Over the past few months, Hilton has been marketing their new/updated app; using attempted humor to bring in new customers. I get it. Put together a funny add and people will download and use your app. One of the adds stars Anna Kendrick as “coach”. Look, I get that they are trying to be funny and anyone who knows me will well tell you that I joke around more than the average person. This ad, however, is simply stereotypical, inaccurate and misguided.

Let’s first get something out of the way. Our current youth sports system in the United States is not working. I don’t want to say it’s broken, but it isn’t working for the majority of our youth. The pay to play model that permeates basketball, soccer, volleyball, football and other sports doesn’t allow for most youth to access it. We’ve turned out youth sports into a business, one that we could argue focuses more on the money than on the personal and athletic development of the athletes themselves. I just finished attending the United Soccer Coaches Conference and a couple of things jumped out to me. 

Part of the reason that I decided to start this podcast and blog is because I’ve noticed for a long time that the focus of most of our sports coverage around the world is focused heavily on wins and losses and competition and less on the type of stories that I’ve always felt are the true power of athletics. While I certainly love sports in all its forms and never shy away from competition myself, I’d like to focus mainly on the bigger picture of sports and how they can play such a powerful role in the lives of people all over the world. We will focus heavily on the impact that sport can have on our youth, but the premise of this blog is that sports are much more than wins and losses. It’s about bringing people together for a greater cause and allowing people to connect in meaningful ways that go far beyond our sidelines.