented they can be.

Brian Lehrer: Creighton in Harlem, you're on wnyc. Hi, Creighton.

Creighton: Hey, how are you this morning? Hey. I just wanted to say that you guys are spot on. For 30 years, I've been officiating both basketball and soccer, and I've seen a major decline in the sportsmanship level of many of the players and their parents because of the stress of looking at college scholarships. They're just running these kids crazy. In the last 30 years, the play hasn't got that much better, but the kids are definitely suffering, looking for that carrot, so to speak, of a "college scholarship." If you do the numbers, you see that most of these kids will not be playing beyond high school.

Brian Lehrer: Have you seen doing this for 30 years, and I don't know where you officiate, but what Anna writes about in the article as a "class divide in sports participation and physical activity that's been growing wider over the last 10 years," because of the cost involved relative to the past when there were more free programs?

Creighton: Absolutely. Major problem. I referee primarily here in New York City, and there was a time where a lot of these programs were free to kids. We used to have our local tournaments right here in New York City, but with the proliferation of travel ball, a lot of our teams, or a lot of the kids that couldn't afford had-- We used to only have three teams that went out and played outside of the New York City area. Now everybody feels as though they have to go outside.

Believe it or not, we have more kids here in New York City than most places, and we could have kept our local programs thriving, but because of the pull of travel ball in all sports, whether it be soccer, baseball, basketball, and the list goes on, our kids have left in the PALs of the world, the YMCAs, and they're servicing the kids, but they're not servicing what used to be the elite athlete.

Brian Lehrer: Creighton, thank you so much. Please call us again. Anna, are there solutions to these problems that you write about in your article on Vox, and that you've been hearing some of these callers, especially the teacher and the coach there, mirror?

Anna North: When I talked to folks about solutions, one thing they mentioned was really parents voting with their feet. The need for parents to recognize that, in a lot of cases, spending a ton of money on sports is not necessarily going to pay off later on in terms of a college scholarship. That doesn't mean it's worthless, but it does mean you can take a step back and think about, is this the best use of your money? Is this the best use of your kid's time? Are you putting pressure on your kid that doesn't need to be there? Is the team putting pressure on your kid that doesn't need to be there?

Beyond that, I would just add that some of these free programs have been disappearing, and shoring them up might be a great way to reduce some of that inequality. I would include in that time to move and play during school, which has been declining. We see the decline of recess and other breaks. Giving kids the chance to move for free as much as possible, I think would also really help here.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go, I want to just very briefly preview a conversation that maybe we can have you back to talk about in more detail when an anticipated report from Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr comes out, but you wrote an article last month about how RFKs Make America Healthy Again, MAHA, movement is getting a lot of things wrong about childhood health. Though you said that they're right, that American kids are getting sicker. That was the report about the state of American children's health.

There's a report that's going to come soon, that's going to propose solutions. What are the experts you interviewed and he agree about, and what's making them cringe in terms of what might come.

Anna North: The reason that I wanted to write about this fairly recently, a few months after the first MAHA report came out, is because there have been more studies agreeing with some of the broad strokes claims that the first MAHA report makes, which is that children are having more chronic health conditions. There was a study published earlier this month found that an American child was 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic health condition in 2023 than 2011. That includes conditions like asthma, diabetes, sleep apnea, things that are quite troubling.

Experts agree that kids are getting sicker in a lot of ways. They don't necessarily agree with RFK Jr on the causes or on the solutions.

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there for now with Anna North, who writes about children and families for Vox. Put a little marker in your calendar when the MAHA report on what they see as solutions comes out. We want to have you back. Thanks for today, Anna.

Anna North: Thanks so much.

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