Will Your Kids Go Pro?

According to the Aspen Institute, the youth sports industry here in the United States is a forty billion dollar a year business. About sixty million kids are playing youth sports, with the average family spending just over a thousand dollars a year on a child’s primary sport, which is a forty six percent increase since twenty-nineteen. Sadly many parents are pushing their kids to achieve in sports as a way of addressing their own unfulfilled dreams, and to live vicariously through their kids. Twenty percent of sports parents believe their child could play a Division One sport, and ten percent hold on to the unrealistic dream that their child could go professional. But the reality is quite different. For example, only one in six hundred and ten high school baseball players will get drafted by a major league team, and one in ten-thousand- three-hundred and ninety-nine high school basketball players will go pro. Parents, have you made sports an idol, prioritizing your child’s success over their spiritual growth?