"Age 11 Is When Kids Quit Sports, Here Is The Problem" - Forbes

Forbes recently came out with this article that talks about kids quitting sports early and why they think it’s happening. In a nutshell, they say that…

-Sports are getting too competitive and isn't inclusive enough

-The fees and cost of joining a sport is too high

-Sports today focus too much on specialization

And the whole goal of the “Don’t Retire, Kid” campaign is to fight the “physical inactivity epidemic”.

From my previous experience in school, what most of the article points out is right on point. Unless you’re taking a gym class it’s hard to get into high school sports. High school gym classes do a good gym of introducing you to a variety of sports but only for a limited amount of time, a week or two before rotating out. After that, if you’re interested in a sport you got to talk to the coach leading the team. Which they usually only do for the season the sport is in, after that who knows where they are. 

And I could relate to the fees, the freaking fees. The fees and hours I was required to put in almost scared me away. Ninety to one hundred dollars for a pair of shoes, sure, you could wrestle barefoot but then you would be that one left out kid. Then the monthly gym membership fees and bus fares, I wasn’t going to be spending money on anything other than wrestling. Have I mentioned the hundreds of hours you have to put in to not get tossed like a beanbag? 

Alright David, stop beating around the bush and get the point. What I think the main issue with sports and students these days is that. There’s stuff that’s more fun to do. Don’t get me wrong, wrestling is the best but I would’ve never found that out had I went the other path. But say someone went up to you asked you to put in dozens of hours a week for a sport. Would you do that or hanging out with your friends and play video games?