When you consider sports programs for kids, please read this book:

[Are_grits_groceries]

"PLAY THEIR HEARTS OUT: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine"

Review:
Based on eight years of research and unfettered access, Dorhmann details what he learned from his years spent embedded with a group of talented young recruits from southern California as they travel the country playing in elite Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) events. It’s a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight and nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. Coaches vie to have them on their teams. Sneaker companies ply them with free shoes and gear. All-star "camps" are glorified cattle auctions, providing make-or-break opportunities to secure the promise of an elusive college scholarship and a possible NBA career. Following a team of pre-adolescents from its humble origins through national championships and high school, PLAY THEIR HEARTS OUT exposes a shady system in which talent is a commodity even before puberty and where big business rules the day.

At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious AAU coach with a master plan to find and promote "the next LeBron"—thereby paving his own path to power and riches; and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway at the tender age of nine and struggles to live up to the unrealistic expectations his supposed benefactor has set for him. As their fortunes take shape and the pressure mounts—Demetrius finds himself profiled in Sports Illustrated at age fourteen by a reporter who caught onto the hype, while Keller cultivates his business empire—Dohrmann weaves in the stories of numerous other parents, coaches, and players. Some of them see their prospects evaporate as a result of poor decisions and worse luck. Others learn how to thrive in a corrupt system by playing the right angles.

Written with incomparable detail and insight.
http://playtheirheartsout.com/

There is some form of exploitation in all youth sports in many areas unfortunately.

I am not an expert, but I keep up and watch kids ground up by the system whether it's in athletics or academics. I taught these kids although not as talented. They had dreams and hopes as big as the sky. I taught many in the 7th grade, and they had readying levels on par with the 1st grade. I would get so angry at times that I wanted to find the proverbial 'jawbone of an ass' and lay waste to everybody up the chain who let this happen. Unfortunately, my superintendent wouldn't let me borrow his.

Do the parents have some responsibility? You bet! I talked to a lot of them. Most were hard working snd had more than one job. Some had so any problems that their kids watched out or them. They needed a form of Headstart from the get go. That program if extended to younger kids could at least give them some more stability and more grounding in basic subject matter.

You can whine that this is a nanny state. Well, those kids are going to either make it out somehow or end up in trouble and cost society dearly. I told people to decide whether they wanted to build schools are prisons. Unfortunately, I have my answer now.

I am no angel by a long shot. I tried to help where I could. I had little concrete things to give them. I couldn't heat their homes or buy them clothes and school supplies. All I could do was listen to them, push them to keep trying their best, and not accept excuses for not trying.

FAILING was not the ultimate sin to me. NOT TRYING was. They knew that.

This country has failed and is failing its children so miserably that it is a mortal sin.
We build drones, meddle in every nation possible, and watch these kids sink further and further. Something is very, very wrong with our goals, our ethics, and our compassion. We are no more a Christian nation than Mars.

I could go on. I will remember a lot of the kids I taught until my dying day. They will haunt me forever, and I will always believe I could have done more

[BlueIris]

1. Reminds me of the film "Hoop Dreams" from the mid-90s.

That also dealt with the massive machine that looks for new sports talent in secondary schools. Very painful film to watch, because the kids were so exploited.