Sports and Children
By: Emily Forloines & Alex Wenrich
In class, we discussed the importance of youth sport and the difference ways that kids can become involved in sport. There are so many opportunities for kids to have fun and participate in sport for example, the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, Summer Camps, and private sport clubs. The Sports Business Journal (SBJ) presented an in-depth article about the United States Tennis Association (USTA) that featured a program called Quickstart. Quickstart is a program for children under the age of 10. The kids are on a smaller court with mini nets and they play with soft foam balls.
USTA began this program to help introduce kids into the sport of tennis and to help reduce the
number of kids that leave the courts frustrated by the difficulty of tennis. However, the critics were not so gung-ho about this program because they say that "the USTA is retarding the growth of the sport, especially for future professionals." Other critics believe that the new program is going to push kids away due to its simplicity and that they will lose interest. The SBJ added a chart that shows tennis participation (000s) of US kids aged
6+. In 2007-2010, the numbers steadily increased; in 2011, it dropped from 18,719 to 17,772; and in 2012 it dropped again from 17,772 to 17,020.
In class, we discussed the importance of youth sport and the difference ways that kids can become involved in sport. There are so many opportunities for kids to have fun and participate in sport for example, the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, Summer Camps, and private sport clubs. The Sports Business Journal (SBJ) presented an in-depth article about the United States Tennis Association (USTA) that featured a program called Quickstart. Quickstart is a program for children under the age of 10. The kids are on a smaller court with mini nets and they play with soft foam balls.  |
| Example of the mini courts |
USTA began this program to help introduce kids into the sport of tennis and to help reduce the
number of kids that leave the courts frustrated by the difficulty of tennis. However, the critics were not so gung-ho about this program because they say that "the USTA is retarding the growth of the sport, especially for future professionals." Other critics believe that the new program is going to push kids away due to its simplicity and that they will lose interest. The SBJ added a chart that shows tennis participation (000s) of US kids aged
6+. In 2007-2010, the numbers steadily increased; in 2011, it dropped from 18,719 to 17,772; and in 2012 it dropped again from 17,772 to 17,020.
According to Coakley's text in chapter 5, youth sport programs are becoming extremely privatized and the elite athletes are the ones that are getting the most attention. Coakley explains that athletic programs are raising prices and making it very expensive for parents to have kids in the sport programs. The USTA is enforcing this concept without realizing it because the have set that children under 10 years old are only able to play a short court with foam balls. This forces the kids that are above this level of play to seek higher, possibly more expensive, means of learning the game of tennis.
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