Sports matter.
According to this infographic created by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, active kids are more likely to excel in school, be successful at work, have less health issues, and have children who are also active. Sports are an important tool to keep kids active, yet fewer kids are playing and staying in the game.
In addition to rising costs resulting in low income families having significant need for access to high-quality sports programs, kids are quitting sports at the average age of 11, mostly because it’s not fun anymore.3 Once All Kids Play gets kids into fun high-quality sports programs through our grant program, our team focuses on keeping them in the game with motivation and life skills education that ensure sustained engagement.
In addition, youth sports families are concerned about the mental, physical and emotional health of their kids. That is why our educational program also includes health and nutrition education to ensure that kids live a healthy and productive life. Specifically, kids are specializing in one sport earlier, with the average number of team sports played by kids ages 6-12 less than 2.4 Specializing in one sport too early can lead to burnout, injury and quitting at an early age. Parents are also concerned about injuries, yet as of 2019, only about one third of coaches had been trained in the previous year in CPR and Basic First Aid, Concussion Management, and General Safety and Injury Prevention.4
1Aspen Institute/Utah State University 2020 National Youth Sport Survey
2Sports & Fitness Industry Association via the Aspen Institute Project Play State of Play 2020
3Aspen Institute/Utah State University 2019 National Youth Sport Survey
4Sports & Fitness Industry Association via the Aspen Institute Project Play State of Play 2020