The V (Formerly Good Game Galore): Are You Listening?
V as in five. As in five pieces of great content to explore.
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Hello and welcome to The V, formerly known as Good Game Galore. It seems I’m trading in my alliterative phase for a roman numeral one.
For the newbies here, The V (as in the number five) pops up every couple of Fridays when I have a sliver of commentary to get off my chest and some great non-Good Game content to share. So as not to suck up too much of your time, five feels like a digestible number. Anything from a deeply reported issue to a silly video to someone’s poignant social media post is fair game.
In an ideal world, there would be an abundance of features and acute angles to choose from. Though there is plenty of great stuff out there, the reality is that even though youth sports is a $40 billion industry, media coverage usually falls into three buckets 1) Rising costs 2) Batshit crazy parent behavior 3) To specialize or not to specialize. Then there’s the omnipresent youth sports headline featuring the word “professionalization” which encompasses all three.
These are all super valid, and there are plenty of entertaining and jaw-dropping anecdotes out there related to them all. Not to mention plenty of megastar pro athletes who specifically preach against specialization. Every clip of Steph Curry explaining the benefits of playing multiple sports gets tons of social traction (duh, it’s Steph) but is it getting parents and kids to second guess decisions? Is any expert getting through? I fear that there are so many voices saying the same thing that it becomes like white noise. This isn’t fantasy football where we blindly follow our favorite analyst’s sleepers in the hopes of winning money or bragging rights. These are our babies, and it’s so much harder to go the unconventional route, even if it’s the right one.
Squash my fears, please. Tell me something someone has said or written that has actually moved your needle as a sports parent. Thank you, and happy weekend.
I: How Ultimate Frisbee Helps Reclaim the Joy of Youth Sports (Psychology Today)
I’ve thought about writing on ultimate for a while now with this exact angle. Don’t often say Psychology Today beat me to it but in this case it makes a lot of sense. Dr. Suzanne Bender writes about ultimate’s emphasis on fun and sportsmanship, while still being competitive. Think instead of an official, a Spirit Captain mediating any rule conflicts on the rare chance they can’t be resolved by the players themselves.
II: Heir Ball: How the Cost of Youth Sports is Changing the NBA (The New Yorker)
A deeply reported look at the ills of the current youth basketball economy and its impact on an increasingly soulless NBA product. From the mouths of Jermaine O’Neal, Luka Dončić, and Steve Nash who noted that kids are “trading their enjoyment and motivation for a calculated approach that may be more suitable to young adults than young kids.”
III: Court of Chaos: Rethinking the Tournament Culture in Youth Volleyball (
)As someone who knows a lot of families who go to these mega-volleyball tournaments but never understood why they were so mega and super far away, this was very illuminating.
IV: Families and Businesses Concerned About Tariff Impact on Youth Sports (AP)
As one of the subheads notes, the tariffs are impacting some more than others. Still, if the tariffs go back into effect after a 90-day pause, almost everyone will be priced out of equipment coming from Vietnam, Taiwan, and China.
V: Three Former Pros Turned Coaches on How Best to Coach Youth Sports (The Athletic)
Hate to include this one only because I believe it requires a subscription. Reply here and I’ll send you the text if you’d like to read and can’t access. Anyhow, I thought this was a refreshing look at the key nuances of coaching youth sports from two former NFL quarterbacks (Drew Stanton and Matt Hasselbeck) and an MLB outfielder (Travis Snider). All three currently coach.
I like this idea of a Friday roundup!
Thank you so much for including Courts of Chaos in your roundup this week. I’m glad it resonated with you and hope your readers enjoy it as well. It’s been part of a bigger exploration I’ve been doing on how we can reshape the youth sports environment to better serve both the kids and the game itself.
If you ever want to chat about the hidden systems shaping youth sports—or the quiet revolutions already happening—I’d love to connect. Grateful for the work you’re doing to highlight these conversations.