Creating Athletes for Life with a Child-First Youth Sports System [Podcast Series]
[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Tom Farrey
Tom Farrey is the Founder and Executive Director of the Sports & Society Program at The Aspen Institute.
He is also the author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children.
[1:10] Working at the intersection of sport and the public interest
“And that led to me wanting to solve the problems that were identified in the book. Specifically, how can we be the world's sports superpower while still only, we know, one out of every four or five kids are actually physically active enough. I mean, what was the disconnect with our system? So I had all of this knowledge, all of these insights around policies and sports structure and governance and parent matters, and physiology and on and on and on, and I was like, look, I got to do something with this, someone's got to build a better sport system.”
[4:25] Taking a child-first approach
“So we just have this environment now that is not, it's not child first. It's money first, and it is sports business. And so the, what we miss out on are creating experiences that are designed with the needs and the interests of children and youth first. That’s the fundamental problem that we're working with.”
[10:07] Identifying the gaps and the opportunities
“One of the roles that we play is giving foundations, corporations, policymakers, news media, other folks to simply understand where the gaps are and where the opportunities are to drive progress. Because there is a lot of good things happening in youth sport. There are communities that are, there are programs and communities that are figuring it out. And so part of our job is to use the tools, the principles of solutions journalism to critically think about emerging programs and promising solutions out there.”
[16:49] Defining success in sports programming
“I think it's fair to ask programs if they encourage equal playing time, certainly up through age 12. A program’s job is not to aggregate the best kids and package them up so they can win championships and feel good about them. That's not really success. Success is, is developing every kid in your care and getting them excited enough that they want to return the next year.”
“And then finally, does the program make efforts to foster physical literacy. We define physical literacy as the ability, confidence and desire to be active for life, with an emphasis on fundamental movement skills and not just sports specific skills. So, check to see if the program is teaching kids to learn to move well because that can open up access to dozens of sports.”
[22:57] Expanding the definition of sport
“Sport is more than just wearing a uniform and striving together in organized settings. It's making up games with your friend down at the park or in the driveway or surfing or golfing with friends. It's pickleball, it's all sorts of other activities.”
