Playing sports used to be fun. It used to be a way to get out pent-up energy after a long day of school, spend time with friends, and do the thing you love; sports encouraged personal growth and self-confidence.

For many, that’s not the case anymore. Athletes are now confronted with a steady stream of unrealistic expectations set by intense coaches and overly involved parents.

A close friend of mine faced this with her team in early middle school. While sports have always been her passion, the competitive and overwhelming atmosphere of youth sports began to affect her.

Her coach’s unreachable standards and blatant favoritism nearly overpowered her love for the game. Practices became a source of stress and annoyance. All this led to her switching leagues and considering quitting altogether.

We are now confronted with a question: are youth sports becoming too competitive too early? If you want a chance to compete at the high school level, you need to have played on a highly competitive team for years.

Furthermore, highly competitive teams often require athletes to focus on a single sport year-round. Multi-sport athletes are becoming a thing of the past, yet specialization can be extremely harmful to young athletes.

Early specialization is proven to lead to an increased risk of injury due to overuse. This kind of year-round focus on a single sport also drastically increases the risk of burnout.

Burnout is caused by excessive training with insufficient rest, and rates are skyrocketing among youth athletes. A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) showed that at least 1 in every 10 athletes is suffering from burnout.

However, early specialization isn’t the only cause of burnout; parents and coaches also can have a sizable impact on their athletes’ mental well-being and internal drive. Intense coaches and their unrealistic expectations oftentimes ruin a young athlete’s passion for the game.

By high school, it seems as if almost every athlete has experienced burnout to some degree. Talking with friends of mine, each shared stories about past coaches and varying circumstances that led them to quit.

Each had played different sports, yet all had experienced coaches who were overbearing and even unkind. The overarching similarity seemed to be that when overwhelming pressure was placed on them, it destroyed their interest in the sport.

Yet coaches aren’t the only ones putting unreasonable pressure on athletes. At almost every game, be it the most selective league or just a rec game at the YMCA, parents are on the sidelines calling out contradictory opinions from lawn chairs or bleacher seats.

While supporting and encouraging young athletes is a thing to be valued, there is a fine line to be walked. When parents contradict the coach this line is crossed, and it adds pressure on their kids and creates unnecessary confusion.

Even after the game, parents don’t always get better. The greatest critics of young athletes seem to be their own parents. I have personally seen my teammates’ parents react this way to their childrens’ athletic showing. After an outstanding performance by a friend, watching them be berated by someone who should be their greatest supporter is devastating.

A study by the AAP showed a correlation between burnout rates and perceived pressure. When athletes feel that their parents and coaches measure their overall success on their performance, burnout rates increase drastically.

More often than not, burnout ends with athletes dropping sports. According to the AAP, while more than 60 million children and adolescents participate in organized sports, 70% of athletes drop out of these sports by age 13.

This is causing a loss of physical activity in teens and young adults, with 75% or more of U.S. teens not meeting the physical activity recommendations.

We need to move towards less intense, lower stress games to remedy this. Intramural or recreational games and leagues would help to combat these staggering statistics.

Unfortunately, many high schools, including ours, do not offer this. This is a mistake and we should start a program, possibly modeling it after the intramurals in many collegiate settings, such as the University of Alabama.

This would allow students to be more active in a low-stakes environment with less time commitment.  It would provide a welcoming atmosphere for all levels of talent and experience.

If we can achieve that, we can recreate the focus on mutual respect, self-improvement, collaboration, and better mental health, restoring sports to what they should be: a place for kids to have fun.