My Youth Sports Wishes for 2024

Slowing down and appreciating this sliver of time are major themes.

Photo: Canva

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I’ve been on this planet long enough to know that, for me, vows to eat and curse less or run and read more are out the window in 3-5 days because, you know, life. For many youth sports parents, it’s an even deeper ask since New Year’s happens to always fall in the transition between relative chill time and the return to logistical madness.

That said, of course there are aspirations, some in the next few minutes like brewing a sweet cup of coffee … or those of the longer term variety like continuing to grow Good Game in an impactful way and being a better youth sports parent.

More on our plans to grow Good Game later but first a quick thanks to those who recently joined our community thanks to Jacob Feldman’s flattering recommendation in Sportico. I love connecting with our readership so Good Gamers old and new, please feel free to reach out and unload all your youth sports ideas, horror stories, general questions, or even just say hi. Also, we have a new YouTube channel! Nothing fancy but I wanted to offer you guys a deeper listen to some of our more layered conversations, the ones overflowing with so much goodness we couldn’t fit it all in the written version. We are starting with extended Good Game Book Club chats, the first of which is with Kirsten Jones, author of Raising Empowered Athletes. Lots of great cautionary tales and perspective here.

Ok, let’s light 2024 candles and make some wishes for the youth sports landscape over the next year. Admittedly, some of these are more realistic than others.

• More apps making life easier. TeamSnap has been at the forefront of team management efficiency. They’ve long had the infrastructure to track youth sports essentials like attendance, snack duties, and schedule updates. Now they not only house virtually every sport, they recently acquired Mojo Sports to bolster their live feeds and offer more highlights and other forms of personalization. They also have other integrations like payment systems and background checks for coaches. Others like LeagueApps offer many of these features as well. For parents the less toggling between apps and chats and spreadsheets and more one stop shopping the better. Now if only these team management apps could add the cherry on top - a strong carpool integration!

• Better communication from parents. On the subject of team management, nothing is more frustrating for a coach or team manager than the parent who neglects to RSVP despite repeated reminders. Please understand how difficult and annoying it is to plan practices and game lineups not knowing who is showing up. Or worse, scrambling to get replacement players because of a failure to communicate. In a youth sports utopia, any parent who fails to RSVP, say three times, automatically becomes the team manager!

• Better pay for refs. Sadly, youth sports officiating has become perilous. There are some inroads for improvement like armbands noting an under 18 official or deeper ramifications for any parent or coach who is overly vile. All sports leagues should incorporate treatment of referee training and have its participants agree to something like the Sideline Pledge. For all the chatter about life lessons from sports, the fact that we don’t teach kids inherent respect of these authority figures (even though they get it wrong sometimes), blows my mind. Until more coaches chill and less parents think every call has a bearing on their kid’s future pro career, give these refs more coin. Reminder, youth sports can’t exist in its current form without officials.

• More check-ins with the kids. Youth sports are a whirlwind and there will never be an outside figure who reins in parents. If I’ve learned one thing since launching Good Game and diving into the youth sports space, it’s that kids need a bigger voice. I‘ve been guilty of signing my kids up for camps and tryouts based on a false notion of their desires. The reality is kids’ views shift often and it’s up to us to give them a safe space to be heard. Here’s a fun little questionnaire for kids we made a few months ago that may offer some insight. But it’s also important to check in on the regular to make sure kids are having fun and can handle the pressure. The kid who feels heard is more likely to communicate when things really go awry.

• Same goes for coaches. Coaching kids is no easy feat as in, but it would be nice to see more coaches add a regular check-in with their players. What are your goals? Are there other positions you wish you could play? How’s school going? Not only will this type of dialogue boost the coach-player relationship, it’s another lens for an adult to check in with a kid and scan for external pressures or perhaps red flag a potential mental illness.

• Stop treating us like suckers. Money grabs like charging entry and parking fees for tournaments we’ve already paid for or (gasp!) Stay to Play have been recurring topics on Good Game. But enough is enough. I beg these outfits to include all the would be kickbacks into one master fee. Even if the price slightly rises at least we don’t have to feel like fools.

• Less specializing. Pretty much every professional athlete, coach, physical therapist and mental health profession agrees. Not only will the different cultures, pressures and general skills make your child a better overall athlete, but working different muscle groups with a variety of movements can go a long way to preventing the overuse injuries that have become commonplace in youth sports. The more parents that heed this message, the better, because the very for-profit youth sports outfits are certainly not going to encourage diversifying a kid’s sports palette.

• No more no days off. That said, please give your child one day off from high intensity training. They only get one childhood, let’s try and give them one day to be a child.

• More female coaches. According to Aspen Institute’s most recent ‘State of Play’ report, just 26% of youth sports coaches are female. This despite 35% of youth sports participants identifying as female. There are organizations out there like Women’s Coaching Alliance that offer a model for young girls coaching rec sports as a leadership tool. I’d like to see see more youth sports organizations intentional about boosting their female coaching ranks, be it in stronger training or straight up direct recruitment. This is also an area where pro teams can get involved by offering incentives like mirroring a pro coach or sponsoring youth organizations that reach a certain threshold of female coaches.

• Take more pictures. Enough said.

What are you wishing for?