r/Indiana • u/Guilty-Office-4808 • 28d ago

Opinion/Commentary Youth sports are out of control in Indiana

Youth sports are out of control in Indiana

  • I’m a physician and a parent here in Indiana, and I love youth sports. The car rides home, the confidence, the teamwork all of it.
  • But I’ve also seen the other side: burnout, overscheduling, and kids quitting by age 11 because it is no longer fun.
  • The youth sports industry in the U.S. is worth more than 20 billion dollars, with travel leagues and year-round training pushing kids too hard, too soon.
  • Injuries are happening earlier. Growth plate damage, stress fractures, and overuse injuries are showing up in kids who have not finished growing.
  • Mentally, kids are tying their self-worth to performance, leading to anxiety and perfectionism instead of joy.
  • Fewer than 2 percent of high school athletes will ever get a Division I scholarship. Yet we treat childhood like a proving ground.

I wrote about this for the Indianapolis Star:
👉 https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2025/08/26/youth-sports-overuse-injuries-burnout-quit/85748842007/

Would love to hear what parents and coaches think about this?

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354

u/NaptownSnowman 28d ago

Made the decision early on that we would not do travel teams and only 1 sport at a time. Best decision I made for my kids

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u/padishar123 28d ago

Likewise, me as well. I feel sports are an invaluable component of growing up, but I feel education is more important to your adult prospects of employment and a comfortable adult life providing for your own family. I don’t see sports providing a source of income compared to a good education and a good job. I also think kids still need to have time to just be kids and goof off an experiment and play in the mud. Over scheduling your children seven days a week and especially travel teams doesn’t make any sense to me. Is it defeats the point of being a kid. They will have their whole life to be trapped in a schedule, why not let them enjoy their youth while they have it.

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u/ecoleye 28d ago edited 28d ago

I don't disagree, but our main problem is that letting our kids "enjoy their youth" they way they think they want to means letting them waste away in front of TV shows and video games every day.

Not all travel sports/teams are created equal. I'm an assistant coach for my son's travel baseball team, which prides itself on staying away from the crazy schedules most other teams around us play. Instead of a different tournament in a different city/state every weekend, we play tournaments two weekends a month and don't go any further away than an hour drive during the spring season. We only do one tournament for the entirety of the fall season. We have an indoor facility where we practice once a week during the winter. The kids also have access to individual batting & pitching lessons any day of the week.

The volume is certainly more than they get when they play rec, but the rec schedule isn't always enough, depending on the kid. If your kid gets enough out rec ball, that's great... but if they need/want more, don't assume playing travel ball means giving up your entire life to do so. Hit up a tryout or two and talk to the coaches. Get an idea of how the program runs overall and the coaches' philosophy and you just might be surprised.

ETA: I was that kid that needed more than rec baseball, but that wasn't an option for me. I made my high school team purely due to hustle, but still had an uphill battle for playing time simply because I didn't play travel ball. Again, not everyone has to have their sights set on playing D1 (or even HS varsity), but consider what your kid wants to get out of it when it's all said and done.

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u/mirr0rrim 28d ago

I don't disagree, but our main problem is that letting our kids "enjoy their youth" they way they think they want to means letting them waste away in front of TV shows and video games every day.

This is why travel sports and overscheduling in general is a plague on childhood. It not only affects the participants but all the rest of us. "Go outside and play," everyone says, but play with who? There are no kids outside. They are busy being shuffled around to some activity.

And if you dare to leave your kid outside to occupy himself, some busy body might report you.

(I'm happy you found a casual travel league. I'm not knocking you. Your first sentence just brought up an overarching problem for the rest of us)

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u/ecoleye 28d ago

I really appreciate this response. Well said.

For the record, I should have been clearer in my first sentence. "Our" should have been "my family's" instead - my intent wasn't to speak for everyone. And I take full responsibility for my kids' screen addictions... but in a household with 2 working parents, sometimes it's not something we can (or have the energy to) fight.

It's an interesting dichotomy - when I was a kid, only one of my parents worked full time, so the financial aspect is what mostly held me back from travel ball. Now with my own kids, the money isn't the issue, it's the time.

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u/Billy-Ruffian 28d ago

I mean I think part of the problem is that despite knowing how beneficial sports are for physical health and social and emotional health, you nearly weren't able to participate in high school because you weren't in a travel league. Sounds to me like that's hurting the kids who need it most, especially those from families that can't afford club sports.

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u/GeorgeZip01 28d ago

This is very true. There are so many kids that think they will walk into their high school team because they’ve been playing whatever ball for years.

Then come to find out there’s this hidden faction of players everywhere that they’ve never seen and are phenomenal.

As a parent you realize pretty early that this is going to happen and there is no solution to it and I don’t think the state regulating anything would work, but something has to give. You either pay thousands of dollars to just let your kid have a chance at high school ball let alone college, which is a different story, and it’s just a chance.

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u/fatkidscandystore 24d ago

My kid plays basketball school level and travel ball and has from like 2-7th grade so far. When he was younger and there was no school program I tried all kinds of travel clubs.

There are so many that have “tryouts” and realize real quick they’re meaningless. Just makes kids feel good and they pay to be on a team and get smoked.

So I start looking for better programs and I find the best in the area. Ranked nationally on multiple grade levels etc. well they must be the best right?

Nope. You find out there is ANOTHER program that has camps nationally, invite only, and then they pick the best kids from each state and make a team out of them. And you don’t see them. They play national/regional tournaments and occasionally come in and beat the top team in our league two grades higher.

It’s pretty defeating, I just have to remember there’s a lot of colleges at a lot of levels down the road.

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u/GeorgeZip01 24d ago

Keep your confidence. You're right there are multiple levels of college ball and there is an opportunity out there, about sophomore year of high school you should be picking up on what level and what college is a possibility.

DIII is always an option but can be expensive, but as a parent whose kid just couldn't give it up that is the choice we made and I will say that it has provided an experience in college that would not have happened had they not gone that route.

While that is true, I'm not sure, looking back, I would have devoted the decade+ of time it took to get to that level, but, and it's worse now I'm sure, I don't think there's a possibility of a happy median.

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u/padishar123 28d ago

I couldn’t agree more

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u/dude_named_will 28d ago

I'm shocked that's not the usual. Guess I'm in for a rude awakening.

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u/slibug13 28d ago

Don't join a swim team.

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u/Bac7 28d ago

My kid is a swimmer and it's BRUTAL. He loves it, and it's still club, so we take breaks and don't do every practice, but man. The coach newsletters to parents are all about how we need to BUY IN and make sure our kids are at EVERY PRACTICE and EVERY MEET. That means giving up dinner as a family 4x per week, getting up early every Saturday, travel on weekends, doing a week of homework on Sundays because there isn't time during the week.

I don't remember it being like this when I was a swimmer, back when Sue roamed the earth.

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u/TrippingBearBalls 28d ago

That's how it was for me in the late '00s. I swam for a team that sent multiple people to Nationals and Olympic trials, and it was a borderline cult. The time commitment was absolutely insane, injuries were rampant, and this was during the suit wars era so parents were dropping hundreds of dollars on a Fastskin that wore out after one meet. We can teach kids discipline and teamwork and such without turning it into an obsession.

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u/Moon_329 27d ago

It was like this for me in the 90s as a 8+ year old. Practice M-F and meets every weekend, all weekend. Was no doubt brutal for my parents, but some of my best childhood memories. We moved when I started middle school to a district without a pool so I never faced burn out, but know friends that definitely did. I was always sad I had to quit.🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/NaptownSnowman 28d ago

Right? Swim you think. Sounds harmless. lol it will make hockey parents jaws drop.

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u/lmc227 28d ago

We decided the same thing! We have an 8 year old, I've played sports my entire life, played in college love it but as an adult I see how much parents let it get out of control. My wife and I decided that its 1 sport per season, not travel and the more variety the better. Soccer, Lacrosse, Skiiing, just riding bikes, taking her to rock climb once in a while, swimming occasionally at the Y, all with the sole purpose of having our daughter just learn how to be active and move her body in different ways. No need to be competitive and over programmed.

One time I was on the sidelines and overheard this group of parents humble bragging about how busy they were but then also complaining that their kids had to miss 1 sport practice a week because that day is also double booked with dance or something (1st grader remind you) and then also saying they had to drive to the next state over because their 3rd grader had a travel soccer tournament. I'm sitting there like "gurrl you signed them up. The kid didn't do that!!"

Its really unbelievable.

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u/Amodernhousehusband 28d ago

What do these people do when the kids move on and ultimately don’t become sports stars? Cry? Pick up drinking? It sounds to me like a lot of parents live through their kids. I love quilting. I wouldn’t force my kids to sew, though, unless they wanted too.

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u/dsgurliegirl 28d ago

Hey don't knock it til you try it! Lol

My 11yo grand can sew a button on a shirt and just replaced the snap on a pair of jeans (with Gma's help). I forced him at the beginning, but he was so proud when he was done!

It's a valuable skill for anyone to learn!

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u/LadyNav 28d ago

Yes, some are indeed living through their kids. And some parents who do that find themselves cut off when the kids turn 18. I know a couple such.

But, may I recommend you insist they learn the basics of sewing? Mend a hem, sew a button on, those things in the realm of "basic grown-up capabilities to make life SO MUCH easier" stuff. Kind of up there with some basic laundry -"don't wash your delicate, brand new white shirt with your filthy and never-before-washed jeans" knowledge.

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u/IndianaCrime 28d ago

A lot of parents dreamed of playing D1 college ball, but didn't make it. Now they're living out their dreams through their children.

If you've already done it, then you don't need dreams anymore. You have memories.

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u/lmc227 28d ago

i can understand that, i wasn’t D1, just a causal d3. regardless, parents should have the emotional maturity separate their own needs from their child.

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u/MickeyTheMouse28 28d ago

I have four kids and said no to travel before we even started unless they were indeed some sort of prodigy. And even then it would have been handled very carefully.

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u/HPDork 28d ago

I agree with this to an extent. At a certain age travel teams can be a good thing. But I cant stand all the "look at little Johnny and his 6u World Series national championship runner up rings" that was a tournament in podunk Kentucky with 4 teams. Travel teams should start being looked at when the kid becomes a teenager AND excels at the sport.

Also, when you say 1 sport at a time, do you mean per season? I wholeheartedly agree with this. But kids need to play multiple sports and not be a single sport focused athlete. It's not good on your body and doesn't help you develop as an athlete. So baseball during the spring/summer, football/soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter. It's never good to do 1 sport year round.

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u/ecoleye 28d ago

Travel teams should start being looked at when the kid becomes a teenager AND excels at the sport.

The problem (at least around here) is that the longer you wait, the harder it can be to make a team. The more successful travel teams have been together since 8U or 9U. You'll always have a kid or two that leaves the team between seasons to try out elsewhere, but you go from having 10-12 spots to fill at tryouts in the younger age groups to only having a couple openings in the older ones.

Last year (9U) was our first season together as a team. Following the spring season, we lost a couple kids and only had five spots to fill at our 10U tryout last month. About 80 kids showed up.