Overview

Millions of American families spend tens of thousands of dollars annually to have their children participate in club travel sports. In What is the Goal: The Truth About the Youth Sports Industry, the authors educate parents about this industry's money vacuum designed to suck up a family's resources by attaching itself to parents' dreams and fears of missed opportunities for their children's future. The industry is driven largely by the quest for prestige and preferential admission to college. Within the industry, system-wide conflicts of interest cause unintended harm to the young athletes that sports programs should be designed to benefit. Linscott and Ruoff demonstrate how the Youth Sports Industry (YSI) accentuates the wealth and participation gap by pricing out most families. Young athletes have become valuable commodities to the sports clubs who secure greater earnings in a lucrative industry if they play their business cards right. The authors explore who is making a living off of the YSI and who are its consumers. Linscott and Ruoff analyze the travel tournament, a critical money-generating element of virtually all YSI clubs that accomplishes little in terms of developing athletes. The authors provide a guide for navigating the YSI should parents choose to involve their children. The book also proposes broad, society-wide interconnecting solutions and potential regulations for colleges, medical professionals, legislators, program directors, coaches, and parents to consider. Linscott and Ruoff further the discussion that sports leaders and researchers have initiated to facilitate needed reforms and return the fun and self-empowerment back to the youth athletes.

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Reviews

"""Through exhaustive research and personal experiences, Ken and Jean have truly captured and exposed the issues within the Youth Sports Industry in America. Having been involved with youth sports ( specifically soccer) for over 40 years, I have seen first hand how the once ""play for fun"" mentality has shifted due to the enormous pressure that the youth sports environment places on parents, coaches and clubs. This book is spot on in revealing the challenges that face parents when it comes to deciding on which direction to go with their young participating athletes. If you have a son or daughter that is involved in youth sports, reading this book will help you navigate the delicate landscape of the youth sports culture."" -Dave Sarachan, longtime professional soccer coach and interim coach, United States Men's National Team, 2017-18 ""What is the Goal? drills deep into the labyrinth of contemporary youth sports and exposes it as a hyper-commercialized mechanism of exploitation that suffocates childhood fun. Ruoff and Linscott combine existing research with a wealth of personal examples to meticulously peel back commercialized youth sports' many insidious layers. The book also offers thoughtful and positive suggestions for changing both youth sports and the intercollegiate athletic system that often enables it."" -Rick Eckstein, Ph.D. Author, How College Athletics are Hurting Girls' Sports: The Pay to Play Pipeline ""The trickle-down influence of commercialization on youth sports during the past generation has morphed into a waterfall. Jean Linscott and Ken Ruoff have experienced this change and used their clinical and historical perspectives to describe how it has impacted the organization and culture of youth sports as well as the experiences of every- one from program managers to child participants and their families. Reading this book provides a foundation for reclaiming youth sports for young people without breaking family budgets."" -Jay Coakley, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Sociology Department, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs"

Author Information

Jean Linscott, Ph.D., is a clinical child psychologist. She has been working professionally with children and families for over thirty years in hospital-based, clinic, and private-practice settings. She and Kenneth Ruoff are the parents of three athletes who are veterans of the Youth Sports Industry. Kenneth Ruoff, Ph.D., is a professor of history at Portland State University and the author of numerous award-winning books. From the perspective of a historian, he is astonished, in comparison to what he experienced as a kid, at how drastically different a youth-sports environment his family has faced these past two decades.

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