Crisis In Youth Sports Analysis

Shane Murphy states that there are six individual and unique reasons that are currently causing a crisis in youth sports. These reasons are include: the out-of-control parent; exploitation of children; youth sport dropouts; endangerment of a young athlete’s health; sexual abuse; and violence. Murphy explains that it is not the individual child player neither the parents’ fault solely for this crisis, but the crisis lies in the sports programs themselves. Individually, I will be discussing these topics and providing my opinion on the subject matter, as well as a possibility of a solution; overall, I agree with Murphy’s reasons of crisis in youth sports. The out-of-control parent can be brought on by a multitude of issues. Most commonly there

The younger an athlete gets, the less of a decision it is the kid’s to make and the more of the decision lies upon the parents’ shoulders. In some cases, such as the one with Kenny and his father, Bobby, there is a controlling aspect of the parent in the children’s attempt to have fun and belong to a game up until a point where the sport loses all of its appeal. In my opinion, it is the parents’ jobs to guide a child in life, but it is up to the child themselves to find what their true passion is. When a parent is over-controlling and completely projects their own personal ideals onto the child, then that just formulates a recipe for disaster. Through later experience (such as Kenny’s experience in college football) the child with their parents constant pushing will finally be able to think for themselves and break free of the constraints and develop their own sense of

Studies say that most young athletes drop out of a sport for one reason pertaining to the amount of time it takes, and for four other reasons (coaches, interest, pressure & fun) that pertain to the sports program themselves. This ties in with the significant problems of sports programs and the troubles that come as a result of putting children through them. If a child wants to drop out of a sport for any reason, they should be able to—without resistance from parents or coaches. However, there are certain schools-of-thought that shouldn’t make a child believe that they aren’t right for the sport, such as: believing they aren’t good enough; fear of disappointing another person; and hopelessness in the sport. These thoughts should be handled carefully and be talked about (perhaps with a professional) with the child preemptively before dropping out of a