Rec Sports

Simone Biles’ coach Aimee Boorman: Finding ‘balance’ wasn’t easy

Simone Biles’ message for foster care children: ‘You can do anything’ Simone Biles is a national ambassador for Friends of the Children, and she shares her message for children in foster care. “Simone never would have made it in my gym.” Aimee Boorman has heard that line, over and over, from other coaches when they […]

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1 month ago

April 27, 2025

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“Simone never would have made it in my gym.”

Aimee Boorman has heard that line, over and over, from other coaches when they talk about the gymnast she helped lift to heights never seen within their sport.

“They say it with a sense of pride,” Boorman tells USA TODAY Sports, “and it’s like, ‘So you realize how many potential Simones you have pushed out of your gym?’ “

Biles was the kid who always loved the gymnastics part, but not the work that went into making her the best. Some days she just wanted to go home.

Those characteristics didn’t necessarily change as she grew into the decorated champion America knew. Boorman, though, was willing to manage them in a way others wouldn’t.

Biles’ coach from age 7 through her four-gold-medal performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics remembers her as one of her more challenging pupils.

“If everybody is just strict and obedient, you grow stale as a coach,” Boorman says. “So when you have somebody who’s throwing something new at you all the time, on an emotional level, on a personality level, you gotta grow. And I think some of those other coaches weren’t willing to grow.

“When people say, ‘Well, there’s only going to be one Simone,’ I’m like, ‘That’s not true.’ You have to know how to manage that athlete to get them to the point they could be a Simone.”

Boorman’s approach – nurturing, forgiving, even relenting – was novel to coaching within a sport of forced discipline and regulation. She lays out her methodology, ingrained in her by a tumultuous childhood experience, in “The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles.”

The book, which was released last week, reveals a back story of how athletes develop and mature but also how they can have giggles on their face before and after their most triumphant Olympic moments.

Boorman and co-author Steve Cooper spoke with us about facing unique challenges while coaching and parenting our athletes and how we can overcome them in unexpected ways.

“Nothing about Simone’s greatness was inevitable,” Cooper said during our Zoom interview. “It was a process. It wasn’t just luck.”

‘If it wasn’t fun, she wasn’t having any part of it’: Without love for a sport, it’s difficult to move forward

Boorman is often asked if she knew when Biles would become superstar. The answer: When she became one.

“Up until that point, anything can happen,” she says, “and any given day, if Simone didn’t have that passion and that love for gymnastics inside of her, she could be like, ‘I’m done. I’m gonna go run track.’ “

Boorman recalls the joy she felt as a young girl in the early 1980s, when she first flung herself from the bars of Lakeshore Academy in Chicago, but also how quickly a reckless coach drained it from her.

No matter how long she stood on the balance beam, her arms raised until they were numb trying to get Coach Jeremy’s attention, he wasn’t satisfied. His name is a pseudonym, but also an extreme archetype for an era of the sport: No positive reinforcement, no acknowledgement of effort and sometimes little hope.

“That constant negative input made me have total lack of belief in myself,” she says.

And yet, like most kids, Aimee yearned to please him. She arrived early one day, straining to grab his undivided attention by working out on her own. She broke her leg. Then he ignored her for months until she finally quit.

“I was really useless to him because I couldn’t compete,” she says.

She was pulled back when she coached preschool kids after school a couple of years later. There was something bright within them that she used to feel, something we can so easily push out of young athletes if we don’t nurture it. It was a light she saw in a 7-year-old who bounced around Bannon’s, the gym north of Houston where Boorman started working as a young adult.

Simone Biles couldn’t sit still, but when she did, she pushed herself up off the ground with her arms and slid her legs from straight in front of her to a position in which she was lying on her stomach.

“What she was doing is not normal,” Boorman says. “We knew that she was going to be able to learn very quickly, but she was just a little girl, and she didn’t like to do the conditioning, and she didn’t want to have to take extra turns. She just wanted it to be fun. And when it wasn’t fun, she wasn’t having any part of it. She didn’t want to be involved at all.”

COACH STEVE: 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by 13. Why?

‘There is no possible way you could disappoint me’: Every day, even a bad one, is an opportunity to move forward

Like other kids, Biles had fears. One was a mental block on her beam series. Boorman would ask her to complete it three times, but would never leave her out there too long like Jeremy had done. They would just come back the next day and try again, a give-and-take that would continue throughout their time together.

“There were times that she would come in the gym in the morning and she would have a sense of dread about what she was going to have to do based on what she did or didn’t finish the day before,” Boorman says. “And I hope that when she walked in and saw me, and I was like, ‘Good morning,’ and I was very light with her, that then she could go, ‘OK, wait a minute. Maybe I’m not in trouble. Maybe I didn’t disappoint her.’ “

Boorman, through the torture, had felt like she was letting Coach Jeremy down. To this day, she tells her students, “There’s no possible way you could disappoint me.”

It’s up to them, not her, what they became. It’s her job to support what they want.

“As a coach, you could never want it more than the athlete,” she says, “and if you do want it more than the athlete, then there’s a problem. I know a lot of overzealous young coaches who are like, ‘Oh, but I want an Olympian,’ but you’re never going to have an Olympian because that’s what you want.

“If we focus too much on the championship and on that win, then we’re losing the human in the process.”

She likes to live in a “compliment sandwich,” where constructive criticism is surrounded by praise of effort, even on so-called bad days. Those are a matter of perspective, anyway.

“I have an elite gymnast (who) had been out of the gym for a couple of months, not really training, and she came back in and successfully did a skill that she hadn’t done in two months, and she was like, ‘That was terrible,’ ” Boorman says. “And I was like, ‘You haven’t done it in two months, and you did it. We’re going to celebrate those wins, and it’s going to be better tomorrow.”

Boorman wanted her students to be comfortable around her so they would express themselves. That way, she could see deep inside and better understand them.

“Simone’s not a person to go (in) the corner and go through her stuff in her head to get her in the zone,” she would learn. “She has to be there, completely relaxed, cheering on other people. And then when the green light goes on for her to compete, she’s like, game on. But she doesn’t waste any of that in her mind. In her mind, that focus is a waste. Other athletes are completely different.

“So it doesn’t say anything about what process is correct, but it’s what process is best for each athlete. So for younger coaches who are bringing up the athletes who are not elite yet, you have to give them all of the different tools, and they’re going to find out which process works best for them.”

‘Its just gymnastics’: The needs of the athlete – not those of the coach – have to come first

Biles realized her connection with “Coach Aimee” at 13, when she was invited to a U.S. women’s national team development camp and saw teammates who weren’t as close with their coaches.

They all trained under the strict orders of the program, which wasn’t for Biles.

“People who are ridiculously talented don’t have to work that hard,” Boorman says. “So when she had to work hard because she was struggling with something, she was not the most pleasant to be around, because it was very frustrating for her and it was easy for her to give up. I can say she was incredibly dedicated. I can’t say she was an incredible hard worker. She knew it became the job that she chose to do and coming in and putting in the hours and everything. But I’ve known a lot of people who are much harder workers, I guess is the gentle way is to say it.”

Martha Karolyi, the program leader, called Biles sloppy and lazy at one of her early visits to camp. Boorman says that killed her confidence, and she declined their next invitation.

Biles didn’t start training a lot of hours until she was 16 or 17.

“If we had focused on the refinement earlier, she could have been winning meets earlier, but there was also the risk of burnout,” Boorman says.

Those mid-teen years coincided with what Boorman calls the toughest days coaching Biles.

“It was never, ‘I don’t want to do this, I want to do this,’ ” Boorman says. “But there were the normal teenage antics, the head butting and things like that. And so I had to be very strategic about when I would push and when I would let go. I know this can be construed as you’re kicking somebody out of practice, but there would be days that I would say, ‘I think practice should be over for today because we’re not getting anywhere. Neither one of us is having fun.’

“And sometimes she was like, ‘Bye,’ and other times she’s like, ‘No, I’m sorry. I want to get this done. I’m just frustrated.’ But no matter what every day was, we turned the page.”

Ahead of the U.S. Classic in 2013 in Chicago, Boorman says Biles intentionally fell off the apparatus, jumped off the beam and let herself fall on her vaults. It was her way, her coach said, of controlling an environment where she didn’t want to work.

Boorman wouldn’t force Biles through workouts, but she would let her fail in competition to make a point. When she took a nasty fall, they moved on to the next event.

“I’ve always been a big supporter of family vacations and take the day off,” Boorman says. “We need mental health days. When I was a gymnast, there was no such thing, and I think that there’s too many sports in general, they want you to come in when you’re sick, when you’re tired, when you’re mentally exhausted, because that’s going to build character. And I just disagree with it. I feel like, if you take one day off and you rest, you’re going to come back so much stronger.

“It’s just gymnastics. You shouldn’t be risking your health just to achieve a sports goal.”

When she was no longer working with Boorman, Biles removed herself from the 2020 Games when she developed “the twisties.” She had concluded, Boorman says, that “the Olympics were not more important than her life.”

“I think somewhere in her she knew it was going to be OK, and I think that was probably because early on in her career, it was OK to just pull yourself from the competition,” says Cooper, Boorman’s co-author.

Overcoming ‘the twisties’ in 2016: ‘You only have to live up to your own expectations’

The twisties occur when a gymnast can’t tell where he or she is in the air. Biles also beat them ahead of the Rio Olympics, which Boorman reveals in her book.

She was 19 and had won three all-around world championship titles in a row and feeling the weight of being the favorite in her first Olympics.

Instead of forcing twists, Boorman temporarily removed them from Biles’ routine, which relieved the pressure.

“And each day I would say, ‘OK, do you feel like twisting today?’ And she’d be like, ‘Well, yeah, but I think I can only go off beam.’ And so she would only do her beam dismount.’ She wouldn’t twist off bars or floor or falls.

“It would be baby steps from there. She might come in one day and say, ‘OK, I think I’m ready to do this today.’ And then she would start to do it and be like, ‘No.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, don’t worry about it. There’s so many other things we can do.’ And then instilling that confidence in her that she wasn’t going to lose her skills was important as well.”

They were relying on the repetition they had already done.

“We had taken so many years to refine them that the muscle memory was there,” Boorman says. “We just had to clear out her brain.”

They gradually noticed she was cured over time, like the way we notice other peoples’ children growing, then realize ours are, too.

“I always told her that she wasn’t responsible for other people’s expectations of her,” Boorman says. “That was their problem and shame on them for setting those expectations. She only had to live up to her own expectations.”

(This story was updated to add new information.)

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@usatoday.com

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Az youth confront lawmakers over anti-LGBTQ+ moves — including from Democrats

Organizers from across Arizona gathered at the state Capitol on Monday to mark the start of Pride Month and push back against what they called a continued onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed by the state Legislature. While LGBTQ+ rights groups have often used Pride Month to criticize Republicans for targeting trans and queer youth, two […]

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1 minute ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

While LGBTQ+ rights groups have often used Pride
Month to criticize Republicans for targeting trans and queer youth, two
Democrats were also named this year for advancing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric
and legislation: U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego and Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Last week, The Dispatch
published an interview with Gallego in which he broke from fellow
Democrats on the issue of transgender youth athletes, saying they should
not be allowed to participate in youth sports.

“As a parent of a daughter, I think it’s legitimate that parents are
worried about the safety of their daughters, and I think it’s legitimate
for us to be worried also about fair competition,” Gallego said. “And I
think the parents of these trans children also are worried legitimately
about the health and wellness of their kids. There are some sports that
some of these trans children should not be playing.”

Gallego said there should be separation based on biology, adding:
“Hey, listen, we love you. We want you to be part of our community, but
this is just the one place you can’t play, and let’s find other
activities for you to be involved.”

His comments echoed “separate
but equal” arguments once used to justify banning gay and lesbian people
from teaching or serving in the military—language that LGBTQ+ advocates
say has no place in progressive politics.

Still, Gallego appears to be applying similar logic to trans youth.

Following publication of the interview, LGBTQ+ advocates and progressive groups in Arizona—and nationwide—voiced their dismay, saying Gallego has abandoned the values that won their support during his Senate campaign.

“Senator
Ruben Gallego’s recent remarks targeting transgender youth have left
many of us in Arizona, and across the nation, feeling disheartened and
outraged,” said a petition issued by Scott Blades,
executive director of the Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network. “These
comments serve to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and discrimination
against an already vulnerable community, undermining the principles of
equality and inclusion that are fundamental to our society.”

At the Capitol, youth leaders and young people directly called out Gallego’s shift.

“We
must ensure our schools are safe spaces,” said Kado Stewart, a program
director at Phoenix-based LGBTQ+ youth organization one•n•ten, which
operates statewide. “That means ensuring our transgender students have
the ability to participate in school athletics, which are proven to
improve mental health, reduce anxiety and depression, and build teamwork
skills. Those who want to participate in sports shouldn’t have to find
other activities.”

Violet DuMont, a transgender student from Tucson, addressed Gallego directly.

“Hey
Ruben, if you can’t stand up for trans kids, maybe Congress isn’t the
right place for you—and let’s find another activity for you to make fair
competition,” DuMont said.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a longtime LGBTQ+
ally who has vetoed numerous anti-trans bills, was also criticized for
signing HB 2112—a sweeping anti-pornography law that has been used in
other states to label LGBTQ+ content, such as books and sex education
materials, as “adult content.”

“Few organizations across Arizona
actually supported this piece of legislation, and the governor still
decided to sign it,” said Harrison Redmond, a community organizer with
the ACLU of Arizona. “LGBTQ+ youth deserve to be seen, heard, and have
access to medically accurate, identity-affirming, and life-saving
information readily available online. HB 2112 risks taking that away—and
Gov. Hobbs was wrong to sign this bill, full stop.”

The statements challenging Hobbs and Gallego were made at a youth day
for LGBTQ+ people at the Capitol. The event is an annual gathering on
the start of Pride month hosted by Rep. Lorena Austin of Mesa with the
help of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups such as Human Rights Campaign of Arizona,
ACLU of Arizona, the Greater Phoenix Equality Chamber of Commerce, and
Education Action Alliance, formerly known as GLSEN-AZ.

Youth are
given a chance to speak confidentially to Democratic lawmakers
face-to-face on how legislation and politics affect their daily lives.

But
more than an opportunity to express grievances publicly, the day is a
celebration for queer youth to show up for each other in numbers. One
Tucson student, Mya Figueroa, urged her fellow trans youth to stay
hopeful and positive: “I’m proud of myself and my siblings,” she said.
“Don’t forget that you are not alone, you are loved, and needed in all
spaces. You are whole just as you are.”

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Rec Sports

Youth softball | News, Sports, Jobs

Vivien Palmieri hit a home run as Warren Music Conservatory beat Jones Chevrolet 23-12. Peytynn Kirby and Alliesun Woodin each had a double in the win. Khloe Morse was the winning pitcher and Brooke Scott took the loss. —— Katelyn Krall was the winning pitcher for I.O.O.F. in a 16-3 win over Superior Plus Propane. […]

Published

20 minutes ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Vivien Palmieri hit a home run as Warren Music Conservatory beat Jones Chevrolet 23-12.

Peytynn Kirby and Alliesun Woodin each had a double in the win.

Khloe Morse was the winning pitcher and Brooke Scott took the loss.

——

Katelyn Krall was the winning pitcher for I.O.O.F. in a 16-3 win over Superior Plus Propane.

Gianna Blankenship doubled and Alexis Campman took the loss for Superior Plus Propane.

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Nevada basketball sharpshooter Izzy Sullivan makes Ireland’s under-20 national team

Izzy Sullivan, a rising junior on the Nevada women’s basketball team, was named Monday to Ireland’s under-20 national team. The squad led by coach Karl Kilbride named its final 12-player roster, which includes only two new players who will make their EuroBasket debuts, including Sullivan. The Irish team will compete at the FIBA Youth EuroBasket […]

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2 hours ago

June 3, 2025

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Izzy Sullivan, a rising junior on the Nevada women’s basketball team, was named Monday to Ireland’s under-20 national team.

The squad led by coach Karl Kilbride named its final 12-player roster, which includes only two new players who will make their EuroBasket debuts, including Sullivan.

The Irish team will compete at the FIBA Youth EuroBasket in Miskolc, Hungary in Group B in August along with Great Britain and Ukraine. Ireland will play Ukraine on Aug. 3 and Great Britain on Aug. 4. Sullivan is the only Division I college player to make Ireland’s roster.

A 5-foot-10 guard, Sullivan has averaged 9.1 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game in 25.5 minutes per game in two seasons at Nevada. She’s shot 38 percent from the field, including 35.5 percent from three, in 59 games with 38 starts. Sullivan was born in Dublin but moved to the Seattle area in her youth when her father got a job with Microsoft. It’s in the Pacific Northwest where Sullivan found basketball.

“They just put me into it for something to do, like the Parks and Rec foundation we had by me,” Sullivan said during a Q&A with NSN in January 2024. “And then I just fell in love with it, just watching NBA and WNBA and college sports. It just kind of grew from there and they kind of learned the game along with me.”

Sullivan, who played for Eastside Catholic High in Sammamish, Wash., still makes regular trips to Ireland.

“They’re a lot of fun,” Sullivan said. “It’s pretty busy. Everybody wants to see you, so you’re busy every day, but especially in the short break we have. I’ll probably have a week there, so I just try to make the most out of it and see as many people as possible. … They’re really just huge supporters even though they’re not close to America. I love it there. I love all my family there. They’ve just been a big part of my journey knowing that I have that support.”

Ireland’s under-20 roster includes Sullivan, Lucy Hynes, Aisling Moran, Ava Walshe, Caitlin Gloeckner, Emer Dunne, Emma Gribben, Emma Tolan, Grace Prenter, Katie O’Sullivan, Rachel Lynch and Rebecca Sexton.

“We’ve been so impressed by the intensity levels and commitment from the group over the last few months,” Kilbride said in a news release. “Over the course of two open trials and six training weekends, they’ve made our lives as coaches really easy on the court, but that makes these kinds of decisions all the harder. We’re in a really enviable position, where we have to leave players behind who are more than good enough to play for Ireland, but were just unlucky this particular year.

“We have an absolutely hectic summer ahead with six games against Iceland, Croatia and Switzerland before we kick off our EuroBasket campaign proper against Ukraine on August 3. We’re so excited to be working with the group we’ve selected and with the commitment levels and improvements shown so far we have a chance to have a really successful summer ahead.”

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Kalamazoo’s youth sports complex likely to be built between Drake Road, US-131 | WKZO | Everything Kalamazoo

KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – It looks likely that Kalamazoo’s new $40 million youth sports tournament facility will be built in the city of Kalamazoo. Discover Kalamazoo Director Jane Ghosh told the city commission last night that a selection committee will recommend 15-acres on the west edge of town near U.S. 131. “Specifically in the […]

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3 hours ago

June 3, 2025

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KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – It looks likely that Kalamazoo’s new $40 million youth sports tournament facility will be built in the city of Kalamazoo.

Discover Kalamazoo Director Jane Ghosh told the city commission last night that a selection committee will recommend 15-acres on the west edge of town near U.S. 131.

“Specifically in the Westgate area, between Drake Road and 131, North of the Holiday Inn,” says Ghosh.

The Kalamazoo County board will take the final vote, but they are expected to go with the recommendation.

That location was picked over sites in Portage and in Texas Township.

Ghosh says the location will help the facility achieve one of its goals, and that’s to provide a place for many young athletes who may not have a place to play.

“Local use of this facility will be prioritized Monday through Thursday, and that will significantly increase participation opportunities for underserved youth.”

She says its construction will be fully funded by a fee on hotel rooms, and its local operation will be funded by regional basketball and volleyball tournaments on the weekends.

There may be winners and losers in the games, but the facility will generate mostly winners, with tourism and hotel rooms up and the creation of over 600 new jobs.

“It means an annual economic impact of impact of almost $50 million.”

Ghosh say their current goal is to have it operational by 2027, about the same time that the new downtown arena could be ready to open.

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Registration Now Open for Parks and Recreation Fall Team Sports – City of Lincoln, NE

Published on June 03, 2025 The Parks and Recreation Department today announced that registration is open for fall team sports, including adult volleyball, kickball, softball, and youth NFL Flag football. Adult leagues are for those age 18 and older. Youth leagues are for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. Online registration is available at teamsideline.com/lincolnne […]

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3 hours ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Published on June 03, 2025

The Parks and Recreation Department today announced that registration is open for fall team sports, including adult volleyball, kickball, softball, and youth NFL Flag football. Adult leagues are for those age 18 and older. Youth leagues are for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Online registration is available at teamsideline.com/lincolnne for the following leagues:

Adult volleyball – Coed leagues play Thursday nights, and women’s leagues play Monday nights. Recreational and competitive leagues include an eight-game season and a double-elimination tournament. Games are played September 4 through late November at the Calvert Recreation Center, 4500 Stockwell St. The fee is $311 for early online registration July 7 through July 13. Regular registration is $322 per team and the registration deadline is August 10.

Adult slow-pitch softball – Recreational and competitive coed leagues and men’s leagues include an a six-week regular season and single elimination tournament. Games will be played at Mahoney, Holmes, and Ballard fields beginning August 10. The regular registration fee is $306 per team until July 13, and late registration is $328. The registration deadline is July 20.

Adult kickball – Outdoor competitive and recreation leagues are scheduled on Sundays at the Lewis ballfield complex. The six-game season is from mid-August through October and includes a single elimination tournament. The fee is $253 per team and the registration deadline is July 20. Teams require a minimum of 10 players.

Youth NFL flag football – Five-on-five coed play is offered for children in kindergarten through eighth grade – as of the 2025-26 school year. Games are played on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays at Densmore ballfields from August 18 through mid-October. Registration fees through July 14 are $98 for the first child and $93 for each additional child in the same family. Late registration fees from July 15 through 21 are $108 for the first child and $103 for each additional child in the same family. Need-based scholarships are available.

“Team sports are a great opportunity for friends, coworkers, and church groups to play a fun and friendly sport recreationally or competitively having a good time together for a night out,” said Monica Manning, Team Sports Supervisor.

Official/referee positions are available for team sports games. Positions pay $26 per game. Contact the Team Sports office at 402-441-7892 for more information.

For more information about adult and youth team sports, call 402-441-7892 or visit teamsideline.com/lincolnne. For more information about Lincoln Parks and Recreation programs, visit parks.lincoln.ne.gov.

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Boys Are Playing Less Sports, and Losing Out

I assume it’s just the acidic mix of sweat and cheap hair gel streaming down my forehead that stings my eyes. But it’s teenage heartbreak playing out at center ice. My anger feels tangible. Rage knots in my throat as I wait in the postgame handshake line. Yet when I finally grip the hand of […]

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3 hours ago

June 3, 2025

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In his eyes, I can see a kid like me, with homework to get to.

Those memories of emotional strain, decades ago, stand in contrast to the curated, frictionless experiences that I worry define so much of boys’ lives today. In an era of AI, video games, cheap dopamine, solitude, porn, sports betting and fantasy sports, the frictions of youth sports feel more urgent. On the ice, field, or court, you can’t scroll away from an elbow or a benching; you can’t summon talent with a sharper ChatGPT prompt; you can’t order grit online; you can’t deny the limits of your genetics or preparation.

Striving to win, alongside other boys on a shared mission, remains a dopamine high hard to attain elsewhere. And even though losing a meaningful game, injuries, and toxic competitiveness all hurt, these experiences are processed and spread across a team instead of being stomached alone.

Beyond physical fitness, youth sports – regardless of the competition level – can be a pathway to identity formation, self-efficacy, bodily awareness, and tempering emotional highs and lows that boys need. Sports — with the mandate to move, then move on — should belong to all boys, rich or poor, highly athletic or not. However, youth sports participation has declined among boys over the last decade. Data suggests that while American boys are playing sports at lower rates, girls’ participation remains stable. The downward trend among boys is disheartening, especially as it’s more pronounced among low-income youth, according to a report from the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM). Only 25 percent of low-income boys participate in sports, while the overall participation rate for boys is 53 percent.

With boys and young men falling behind in educational achievement and measures of mental health, sports emerge as an valuable domain in which to practice rebounding from setbacks.

Why Are Boys Playing Fewer Sports?

AIBM’s report uses recent data to shed light on why low-income boys may be playing sports less, including:

Increasing costs
Academic ineligibility
Scarcity of coaches
Less casual play with an increase in sports specialization
Early sports specialization leading to burnout, injuries, and fewer multisport athletes
Screen time; 61% of teenage boys play video games daily
Lingering impact of COVID program closures
Increase in concussion concerns

Resilience, Learned Relationally

Participation in organized sports is linked to reduced anxiety and depression, and its effect seems to be greater in team sports. For less advantaged youth, research suggests that sports can provide social and emotional benefits.

Resilience is the ability to “weather and recover” from adversity. Organized team sports can be a level playing field where a kid’s effort is rewarded, unlike schools and broken social systems that may be stacked against them. For a fidgety boy on the brink of giving up, bouncing back may best be learned in action, embodied, alongside peers and coaches.

One study found that sports, when combined with supportive relationships, can help kids overcome the harmful effects of abuse, neglect, or growing up around addiction; another demonstrated that teens who play sports tend to have greater self-control, stronger social skills, and higher empathy than those who don’t, especially if they play multiple sports.

The Much-Needed Masculinity of Bouncing Back

An overlooked aspect of masculinity involves the guts to take your shot and then miss (whether it’s getting cut from a team or denied after asking a girl out); to take an “L” like a champ and say, “My bad.”

This is exactly what youth sports can teach at a time when many boys are falling behind. Sports offer an arena in which to calibrate dominance and sensitivity, when to fight or finesse. Today, a boy, shaped by the algorithms he’s fed, may not tune into male leaders who are relatable and emotionally grounded. In their place are wealthy guys or “manfluencers” who don’t own their missteps, accept results, or make concession speeches.

Not backing down, hinting at conspiracy, crying foul, and willful denial are confessions of insecurity made with bravado. But a real team doesn’t pretend you won when the scoreboard says otherwise. That lesson deepens when boys watch grown, professional athletes, after a long run in the playoffs, line up to shake hands, battered but still embracing their opponents. From this, they absorb a masculinity rooted in resilience, accountability, and grace. A boy recognizes: I, too, can strive hard and accept loss.

Sport and Competition Essential Reads

From the Field to Real Life

Does sports participation lead to resilience, or are resilient kids more likely to participate in sports? Data indicates it runs both ways. Some studies find that resilience gained in playing sports can transfer to resilience in other parts of life, but only with deliberate reflection and meaning-making. Research suggests resilience is a dynamic process rather than a static trait, meaning that it evolves and changes over time, depending on the situation.

Perhaps boys can better learn to bounce back with the help of male teachers and/or coaches who place losing and winning in context, and who model emotional intelligence with skillful communication (rather than barking orders). Communities could invest more in free weekend leagues staffed by volunteer coaches to help organize athletic competition without financial barriers.

The current trend of specialization in youth sports is worrying. It’s important to reduce youth sports costs through lower fees and to expand casual, non-competitive play options as well. Just as income ought not impact access to sports, neither should athleticism.

Let’s create opportunities for boys to fall and get back up, not just on playing fields but relational ones, where humility and community can take root.

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