Youth Sports

Minimum word count for assignment: 900 words
Recommended word count per prompt: about 300 words
30 points total: 50% writing 50% content
Content: use of information and ability to synthesize key concepts from unit
Writing: argument, paragraph, and sentence structure; grammar; citing

Unlike many countries, the US has no “Ministry of Sport” (a government official/department
that provides oversight in the delivery of sport services). Without oversight (and in many cases
without even simple direction) inequity, abuse, and adult-imposed expectations go unchecked
in US youth sport.
One critical element of oversight that perpetuates many of the issues in youth sports in the US
is the lack of structured educational programs for coaches and parents. Many of the problems
in youth sport could be remedied, or at least addressed, by changing the ideas and delivery that
are dictated by the people who control youth sport: overwhelmingly parents and coaches.
If the US were to put a Ministry of Sport in place, what recommendations would you make for
its coach and parent education programs that are specific to the treatment and development of
youth athletes? In other words, what issues do you think parents and coaches need to
understand in order to change the abusive and exploitative nature (forcing children to play like
adults) of youth sport?
For each prompt below, select what you believe is the #1 most critical issue for (A) coaches to
understand, (B) parents to understand, and (C) an issue that both parents and coaches,
together, need to understand as the decision makers in youth sport. Prepare for the Ministry of
Sport three recommendations:
A. What every youth coach, regardless of sport, needs to know about training their youth
team and/or players.
B. What every parent of a youth athlete, regardless of sport, needs to know about how to
support their child in sport.
Where (A) was specific to what coaches need to know to design team/player development,
and (B) was specific to what parents need to know to effectively support their child’s
development or engagement in sport …
C. for (C), provide a third recommendation that BOTH coaches and parents need to know
in order to support every single youth athlete.
*For each prompt, develop the issue (*why/how it happens and *the consequences/
outcomes) with supporting information from the readings and videos. Be sure to consider key
concepts, such as early immersion and specialization, win at all costs logic, patterns of
exclusion, the purpose of youth sport as that is disconnected from its design,… (choose 1 issue
per prompt to develop).