Youth Sports Is Forming Us - For Better and For Worse
The question isn't whether it's shaping us, but what it's shaping us into.
THE GAME BENEATH THE GAME
I don’t know how many Saturdays I’ve spent at a ball field. I’ve lost count of the rain delays, concession stand dinners, and drive home conversations.
I’ve celebrated walk-off hits and agonized over tough losses. I’ve watched my own children learn resilience, discipline, teamwork, sacrifice, and perseverance.
And honestly...I cherish so many of these moments with my kids.
So let me be clear from the beginning - This is not an article about burning youth sports to the ground.
Youth sports remain one of the greatest classrooms for forming young people. There are few places where children learn to submit to authority, work toward a common goal, overcome failure, celebrate others, and discover that excellence usually comes on the other side of faithfulness and hard work. I can also say my wife and I have met some incredible friends because of youth sports.
While there are so many benefits to youth sports, we’re also not going to pretend there isn’t an elephant standing in the middle of the complex.
Something is happening. Things have shifted.
THE GOALPOSTS KEEP MOVING
One of the dangers of culture is that it rarely changes overnight. It changes one small compromise at a time. Slow enough that you’re not caught off guard as much as you’re lulled asleep.
One more team. One more lesson. One more private coach. One more showcase. One more tournament. One more piece of equipment. One more Sunday. One more exception.
Until one day you wake up and you find yourself (and your family) in a place you never thought you would be.
I’ve noticed this not only in youth sports but in college athletics as well. Winning has increasingly become the highest virtue. Loyalty, scholarship, development, commitment, and integrity often feel secondary to performance and opportunity. Youth sports are simply downstream from the same current.
The scary part isn’t that someone else moved the goalposts. It’s that the goalposts have been moved and many of us haven’t even noticed.
FORMATION IS ALWAYS HAPPENING
Every culture asks us a question. Youth sports asks: How far are you willing to go for success?
And if we’re honest, many of us answer that question without ever saying a word.
Our calendars answer.
Our spending answers.
Our conversations answer.
Our emotional reactions answer.
The game beneath the game isn’t really about baseball or basketball or cheer or volleyball. It’s about formation. Who are these experiences turning our children into?
But maybe the harder question is…Who are they turning us into?
SPORTS CAN BE THE GREAT REVEALER
One observation I’ve made over years of coaching and parenting is this: The greatest problem in youth sports isn’t youth. It’s adults - it’s US.
The stories I could tell over the last seven years of following my two boys through travel baseball are enough to make you laugh, cringe, and occasionally grieve. I’ve watched adults scream at referees, belittle umpires, manipulate coaches, gossip about families, and treat twelve-year-olds like professional athletes.
I’ve also caught myself caring a little too much during a game. Feeling a little too disappointed after a loss or replaying an at-bat on the way home. I’ve been secretly frustrated at myself for wondering why my mood is being dictated by an eleven-year-old baseball game.
That’s when it hit me. Youth sports wasn’t just forming my kids. It was forming me!
Youth sports often becomes an amplifier - it exposes what was already living beneath the surface.
Psychologists have language for some of this.
Sometimes it’s projection—parents unconsciously placing their own regrets, fears, and unmet dreams onto their children.
Sometimes it’s what therapists call narcissistic extension—where a child’s success becomes inseparable from the parent’s identity.
Sometimes it’s simply vicarious living—the quiet hope that our children will accomplish what we never could.
None of these parents wake up intending to do harm. Most love their children deeply. But unresolved insecurity has a way of recruiting the people closest to us.
CELEBRATING OUR CHILDREN WITHOUT IDOLIZING THEM
As a Christian, I can’t help but notice how easy it is to drift from celebrating our children to building our identity around them.
The difference is subtle. Celebration says, “I’m grateful for who you are” while idolatry says, “I need you to become someone so I can feel like someone.” That’s a dangerous burden for a child to carry.
Children were never created to heal our childhood wounds. They were never meant to carry our unfinished stories. They certainly weren’t created to carry our greatest hopes and dreams.
They were entrusted to us. Not for our glory. For God’s glory. Let that sink in for a minute - our children exist for God’s glory - not for our glory.
THE GOSPEL RUNS AGAINST THE CURRENT
Here’s where I think the culture of youth sports often collides with the gospel.
Sports naturally reward performance. The gospel gives identity before performance.
Sports celebrate being better than someone else. The gospel celebrates becoming more like Christ.
Sports often teach that your value is connected to your production. The gospel insists your value was settled long before you stepped onto the field.
This doesn’t mean Christians shouldn’t pursue excellence. Quite the opposite.
Followers of Jesus should pursue excellence because excellence honors God—not because excellence determines our worth. Those are two entirely different motivations.
But here’s the reality, while there is nothing wrong with wanting to win, when you truly allow yourself to be formed by the Spirit into the image of Christ, you will slowly find yourself caring less about winning. The more we become like Christ, the less willing we become to sacrifice character, integrity, relationships, or worship in order to win. Our goalposts have moved.
HOLD THE LINE
Parents, don’t hear guilt. Hear invitation.
Put your kids in sports. Cheer loudly. Celebrate the doubles, the goals, the touchdowns, the strikeouts, and the game-winning hits. Enjoy every minute. These years disappear far faster than anyone tells you.
Before every season begins, we must determine what kind of people we want our families to become. What will we value? Who and what will we allow to form and shape us?
Don’t let tournament culture determine them.
Don’t let comparison determine them.
Don’t let the loudest parents determine them.
Don’t let fear determine them.
Determine your values first. Then refuse to move the goalposts.
Because if we’re not intentional, youth sports won’t simply teach our children how to compete. They’ll quietly teach all of us what to worship.
Maybe the greatest opponent our kids—and perhaps we as parents—will ever face isn’t lined up on the other team. Maybe it’s the temptation to confuse our identity with our performance; to believe we are what we accomplish instead of who God says we are.
Every field, every court, every gym, and every arena is quietly asking the same question: Who are you?
As followers of Jesus, our greatest calling isn’t simply to raise great athletes. It’s to raise sons and daughters who know, long before they win a game, earn a starting position, or lift a trophy, that they are already deeply loved by God.
Because one day the trophies will gather dust. The championship banners will fade. The statistics will be forgotten. But the identity our children carry into adulthood will remain.
So let them play. Cheer loudly. Celebrate wholeheartedly. Pursue excellence with joy.
And through it all, never stop reminding them that their greatest victory was never going to be found on a scoreboard.
Because in the end, the greatest victory was never winning the game. It was becoming the kind of person who never needed the scoreboard to tell them who they are.