Standing up to the financially motivated charlatans in youth sports who are lying to families & robbing kids of their athletic potential does, though.
“We drive multi-sport participation not by sharing timely stats regarding elite athletes.
We drive multi-sport participation by standing up to & calling out the financially motivated charlatans who monopolize youth sports for personal gain, robbing our kids of true development.”
-Ray Zingler on X
One of my most recent tweets regarding the correlation between players in the Super Bowl and multi-sport participation aggravated a few surface level thinkers who like to jump react instead of seeking context (imagine that happening on the internet!) so I figured I’d expand upon my stance.
Comparing average kids growing up in a severely broken youth sporting landscape to the actions of elite athletes ain’t it.
Anybody with half a brain knows the benefits of multi-sport participation at a young age.
It’s common knowledge that playing multiple sports develops a diverse range of skills that develops better overall athletes.
And better overall athletes excel further when they do begin to narrow or specialize down to 1-2 sports as they get older.
Very few people out there will say with their mouths “Don’t play multiple sports!” because they know that is terrible advice.
But here is the problem plaguing kids and their family’s everywhere in America and beyond.
Here is the reason the vast majority of youth athletes never even gain the ability to access their full potential as athletes.
Greedy adults.
Huh?
What’s happening in America is that despite most knowing multi-sport participation is best for our kid’s development and not outwardly telling kids “not to”, travel and club coaches everywhere are monopolizing youth athletics.
They are creating the FOMO notion as early as 9 and 10 years old leading kids and their parents to believe that if they don’t go “all in” on <insert sport> they’ll be left behind.
When in reality the reason they create these false narratives is because they are financially motivated to.
If Timmy does choose to play other sports 4-6 months out of the year, how are they supposed to make up that lost easy income?
It’s almost like they’d actually have to have ethics and create real value…
But nah, pigeonholing 11-year-old’s is much easier.
It’s a damn shame that we buy into this crap, but we do.
If you really care about multi-sport participation, stand up to the charlatans 365 days a year.
Be a part of the counter narrative, which is the right narrative.
Fight the good fight for the kids every day.
Not just when Patrick Mahomes wins a third Super Bowl.
