Fixing Kids' Sports

The publishers of Junkyard Sports have more or less finalized the book cover, which is what you are seeing here. This is a significant step for any book. Speaking of covers and significance, there was a cover story on the June 7th issue of US News & World Reports titled "Fixing Kids' Sports." It's a long article. Here's a short quote:

"A survey last summer at the National PTA Convention in Charlotte, N.C., found 44 percent of parents saying that their child had dropped out of a sport because it made him or her unhappy. These parents were not wimps. In fact, 92 percent of the respondents said sports were either important or very important to the overall development of their children. But 56 percent said that youth sports were too competitive, nearly half said that organized youth sports need to be completely revamped, and half said if they could change one thing, they would want their coach to be less focused on winning. Many surveys support this conclusion: Most kids would prefer to play a lot on a team that loses than sit on the bench of a team that wins."

The significance of such a story, from my very narrowed perspective as author of a book called "Junkyard Sports," is that it presages what in deed might become my relatively immediate future. It's kind of deliciously ironic, is what it is, that pudgy, non-athletic I, whose favorite sport consists of walking on the beach, should find himself becoming a recognized authority on kids' sports. I had thought I was writing about a larger, more universal cause - about inclusion and adaptability and community. But if my fun little book can be a pathway to play for those who are trying to make sports worthy of kids, well, then, maybe that's purpose enough.