Are Youth Sports Out of Control

Samantha Burkett was 4 years old when she fell in love with soccer. She loved the teamwork and the strategy. She loved the running and the feel of the ball on her foot.

“It made me so happy to play,” says Samantha, who lives in Illinois. “Soccer had my heart forever.”

By the time Samantha was in middle school, soccer had most of her time too. She practiced three times a week with her club team. Tournaments took up weekends. Her team traveled to Missouri and Indiana, to Arizona and North Carolina. Soccer became far more than a fun extracurricular for Samantha; it became her whole world.

Then, when Samantha was 15, she quit.

In many ways, Samantha’s experience is not unique. An increasing number of kids are joining travel teams that promise rigorous training, exciting competition, and elite status. Yet more than half of kids who play team sports will quit before high school.

What is going on?

A generation ago, being a kid athlete usually meant joining a school team or a local recreational league. Kids tended to play several sports throughout the year—soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball or softball in the spring. Sure, there were a few super-serious, super-talented players with dreams of going pro, but for the most part, team sports were about having fun, learning teamwork and discipline, and being active.

Today, things are different. Many kids join private club or travel teams at a young age. These teams are often run like training grounds for professional athletes, demanding an extremely high level of commitment. Indeed, Samantha says every week she turned down invitations from friends to hang out. Her reason was always the same: “Sorry, I have soccer.”

For kids who aren’t as serious as Samantha—or who want to have time for other things like friends, family, or, say, learning to play the guitar—the sport they love can quickly turn into a grind. Many get frustrated and quit.

And there’s another reason some kids quit: the price tag. Between team and coaching fees, equipment costs, and travel expenses, families can easily spend more than $1,000 per season. For many, the cost is just too high.

For Samantha, it wasn’t the time or the cost of her club team that led her to quit. It was injury. She suffered three head injuries in a little over a year. She had to give up soccer to protect her health.

Quitting wasn’t easy. In fact, it was devastating. “I was always the soccer girl,” she says. “When that was taken away from me, I didn’t know who I was.”

More than 3.5 million young athletes get hurt every year. According to a 2018 study**, kids who specialize in one sport are 81 percent more likely to experience an overuse injury. These types of injuries come from doing the same activity over and over—and kids are especially vulnerable because their bodies are still growing. (Doctors say playing more than one sport reduces the risk of these types of injuries.)

Travel teams certainly offer great opportunities for young athletes to hone their skills, compete at a high level, and form deep friendships. But what about kids who don’t want to be so serious or focus on just one activity? Do they have to settle for watching sports on TV? No. Experts say kids should try more than one sport and play at the level that makes them happy. That might mean playing on a school team. Or it might simply mean joining a pickup game at the park.

As for Samantha? It’s been two years since she quit soccer. She now competes on her school’s tennis team, where she is less likely to get injured, and she loves it. But she doesn’t regret all the time and energy she poured into soccer either. “It was 100 percent worth it,” she says. 

*Statistics, top to bottom: Wintergreen Research; Yellowbrick; University of California, Los Angeles (for Division I teams)

**Study from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

This article was originally published in the October 2019 issue.