Take Back the Game

How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports--and Why It Matters

By: Linda Flanagan

Narrated by: Abby Craden

Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book Awards 2022

A close look at how big money and high stakes have transformed youth sports, turning once healthy, fun activities for kids into all-consuming endeavors—putting stress on children and families alike

Some 75% of American families want their kids to play sports. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life. But youth sports have changed so dramatically over the last 25 years that they no longer deliver the healthy outcomes everyone wants. Instead, unbeknownst to most parents, kids who play competitive organized sports are more likely to burn out or suffer from overuse injuries than to develop their characters or build healthy habits. What happened to kids' sports? And how can we make them fun again?

In Take Back the Game, coach and journalist Linda Flanagan reveals how the youth sports industry capitalizes on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures, selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Drawing on her experience as a coach and a parent, along with research and expert analysis, Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has:

• Compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport.
• Increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems.
• Encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents.
• Reduced access to sports for low-income families.

A provocative and timely entrant into a conversation thousands of parents are having on the sidelines, Take Back the Game uncovers how youth sports became a serious business, the consequences of raising the stakes for kids and parents alike—and the changes we need now.

©2022 Linda Flanagan (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Searing indictment of the current state of youth sports . . . It’s all too easy for parents to recognize that there’s a problem, but it’s much harder to swim against the societal current on your own. Here’s hoping Flanagan’s book helps kickstart a movement.”—ALEX HUTCHINSON’s 2022 Sweat Science Holiday Book List, Outside Magazine

“I think Take Back the Game is a profoundly important book. Every parent needs to read it.”—MALCOLM GLADWELL, host of the podcast Revisionist History

“This book is for anyone who has ever found themselves spending entire weekends at youth soccer events and asked, ‘Why?’”—NEW YORK POST, Best Books of 2022

Insightful, Meaningful and Impactful

This book expresses everything I’ve felt is so detrimental in youth sports these days and contains good ideas for dealing with them Excellent narration also.

Terrific narrative of a troubling matter

So well done! Personal stories mixed with statistics and facts. And, best off all, offers solutions for some of the issues parents and coaches face today. Thank you for your voice!

Important book for parents of youth athletes

The content of this book is riveting and extremely important for parents, and all involved in youth sports, to hear and contemplate. However, the reader was miscast. She has less inflection than Siri; her interpretation of phrases is stilted, like a dispassionate robot. Sometimes, she reads a sentence and sounds caught off guard to have gotten to the end of it, like she didn't understand what she was reading, or didn't rehearse the content. These moments should have been re-recorded as they are jarring to the listener. If it were not for the well-written content, I would have quit listening because of the poor interpretation of that content by the actress. I know the book is well-written because I can hear the turn of phrase through the robotic voice, and I wish a warmer actor could have interpreted it. This is the kind of experience that kept me away from audio books for many years - expressionless reading of words on a page, losing the humanity of the author.

Must Read for any Youth Sports Parent or Coach

Great dive into how far off course we’ve gone with youth sports with some ideas on how to get back on track.

Terrific Book

All youth sports parents and coaches should read this book. Really makes some excellent observations and recommendations on youth sports today.

Kid sports are a mess

The book does a good job of explaining the problem and aiming the reader at Resources like the Aspen Institute. It seems to be less strong on solutions that would actually fix the problems.

great

the next level from Micheal Lewis's personal story. glad to see more information on kids sports. parents need to see all sides of this

Read this book with a grain of salt

Makes a lot of good points about the dangers of focusing on only one sport year round and starting at earlier ages. Explains the economics of the rise in club sports and the conflict with high school athletics. However the description of coaching and coaches focuses on the the worst examples. Although acknowledging the benefits of sports, fitness, and competition, sports today are depicted so negatively that I was left with the idea that having my children in organized sports is placing them at risk for physical and psychological harm.

Terrible narration

This narrator reads the book as though it’s a novel. Such distracting inflections and vocal fry.