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Challenge: Youth sport is organized by adults The Play: Ask Kids What They Want
From the Sport for All, Play for Life report: To get and keep kids involved in sports, build the voice of children into the design of activities.
FIVE KEY FINDINGS IN OAKLAND Youth are motivated by friendships with peers to play sports. In our survey, the No. 1 reason kids said they play sports is to be with friends, followed by having fun. Winning games ranked seventh and chasing college athletic scholarships was 12th. That’s not to say kids don’t want to compete; 17% of them viewed competing as a reason to play. But far more children play to be with friends (51%), have fun (35%) and exercise to stay healthy (29%). White (42%) and Asian (40%) youth reported having fun as a motivation to play more than children who are Black (29%) and Latino/a
(35%). One middle school athlete said he likes to win, but more importantly, he wants to have fun and play with friends after not seeing so many of them during COVID-19 shutdowns. “If I lose, it’s not the end of the world like some grown-ups act like,” he said. A middle school tennis player said she feels pressure when her dad sometimes yells at her after losing a match, and she doesn’t know how to change his behavior. “It’s very uncomfortable,” she said. “Sports should be about doing your best and making new friends.” Earning a college scholarship through sports is very important for Black youth. They are motivated to play sports to reach this dream at greater than twice the rate of other children, according to our survey of Oakland youth. The odds of success are long: Although Oakland is tied for the 19th-most NBA players ever produced among U.S. cities, 1 the likelihood of a national high school basketball participant even playing Division I college basketball is just 1%. 2 Too often, “the Black family will say (playing sports) is a way for my kid to get out of this difficult situation and go to college, and the White family will say this is an opportunity for my kid to be physically active and make friends,” said former NBA player Antonio Davis, an Oakland native who co-chairs the Positive Coaching Alliance’s Racial Equity and Access in Youth Sports Task Force. “These are two totally different perceptions that can lead to different results. If kids think they can’t be the best, they ask themselves, ‘Why play?’
STATE OF PLAY OAKLAND
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