Title: Youth Sports in America
Subtitle: How They Have Changed and Why It Matters
Subject Classification:  Community, Society and Culture, Childhood Studies  
BIC Classification: JFS, JFSP1, JF
BISAC Classification: SPO000000, SOC047000, EDU006000
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Jan 2026
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83711-295-1
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83711-296-8

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Description

Most people think it is, by definition, a good thing that children should play organized sports. However, today’s youth sports are not yesterday’s youth sports. Historically, youth sports were predominantly run by local, non-profit organizations, offered in local communities, and staffed by parent volunteers and coaches. There is now a growing emphasis on youth sports that are offered by private, for-profit organizations, involving extensive finances and travel, and staffed by paid coaches. We need to ask: does what we know about the effects of youth sport still hold true when participation is much further from your local community, requires more time and money, is at higher levels of competition, uses selective try-out models, employs paid coaches, and are run by private for-profit organizations?

This book examines the scholarly literature, and attempts to answer the degree to which this transformation in youth sports has affected individuals, family units and local communities. It provides a theoretical overview, but also includes auto-ethnographic accounts by a father (who had four children play youth sports, three of them on travel teams) and his eldest son (who chased higher-level ice hockey teams each season). It is a critical examination of the “sports evangelist” model, which often contends that all youth sports are beneficial, without taking into consideration this transformation.

Biography

Author(s):  Dr. Ralph B. McNeal Jr. is an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, USA. Matthew A. McNeal has his Bachelor of Science Degree from Purdue University, Indiana, and is a software engineer.

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