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What’s Happening To Youth Sports?

In 2020, Northgate Boy Lacrosse graduated ten seniors. In 2021 the team graduated eight

seniors. In 2022 there were six seniors. Now, in 2023 there are only five seniors on the team.

Between four years the number of varsity lacrosse players was cut in half. It was seen across the

Diablo Athletic League with teams such as Clayton Valley graduating nearly twenty seniors in

2020, to graduating eight in 2022. To understand this downward trend in athletes, one needs to

focus on influences from when these players picked up their sticks. A big factor in athletic

development was the No Child Left Behind Act.

No Child Left Behind was a government funding act that was in place from 2002 to 2015.

The aim of the project was to bring equity to the school systems of America in an attempt to

increase tests scores and overall grades nationwide. This act, pushed for by the Bush

administration, stated that each student was required to achieve proficiency in courses such as

math and english. The conditions of a proficient math or english student would be set

individually by state legislation. Schools that failed to produce evidence of proficiency among

students would be offered new government funding and assistance programs. If schools still

failed to produce sufficient results, schools could be taken over by their state. This meant the

school would be in debt to the state government and would be forced to cut programs further to

pay back the state.

New support systems sound like a win for all students on paper. However, the bill only

allotted four hundred million dollars in total, when studies showed that all the programs offered

for each school would cost closer to seven billion dollars. Schools that struggled to meet

standards were forced to cut funds from athletic programs, arts, sciences, and physical education

just to avoid punishment. With each year that passed funding for these programs decreased

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exponentially. Within the thirteen years this act was in effect, fewer children were introduced to

new sports.

I’ve been playing lacrosse for nine years, but I did not start because I always loved it. I

was an athletic kid who played any sport put in front of me. I was roped into lacrosse in fourth

grade by my brother and I have fallen in love with the sport. No Child Left Behind made it

difficult for students to explore their own athletic interests as all the focus and funding, that was

not supplied as promised, was on other subjects. I was lucky enough to have missed this era,

however I feel less of the kids my age and in the grades below me are currently playing or have

consistently been playing sports. New generations had programs slashed, and then were forced

inside with advents of widespread technology, changes in ideology in parents, and the global

pandemic of 2020. This has led me to investigate how children's involvement in physical activity

changed post setbacks such as “No Child Left Behind” and the pandemic?

Within the past 3 years the whole world has undergone a pandemic that has closed many

doors for the youth population. Social distancing and masks shut down every sport. The effect

this held on children was easily seen. The Aspen Institute published a list that showcased a 10

percent increase in the annual rate of children who have lost interest in their sport(Participation

Rates). However, COVID-19 was not the start of this decline. “In 2018, 38% of kids ages 6 to 12

played an organized sport on a regular basis, down from 45% in 2008,” (Newberry). These facts

are not hard to come by in the United States. Programs such as NFL’s Play 60 were put in place

in an attempt to get younger kids out for just an hour a day. These programs, well full of good

intentions, have done little to combat the issue. A compiled study done by Yu Deng and Anhui

Fan represents the recent trends of participation in the years between the end of No Child Left

Behind and the pandemic. The years nearing the end of No Child Left Behind, such as 2011,

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featured a 58.4% participation rate among over 13,000 children between the ages of nine and

seventeen. In 2013 this number dropped by 4.4%. Sports Illustrated showed that in the bill's final

six years only one sport in America showed an upward trend(Wire). Between the years of 2015

and 2019 the number has risen and fallen a constant amount, but has yet to return to the 58.4%

margine(Deng). A second study done at Samford University showed that in the ten years

between 2006 and 2016 there was an average decrease in youth participation by almost 30% in

soccer, basketball, baseball, and football(Buzka).

I reached out to Bill Burgoyne, a long time Northgate High School coach who only

recently retired. Burgoyne has children who grew up in local sports programs and school systems

around the time that No Child Left Behind. Burgoyne himself has been a lifetime patron of

sports. When asked about patterns he saw in his ten years at Northgate he says the consistency

seemed to vary with the culture each coach would bring to the team. This idea of change in

culture was a key element in our discussion. Though his direct knowledge of the No Child Left

Behind Act varied he did understand the changes this underfunding led to.

“We had buses, the idea now is that a thousand parents have to drop off a thousand kids

each day at Northgate”, he said. He continued saying, “There was never any dues for any of the

sports I played like there's dues for lacrosse…”. No Child Left Behind was an under funded

program that forced schools to be careful of how their money was spent. John Chubb, author of

Learning From No Child Left Behind, wrote in agreement with Burgoyne saying, “Many states

have decided that the consequences of NCLB are too onerous and have moved to shield their

schools from them…”(30). These consequences only went to lower performing schools. Schools

who had the money or the programs from the beginning did not have to worry in the ways others

did.

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“The level at which sports are focused on here is much different than it was when I was

growing up, I’m sure it's different from other parts of this country,” Burgoyne said when we dug

deeper into this inequity.

“I remember coming home after my first day of high school football and telling my dad I

couldn’t do it. I had gotten blown up … he said to me that's ok but you better find another sport

to play. That’s a mentality I carried over from him”. Burgoyne is not the first to recognize outside

influences. An article from The National Academy of Athletics wrote, “Children learn from

watching others and copying the behavior they see demonstrated”(Parents). No Child Left

Behind opened the floodgates for inequity in organized sports. If one grew up in a school system

who didn’t feel cutbacks, chances are their athletics programs were better funded and better

maintained. That same person would become much more likely to push for their children to join

a sport. Burgoyne ended with illustrating how this inequity not only closes certain doors for

today's generation, but how it can be discouraging to pick up a sport and be surrounded by

players who were given the opportunity to have played for several years prior.

It is very clear there was a downward spiral that has only accelerated with the recent

pandemic, which has forced children out of athletic programs and into sedentary lifestyles at

home.

These numbers are more than just statistics read off of websites. They tell a story of how

new generations are developing and what challenges they face. A major component in my

community project is the use of social media platforms to gain attendance at my clinic. Yet,

social media has been a controversy regarding the levels of activity among children. An article

that covered a recent press conference with Premier Lacrosse League co-founder Paul Rabil

wrote, “Players who may not be at the best school, best program, or best team are given a

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platform to showcase their talent anyway”(Wickes). Sports inequity could be combated with the

new outreach abilities that come with social media. However, others remain skeptical of how

technology is truly affecting youth sports. Bill Burgoyne gave an anecdote about a nephew who

he calls a, “video game junkie”.

“I didn’t even think of doing anything other than sports after school,” he said. “It’s true

that social media has outreach, but I doubt those posts you see of lacrosse are showing up on my

nephews page”. Social media is known for the way it follows the users interests. Not only are

children today offered more activities because of technology(video games, online hobbies, etc.)

but, groups online become polarized. If one is surrounded by people who share no interests with

themselves, nothing stands in the way of that person discovering a group online they can relate to

regardless of the distance between its members. Hanging out with people who like to stay inside

as well never presents the opportunity to go outside, Burgoyne illustrated.

In an attempt to get a first person recount of the youth sport scene over the past two

decades I reached out to Northgate Lacrosses’ very own Jimmy Nelson. Nelson is a Baltimore

native who began his coaching career on the east coast around 2005. However, he feels his

coaching path gained traction in 2014 with the Walnut Creek Warriors Lacrosse Club. Nelson

played sports since the age of seven.

“There were no cell phones, though pagers became a thing in middle school, and we

didn’t have a computer”, Nelson responded when I asked him what other kids his age were

doing. He explained that sports was everyone's niche back then.

The beginning of his career as a coach didn’t line up with No Child Left Behind perfectly,

but he was no stranger to the act and its effects. “I remember it was super rigid and measured

success based on numbers from standardized testing which ended up hurting schools, taking

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away funding for creative arts and other critical forms of learning”. Still, with almost ten years as

a coach, Nelson agrees that there is a significant drop in the number of players.

“I’ve noticed at Northgate at the highschool level that we almost always have to recruit

athletes and train them from scratch, but we tend to get the same 4 or 5 new guys a year”, he

says. His main attribution to the drop in numbers comes with what has happened in the last two

decades. High level sports require a buy in across America. No Child Left Behind slashed

programs early on meaning only the fortunate could sustain their children's interest in a sport. As

programs began to regain some strength however, a major pandemic and a technological

revolution drew many youth away from sports fields.

When questioned about the pandemic he said, “Kids seem to have more of fear of

commitment, taking risks, trying new things. So starting to think about ways we can increase

kids playing sports, being active in their bodies instead of their minds seems like something we

need more of”. An article posted by the Aspen Institute shows that nearly thirty percent of

children between ages six to seventeen reported a loss in interest for their sport. That number

comes from 2021 and the data from 2022 show that number is on the rise(“Youth Sports”). No

Child Left Behind started a fire that was kindled by unfortunate events such as COVID-19. This

fire has burned down the participation rates among youth. Jimmy Nelson's comments give hope,

however, that the downward curve has begun to level off and can be reversed.

COVID-19 is an unavoidable topic in this discussion. The shut down put a halt to all

momentum that youth sports had. Star Press wrote an article depicting just how severe the drop

off in participation was, “‘We had about 150 kids last year and that was on the downward slide,

now we're about 80 kids just registering”’(General). It also expressed that in Delaware County

club soccer lost 30% of its participants within one season(General). The Aspen Project released

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graphs that showed that the hours spent physically active for children six to seventeen went from

almost fourteen hours pre pandemic to barely seven hours throughout 2020(“Participation

Trends”). On a local scale the number of teams fielded by highschools specifically in lacrosse

decreased tremendously. Bill Burgoyne recounts this drop as he said, “Teams like Miramonte had

two junior varsity teams when my boys played, now you see them with just enough to field

varsity. Clayton Valley too. They had varsity, jv, and a practice squad”. In Northgate in particular

to accommodate for the shortened time that was given to sports programs in 2021, most athletes

that played multiple sports had to pick a single one so each team could be isolated in their own

bubble. Jimmy Nelson spoke on the idea of bubbles in sports in our interview and expressed he

agreed with the concept, but saw how it also harmed an athlete. He claimed it forced a player to

become specialized and decrease the total hours they would spend practicing.

With the slow spread of COVID-19 there has been promise of bounce back for youth

sports though as the Aspen Project writes, “Younger children played team sports [are] at a

historically low rate, but there is progress”(Participation Trends). Jimmy Nelson expresses some

relief in current trends at Northgate indicating a plausible bounceback as well. Nelson's

predictions of a slow comeback are backed again by the Aspen Institute as it shows a .6 %

increase in participation per year recently(Participation Rates).

It has been eight years since the termination of the No Child Left Behind Act. The

underfunding that tore this bill apart opened the doors for inequity to creep into the youth

athletics systems across the United States of America. Research done during and after the years

this bill was in place showcased the decrease in participation, and personal accounts showed how

clear the inequity was. As years went by the costumes for children changed heavily. There was

an increase in technology in everyone's lives that opened the population up to the possibilities of

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the Internet. Entertainment could be accessed with a few quick clicks, without ever leaving one

room. Still participation levels held steady. The final nail in the coffin was the COVID-19

pandemic that forced sports programs to a halt. Funding cuts held back a large number of

children from the ability to participate in sports. Just as sports programs began to gain traction,

COVID-19 once again made sports an exclusive activity. Since No Child Left Behind, it has

been a struggle to keep a high rate of participation in youth sports. Participation rates have yet to

return to the levels they once held in 2001 and the years prior. Within the past three years the

rates dropped much further. However, these eight years produced data showing a progressively

increasing curve of youth sports participation that sat above the numbers for the No Child Left

Behind era. While that margin was in fact slim, I believe they will continue to grow. Both Jimmy

Nelson And Bill Burgoyne, coaches who see the yearly numbers first hand, hold similar beliefs.

No Child Left Behind has caused the government and school boards to hold sports programs at a

higher, more deserved level of worth. Technology has the opportunity to spread the strong

benefits of participation in sports and based on personal conversations, children are eager to get

back out after quarantine. Youth sports and their participation rates are due for a comeback.

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Works Cited

Black, Lindsey. “Organized Sports Participation Among Children Aged 6–17 Years: United

States, 2020”, Center For Disease Control and Prevention. 9 August 2022,

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db441.htm#Suggested_citation

Burgoyne Bill. Personal Interview, 19 March 2023

Buszka, Greg. “Big 4 Youth Sports Taking A Big Hit”, Samford University. 6 March 2018,

https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2018/Big-4-Youth-Sports-Taking-a

-Big-Hit

Chubb, John E. Learning from No Child Left Behind, Washington D.C., Hoover Institution Press

Publication, 2009.

Deng, Yu, and Anhui Fan. “Trends in sports participation in adolescents: Data from a large-scale

sample in the US adolescents.” Frontiers in public health vol. 10 960098. 31 Oct.

2022, doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.960098

General, Robby. "Adjusting to the Changes: Youth Sports Participation Decreases due to

Coronavirus." Star Press, Jul 03, 2020. ProQuest,

https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/adjusting-changes/docview/2419619597/s

e-2.

Hoyle, Rick H., and Stephen S. Leff. "The role of parental involvement in youth sport

participation and performance." Adolescence, vol. 32, no. 125, spring 1997, pp.

233+. Gale In Context: High School,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A19417329/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=bookmark-SUIC&x

id=d890aa67. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

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Newberry, Laura. “Kids are losing interest in organized sports. Why that matters”, New York

Times. 6 December 2021,

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-12-06/kids-are-losing-interest

-in-team-sports-community-athletics-have-shrunk-why-that-matters-8-to-3

Nelson, Jimmy. Personal Interview, 11 March 2023

“Participation Rates”, The Aspen Project Play. 2022,

https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/youth-sports/facts/participation-rates

“Parents Role In Youth Sports”, National Academy of Athletics. 18 May 2022,

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+affect+do+parents+have+on+youth+part

icpiation+ins+sports&rlz=1CADTIH_enUS970US970&oq=what+affect+do+pare

nts+have+on+youth+particpiation+ins+p&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j33i10i160.12796j

0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on

“Participation Trends”, The Aspen Project Play. 2022,

https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/state-of-play-2022/participation-trends

Taylor, Rachael W et al. “Changes in physical activity over time in young children: a

longitudinal study using accelerometers.” PloS one vol. 8,11 e81567. 25 Nov.

2013, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081567d=d890aa67. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

Wickes, Melissa. “What You Need to Know About How Technology Will Affect the Future of

Youth Sports”, League Apps. 4 November 2022,

https://leagueapps.com/blog/changing-future-of-youth-sports/

Wire, SI. Study shows major drop in American youth sports participation”, Sports Illustrated. 11

August 2015,

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https://www.si.com/more-sports/2015/08/11/american-youth-sports-participation-

drop-decline-statistics-study

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