Youth sports are broken. Here's how we can fix them.

Toward a solution.

We took my soon-to-be 9th grader to a bunch of college identification soccer camps this past summer. The goal was to a) let him see some schools b) play soccer against really good kids and c) give him a better understanding of why doing well in school really matters (even if you want to play a sport in college.)

In one of these camps — I don’t remember which — the head coach of the program gave a recruiting talk. One thing he said stunned me: Less than 5% of all kids who play high school soccer will play college soccer (at any level).

The numbers are even lower in other sports. In boys basketball, just 3.4% of high school players wind up playing in college. In boys volleyball, it’s less than 4% as well. (The numbers are — slightly — higher for girls.)

I was thinking about those numbers recently — as I sat on the sidelines of one of my son’s soccer games. Parents lined the field. Some barked out orders to their kids. Others threw up their hands in disgust — at either a play, a player or a call by the ref.

What was clear was that this game REALLY mattered. It was make or break. Depending on how their kid played, they would either be on the fast track to a college scholarship or, well, not.

It’s probably worth noting here that this was a midseason game. Played by 14 year old boys. There were, as far as I could tell, no professional scouts in attendance. Or any college scouts for that matter.

This, however, is a scene I have seen replayed in basketball gyms, soccer pitches and baseball diamonds throughout the athletic careers of my sons. (I have two boys; one is 14, the other is 11.)

Over and over (and over) again, I have watched as parents yelled at kids (their own and others), been banned from fields, fought with other parents, threatened referees and the like.

I’ve written about the problems with youth sports before. And I am far from the only one flagging this as an issue. Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell did a great podcast on the subject over the summer. Anne Helen Petersen has written extensively on kids sport.

But, recently — during my recent soccer trip to Portugal — I had a bit of a revelation on all of this.

We went to Portugal with my older son’s soccer team (or at least part of it). Over the course of a week, we played three different Portuguese club teams.

And, at each place, I noticed something. They had places to sit. A little stand selling coffee and drinks (some alcoholic!). People were sprawled all over the place — some watching their kids play but many just having an espresso and hanging out. They stayed for hours. Long after any one game was over. It was a social outing for them.

This is VERY different than the vibe you get in American travel soccer. There is NOTHING leisurely about it. You go to the field. Play the game. Leave. The kids — even by the age of 14 — start to think of themselves as mercenaries, constantly looking for a higher profile team that they can join to, you guessed it, improve their recruiting stock. Loyalty to a club is not a thing.

The difference in priorities between the Portuguese and what I am used to seeing in America couldn’t be more stark. In Portugal, youth soccer is centered on community and relationship building. In America, it’s centered on ambition (and unreasonable expectations).

The truth of the matter is that whether you play soccer in Portugal or America (or anywhere else) the odds that you will make it to the pros are infinitesimally small.

Remember that stat about 3% of boys high school basketball players playing in college? Want to guess how many boys who play college basketball make it to the pros? Try 1%.

You would never guess that if you spent a Saturday in a northern Virginia basketball gym. You would think that every Tom and Timmy were just one good game away from Duke coming calling. And one bad game away from losing that precious scholarship.

(Fun — and longish — sidebar: My younger son plays on a travel basketball team. They are pretty good! They lost in the championship game last year for the county title in the area where we live.

The first game they played this winter — it was part of a tournament — was against another travel team called Team Takeover. They had two players who were at least as tall as me (I am 6’3”) and FAR better coordinated. These are sixth graders, mind you.

In two 16-minute halves, Team Takeover beat my son’s team 77-26. It was absolutely incredible. I have never seen more talented kids than were on that court. Never. After the game, I went online and looked up Team Takeover. Their 2024 basketball commits? How about Duke, Duke, Notre Dame, Rhode Island, Georgetown(!), Syracuse and UCONN. Um, yeah.

The kids on that team are the ones who might — and it’s just a might — make it to college on a hoops scholarship. And maybe one (maybe!) makes it to playing professional basketball.)

Ok, back to Portugal and soccer.

Before one of my son’s games, some littler boys (maybe 10 or 11) were playing. The parents — who were on opposite sides of the field — cheered for their kids. One side even had an airhorn that they blew every time they scored (and they scored a lot).

But, something interesting happened at the end of the game. Each team went over, first, to cheer their parents. Then, however, they went to the OTHER parents and slapped hands with them too. The message was clear: They were all part of a community — the soccer community.

It was remarkable — and the sort of thing that would NEVER happen in the states.

Now. I am not suggesting that there aren’t bad sports parents in Portugal. There, I am sure, are. Or that parents don’t push their kids — especially those that show aptitude — to achieve things through and with soccer.

But, what I DO think is true is that the focus — generally speaking — is less on “what is my son or daughter going to become” and more on “what relationships is my son or daughter forming” and “how are they learning to live in this community.”

We are SO focused on whether Johnny is going to make D1 that we forget that the process is what’s really important here, not the result. Whether or not Johnny makes D1, the lessons he learns from sports — friendship, teamwork, overcoming adversity, pushing beyond your known limits etc. — are ALL things that will guide his life in positive ways.

We forget this at our own peril. It is a LOCK that the more parents push kids to achieve (and achieve at a young age) in sports, the more conflicted the kid will feel about it as they grow older. My wife, who coached college field hockey for two decades, saw it time and time again. Kids pushed by their parents to play — and who didn’t really love the sport themselves — were always the most likely to quit, even if they were stars on the team!

It seems clear to me that we are teaching our kids the wrong lessons when it comes to youth sports. We want so badly for them to “make it” that we forget 1) the incredibly long odds of that happening and 2) why kids really play sports in the first place.

They play to, well, play. To be around their friends. To be active. None of those things have ANYTHING to do with whether or not they play D1.

Youth sports need to be about community building. And relationships. We, as parents, need to do a far better job of instilling those values in our kids — and living them in our own lives on the sidelines.