It’s incredible and unfortunate we’re at a place where it’s all or nothing.” This sentiment was shared by an Aspen Institute focus group of Oakland parents, who hope coaches and sports providers can better model how kids can succeed academically in concert with sports, so they have different pathways.
want to try includes only two traditional team sports (basketball and volleyball). Archery, mixed martial arts, boxing, figure skating, roller skating, fencing, rock climbing, and parkour are the other activities. Schoolwork and lack of self-confidence prevent more youth from playing sports. The good news: More than half of surveyed Oakland children of all ages said they very often play sports in some form or another, from organized to pickup play. However, there were major disparities reported by geography, ranging from 66% in the East Oakland, Maxwell Park and Seminary communities to 37% in the Chinatown, East Lake and San Antonio neighborhoods. Among youth who don’t play sports very often, almost 1 in 4 cited schoolwork as a reason why. This barrier was found the most in Fruitvale and Jingletown (38%) and identified the least in East Oakland, Maxwell Park and Seminary (18%). Among all youth, 15% said they are not good enough to play sports, a sentiment shared most frequently by those living in Chinatown, East Lake and San Antonio (19%). “Kids are always quick to judge,” one middle school-aged girl told us. “To some kids, it’s just trash talking. But sometimes people can really take it to heart, and it gets in their head, so you don’t want to play and mess up.”
In this city, it’s more like, ‘Be great in sports and you’ll be fine.’ Academics and sports need to be parallel.”
YOUTH SPORTS PARENT WHO IS BLACK
Children want to play sports to exercise and stay healthy. Almost 1 in 3 said health benefits motivate them to participate. Boys and girls expressed nearly equal interest in exercise as a reason for playing. Yet only 14% of youth ages 14-18 meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of receiving at least 60 minutes of daily physical activity. 3 In our youth survey, high school students (40%) expressed a desire to exercise for health benefits more than children in middle school (27%) and elementary school (26%). The challenge is that high schools in the U.S. typically have a limited menu of interscholastic sport options, and many children get weeded out of sports at younger ages due to cost and ability. The Aspen Institute’s Reimagining School Sports Playbook showed that high school students nationally want more casual and fitness-focused activities, and the playbook offers strategies to center the model around student enjoyment and development. Oakland’s public high school interscholastic sports participation rate is only 24%; 4 nationally, it’s 39%. 5 Oakland’s participation declined 9% during the pandemic. The top 10 sports Oakland high school students
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PROJECT PLAY — AN INITIATIVE OF THE ASPEN INSTITUTE
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