Professionalized Youth Sports Are Hurting Kids and Families

Linda Flanagan, author of the new book "Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports and Why It Matters," joins the podcast to talk about the ways heavily commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.  Linda has written extensively about how youth sports can hijack families to the point where family outings, non-sports activities and bonding time over dinners are lost in the pursuit of the next club team game or travel tournament.  She also talks about the "why?" ... why youth sports began to transition from a positive recreational activity to a huge industry in which kids and their parents sometimes travel hundreds of miles to play 10-year-old soccer, basketball or volleyball games. We start the episode talking about why Linda decided to write her new book, get into some of the problems and issues in Youth SportsWorld today and then talk about ways the youth sports scene can begin to change, including a couple positive examples.