Game On: How the Pressure to Win at All Costs Endangers Youth Sports and What Parents Can Do About It

Played by more than thirty million boys and girls across the country, youth sports have turned from a casual activity for kids into a fanatical force–an intense, expensive, elitist rite of passage driven by the needs of impatient (if often well-meaning) adults. In Game On, award-winning ESPN reporter Tom Farrey explores the causes and consequences of our obsession with early success in sports. The effort to sort the strong from the weak at ever-younger ages, Farrey argues, pushes too many children to the sidelines–and ultimately undermines the quality of U.S. national teams. We’ve conscripted our kids into a sports arms race in which individual performance trumps participation and personal growth. To counter the effects of a win-at-all-costs culture, Farrey suggests measures that can help parents–and communities–get children off the couch without running them into the ground.Much as Fast Food Nation challenged our eating habits and Outliers encouraged us to think in new ways about high achievers, Game On will change the way we look at the critically important games that American kids play. Read more