Welcome to Changing the Game

It's go time! Let's go make youth sports better!

Youth sports are a fucking mess.  The waaaay-too-early pressure to specialize. The cost. Entitled parents. Yelly parents. The cost. The endless logistics. Ugh, the cost. 

Youth sports are also brilliant. The comradery. A place for our kids to belong and develop lifelong skills like humility, teamwork and overcoming adversity. Carpools and bonds with other families. Our kids coming home tired and relaxed and not morphing into total monsters like they probably would otherwise. And really, the sheer exuberance emanating from our kids because they get to play freakin’ sports for a massive chunk of their childhood.

If you’re anything like me, your family is living somewhere in between these stark but weirdly interwoven worlds. How can something so joyous be so toxic? Perhaps your kid is just beginning their journey or is at the end. No matter the stage, there’s no obvious lane to take because our kids and the sports they play and the billion-dollar industry under which they operate is a ginormous maze without solutions.

Enter Changing the Game. A resource for youth sports parents looking for clarity and connection. More on our plans below and also here but first, a little introduction. 

My name is Melissa Jacobs, and I’m an NFL journalist. I’ve been lucky enough to work in several facets of media, at some of the best places in media, with the smartest and most talented people in media (if you think that’s you, subscribe – I may gush on you in future emails!). I started as a radio and TV producer at ESPN, then morphed into a special events producer. Then I transformed myself into a writer, launching The Football Girl a decade ago as a home for empowering female NFL fans. TFG became a launching pad to so many things – being one of espnW’s original writers, the NFL editor at Sports Illustrated, and a contributor to the BBC and The Guardian where I still work today. My passion for elevating and empowering women has been and will always be embedded in my work, including Changing the Game

So why is this longtime NFL journalist making a sharp pivot and starting Changing the Game? It started with an eye exam. Talk about clarity!  

Last fall, during a routine visit with a new optometrist, I was asked a question that froze me in my tracks. No, it wasn’t about my worsening stigmatism and how progressives are in my immediate future. (Damn you, aging process.)

He started with a litany of questions about family health history and my occupation and all that jazz. Then the new eye doctor dropped the gauntlet. 

What do you do for fun?

A bit stumped, I stuttered with a few “ums” for a moment and then went into autopilot mode. I run and travel and go to movies and concerts and out to dinner. You know, the usual things people with lives do.

Then I confessed my lie: How my family’s life is CONSUMED by youth sports. How we would do those “normal people” things if my husband wasn’t schlepping one kid to a baseball tournament two hours away while I was assistant coaching our other kid’s soccer match an hour in the opposite direction. (And then making the crazy drive back to baseball because, god forbid, I miss my kid pitch an inning.) It was this bout of truth telling that made me realize that all the thoughts and concerns and curiosity I’ve had about the youth sports landscape ought to be turned into something useful.

I’m a crazy youth sports parent who is ALL IN. I coach. I serve on boards. I’m a compliance office. I manage opening day events and summer tournaments. And I’m always elbowing my way to be the team manager. Told you I was crazy.

For all my quasi-ranting thus far, I absolutely LOVE youth sports. I love watching my kids and their friends play, of course, but the deeper my kids get in their journeys, the higher my journalist antennas grow Despite the fact that youth sports are a $19.2 billion industry per a University of Kansas report, there is very little guidance out there.

Yes, there are endless YouTube videos about proper batting stance and soccer training but by comparison a minimal amount covering more personal scenarios like in what circumstances private lessons are or aren’t a good idea, or tips for how female athletes should handle sports when their menstrual cycles arrive or whether that yelling coach is dishing tough love or is verbally abusive. What about youth athletes and social media? Useful recruiting tool or self-esteem buster? I am launching Changing the Game because I believe that due to the commercialization of youth sports, there’s a massive void when it comes to logic. 

The initial plan for Changing the Game is to send you guys a weekly email with topics that have broad but relevant appeal. There will be some exceptions that will be sport-specific in the early stages, but the point is to make your subscription worthwhile.

As Changing the Game grows, we will look to expand the content in various ways like two emails a week or a podcast.

I recognize that every family and kid will be on different paths and have different objectives. It is my sincere hope that a main tenet of Changing the Game is paying it forward. Once our subscriber base reaches a sizable threshold, I’d love to create reader connection through micro-communities by sport and locale. For example, the swim dad of a 12-year-old might preview what swim team looks like for a younger guppy.  The sky’s the limit with Changing the Game. But first things first…

We are launching with a free subscription and a paid model. I so appreciate everyone who has or will subscribe at this early stage, you’ll allow us to grow and add contributors and all that jazz. (And the launch prices are the lowest we’ll offer).

But I’m not really going to start begging for paid subscribers until I feel like Changing the Game is established as a useful and entertaining platform. Don’t worry, you’ll know exactly when that is. 😊 Hopefully you will all consider Changing the Game worth the cost of one oat milk latte a month.

Before we wrap up, I should probably take this opportunity to mention my sporty kids: Let’s just call them Mr. Minecraft (age 8) and Mr. Fantasy Football Addict (age 11).  (I promise not to blather on about them in the future.)

Both boys play most of the team sports. They’ve made friends they otherwise would not have, been exposed to a variety of different authority figures, learned about adversity and how practice typically leads to improvement, all values that transcend sports. They’ve learned leadership skills, nutrition, and a never-ending list of the silliest cheers that can coalesce a team in any type of moment. And they’ve had some sweet moments doing actual athletic things.

But they’ve also both been the kid who let in the game winning goal and the kid who acted out at practice due to lack of sleep or maybe because they were just an asshole that day. One has written huge smiley faces on his baseball pants with a Sharpie because apparel, like everything else in youth sports, is totally free. The other goes through wide mood swings and declares he’s either quitting or going to be a professional athlete depending on how mad the coach was at that day’s practice.

(Me and Mr. Minecraft after a full summer of watching Mr. Fantasy Football play travel baseball in sunny, sticky places).

I know what kinds of curiosities I have about my kids and youth sports, even as those questions shift. And I’m constantly asking them to share. Now I want to know your story! I’ll be sending out a quick survey later this week to try and understand your family’s relationship with youth sports. The sports they play, the concerns you have. Changing the Game only works if it’s a helpful resource for us all. I can’t wait to truly get started.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for (hopefully) subscribing. Thank you for sharing with thousands of your closest friends and your social channels. Now let’s go tackle some youth sports together, shall we?

❤️With appreciation❤️

     Melissa