Report Says Youth Sports Expensive and Dangerous

A year-round, $5 billion youth sports industry is pushing some children too hard and pressuring families to spend big money traveling the country for games, specialized training and the pursuit of elusive college scholarships, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday.

Non-school leagues are largely unregulated and can leave children more susceptible to injury. At a minimum, many kids are robbed of their childhood, the newspaper said in the first of a five-part series.

The Dispatch said it spent a year examining the current landscape of youth sports and found it is marked with physical, emotional and financial minefields for children and families. Some parents are driven by fear that their children won't be good enough for a varsity or college team.

Families easily can sink up to $50,000 a year in youth sports.

One Cleveland family spent $30,000 in six months to help their son pursue a soccer dream, the newspaper said. Another mother arranged to send her 11-year-old son to live with a trainer in Alabama to refine his football skills.

About 40 million children participate in youth sports _ nearly six times as many who play high school sports and 100 times as many who play at an NCAA college.

To examine the sports culture, the Dispatch surveyed about 1,000 Ohio high school students and 213 coaches, along with 70 athletes and 33 coaches from Ohio State University.

Click here to read more of this story from the AP.

To view the complete series from the Columbus Dispatch, click here.