Our neighborhood elementary school is closed, just like all the rest in Michigan. But the gate to the baseball field adjacent was open on a recent afternoon, and though the rest of the sports world has gone dark as the coronavirus pandemic casts an ominous shadow over our daily lives, the sun was shining.
So there they were, my 13-year-old son and one of his buddies, with a bucket of baseballs _ and a couple of adults also freed from a jam-packed weekend of youth sports _ turning a would-be practice session into playtime.
My son's a lefty, but he was manning second base, something he never gets to do for his tournament team. And as he and his pal both took turns trying to make highlight-reel plays _ behind-the-back, double-play transfers and Derek Jeter-style jump throws _ there was a freedom that was hard to ignore.
And a thought that was hard to shake: Isn't this the way it's supposed to be? The way it used to be? Before a $15 billion-plus youth sports industry laid claim to the sandlot and turned free play into a pay-to-play enterprise at a cost we're only beginning to calculate as parents?
Those are questions many of us wrestle with on a weekly basis, if not a daily one, carpooling kids to practice after practice, with training fees piled upon league and tournament payments, and stresses we can't see accumulating inside everyone.
But as things grind to a halt here in the U.S., I can't help but wonder if our answers might begin to change whenever life starts moving again. Kids will be restless, but budgets will be tighter. Will our view of youth sports and the professionalized culture we've created be any different? Will this pause _ however long it lasts _ give kids a chance to hit the reset button?
"My hope is that when play resumes, we don't just go back to the way youth sports were served up before this thing hit," said Tom Farrey, founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program. "I think we're gonna develop some new habits and some new insights, as to what our kids want and need."
What they need seems obvious to some, but not so to others. And that's what spurred Farrey _ a former investigative journalist and a father of three like myself _ to author a book more than a decade ago on this subject, "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children."
In 2013, Farrey also launched Project Play, an initiative aimed at building "healthy communities through sports" that has since partnered here locally with the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation and the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan. The goals are pretty simple: giving all kids an opportunity to play sports and then giving them more reasons to stay in the game.
Nationwide, there are an estimated 8 million kids in school-sponsored sports, and five or six times that many playing in various youth programs and on club teams. But a recent report by the Aspen Institute highlights some underlying problems and troubling statistics.
