E&W Blog

Sports serve an important role in building the character of America’s youth, keeping kids active, and teaching important lessons in perseverance, discipline, and teamwork. Unfortunately, participation in youth sports is sharply declining. Seventy percent of kids quit organized sports by age 13.  Today, the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing to examine this crisis.

Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Kiley (R-CA) started the hearing by highlighting the economic and health costs of lower youth sports participation. 

“Inactive youth feel negatively about themselves at nearly double the rate of youth who are active. The broader consequences of declining participation are stark. Today, one in three youth ages 10 to 17 are overweight or obese. Medical expenses associated with obesity alone cost taxpayers $173 billion a year, with lifetime costs for today’s obese youth projected to exceed a trillion dollars,” he said. 

Witnesses discussed how hyper-commercialization of youth sports has lowered participation for children across all income levels—preventing children from learning critical life skills like perseverance, discipline, and teamwork. “In many middle and upper middle-income communities, children are pushed to specialize far too early. They play too many refereed games at ages when they're taught that outcomes matter more than athletic development or learning…I can tell you we are losing an entire population of children who simply need time to catch up physically with their peers. The other world looks very different. In many low-income communities, children have almost no access to sports at all…Cost, transportation, and the absence of neighborhood based opportunities stand in the way,” explained Mr. Steve Boyle, Co-Founder & Executive Director of 2-4-1 Sports.

Rep. James Moylan (R-GU) discussed with witnesses the long-term benefits of youth sports. “Physically active kids are one tenth less likely to be obese, they are more likely to stay in school…more likely to be active parents and more likely to have active kids,” said Mr. Tom Farrey, Executive Director of the Sports & Society Program at the Aspen Institute. “So, this incredibly virtuous cycle can be unlocked if we can simply get kids off the couch without running them into the ground through overuse injuries,” he concluded.

Good coaching is also a key ingredient to increasing youth sports participation. Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) asked Mr. John O’Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer at the Changing the Game Project, about programs that connect veterans with youth sports coaching jobs. “We know that when we have trained coaches, kids stay in sports longer…[there are non-profits that] are taking these men and women who have served our country and that we have spent millions of dollars training on leadership, discipline, and physical fitness…and [training them to] become a coach [so they] can give back to [local communities and] all those kids,” Mr. O’Sullivan explained.


Bottom line: Committee Republicans are shining a national spotlight on youth sports, the critical role they play in America’s future, and how increasing participation can save billions in health care costs and improve millions of lives.