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Every Child an Athlete by Michael Patrick Leahy  Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in the country. It's growth is driven by parent managed "clubs" Every town I grew up in had a playground. Kids would assemble there early in the morning and play whatever sport they felt like that day. Usually it was baseball in the summer, and football in the fall, but sometimes we would mix a little basketball in. Pickup games were easy to find, and relatively easy to police. Someone always had a bat and a ball, and gloves could be shared. To play football, all that was needed was enough space and a football. Basketball required a little more -- one basketball and at least one hoop. Games would last for hours. Kids would come and go throughout, but almost anyone who wanted to play could play. Adults were not often around to make up rules and spoil the fun. The occasional serious dispute might result in the end of the game, and on rare occasions an adult would be brought in to right a wrong. Even with all that activity, some kids were a little over weight. But even the over weight kids participated. As we grew older, our sports became more organized. Baseball pickup games were supplemented by organized Little League games with uniforms and real umpires. Little League graduated to Babe Ruth, which graduated to American Legion. When I was 15 we moved to the village of Randolph, New York. That's where Bob Edgar came into my life, as he had done for hundreds of other kids before me, and hundreds of other kids after. Bob was a modest man, short in stature, but big in heart. He worked as the head of the custodial department at the local high school, but his passion was youth sports. Looking back, I realize now that Bob, in his humble way, was a truly involved in his own outreach ministry, using sports to promote the everyday virtues of Christian faith. To be honest, I don't ever recall Bob saying a prayer, or talking about Christianity. Bob's ministry was one of service, action, and example. Bob's son Terry was my age, and though his athleticism was limited, his love for sport and desire to participate was unlimited. Perhaps it was a desire to give his son the opportunity to participate that drove Bob to spend so much time on youth sports. I don't know, and I imagine somewhere along the line if that was Bob's original motivation, it morphed into a broader calling. Whenever a team needed a coach in order to field a team, Bob was there. Whenever a field needed to be lined, Bob was there. Whenever a ride was needed to get kids to an away game, Bob was there. It seemed like a small thing to me at the time, the kind of thing that someone with no better way to spend his time might do. Now, more than thirty years later, I see how my perceptions at the time failed to realize the significance of Bob Edgar's commitment to his son, his son's friends, and to all the young kids in our community. Fast forward thirty years. I'm the father of two daughters, both of whom have tried sports, both of whom have athleticism, neither of whom have developed the kind of passion for sports that I had as a young man. This was an experience that I loved, one that I wanted them to have, but I didn't seem to have a venue to do it. It's difficult to say exactly why it's so different today. Sure, there are a range of societal changes. No parent today would consider letting their children roam around the town all day, not knowing where they are. Too many kooks out there, too many Amber Alerts with unhappy endings. We all know the stories, and we all want to avoid them in our family. But it's more than that. The terrible secret about youth sports today is this: The pressure to create elite athletes at an early age has ruined the joy and passion of sport for most of our kids. It's often just another pressure inducing, scheduled, performance measured activity that kids come to dread. The traditional sports with major league teams, college scholarships, and big money -- football, baseball, and basketball -- have been transformed into major industries where parents and coaches alike seem have over committed to the "talent development" feeder system model. Let's start Johnny off in baseball at age 4 so he can be drafted by the pros as a senior in high school ! Let's get Sally into the basketball program at age 5 so she can win that scholarship to State U ! The pressure to succeed and perform has moved down the funnel. Pro coaches always you to sweat the details of winning in performance. Most college coaches did too. But now, high performance requirements are moving down to high school, middle school, and even youth programs. Think I'm kidding ? Ask any big city middle school basketball coach if he feels the pressure to find the next scholarship winner. As the requirements for kids to move up the elite performance funnel call for more time, more commitment, and more money, the number of kids who really stick with most sports is on the decline. With a few notable exceptions, per capita participation in high school sports is barely holding its own across the board. Plenty of kids play in the early years of elementary and middle school. But by high school, participation rates drop. Dr. Ken Reed, a sports consultant with a Phd. from the University of Northern Colorado, recently wrote about this in the New York Times. We're fat. In fact, as a country, we've never been fatter. Today, as we prepare for the ultimate couch potato experience -- the Super Bowl -- it is sobering to note that almost 65 percent of adults in the United States are either overweight or obese. That is sad news. But what is even sadder is our children are on pace to be significantly fatter than we are by the time they reach adulthood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the percentage of children ages 6 to 11 who are overweight has increased nearly 300 percent the past 25 years. The numbers are nearly identical for teenagers. As a result, children today have a shorter life expectancy than their parents for the first time in 100 years, said William J. Klish, professor of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine. ''We are in the middle of an epidemic that may have profound health effects for our children,'' Klish said. ''If society doesn't act now to implement preventative measures, the increase of obesity will not stop.'' The health implications are scary. For example, Type 2 diabetes was once considered an adult disease. Now, the incidence of the disease has increased dramatically in children and adolescents because more children are overweight. Klish notes that the percentage of children and adolescents found to have Type 2 diabetes at Texas Children's Hospital has increased to 27 percent in 2002 from less than 1 percent 20 years ago. Making this picture even uglier is the fact that the number of physical education classes in our schools is steadily declining, despite an array of experts stressing more activity is crucial if children are to achieve a healthy weight. Today, Illinois is the only state that still requires daily physical education classes for students K to 12. By high school, most children are basically finished with physical education. The result is that grade-school children are now 24 percent more active than high-schoolers. And Colorado, along with South Dakota, does not have any mandate for physical education on any level -- elementary, middle school, or high school. So, when budgets are tight, physical education is easy to chop. But physical education is only one side of the physical fitness coin for children. The other side is youth sports programs. For very young children, sports opportunities abound. But as children grow older, the emphasis changes from ''participation for all'' to ''participation for the elite,'' and too many children are forced to the sideline, where they become sedentary spectators. Given these discouraging trends, is there any hope ?The answer may lie with a nation in which we all become Bob Edgars in our own community. Take a look at which sports are growing and why. Most often, it's sports that allow kids to have fun. Often this coincides with sports that are not officially school sanctioned, but are part of club teams that are managed and financed by the parents whose kids participate on the teams.Lacrosse, rugby, and volleyball fit this bill quite nicely. Lacrosse participation, for example, for both boys and girls at the high school level is up 50% in the five years from 2001 to 2006, while basketball, football, and baseball have remained virtually stagnant. My own children's participation illustrates one reason why. Three and a half years ago my oldest daughter, thirteen at the time, who had tried soccer and found the elite nature of the sport not her cup of tea, came to me and said something I had been waiting to hear for years--I just didn't know it would come with these particular words. "Dad, I think I might like to play lacrosse. It looks like fun." After years of sitting on the sidelines, it was my turn to be like Bob Edgar. Three and a half years later, we have a thriving girls lacrosse program, with about 40 girls in the middle school and high school teams, operated by the parents as a non-profit corporation. We have "just enough" budget every year, have to scramble for field space and coaches, get little cooperation from the local school systems, but the kids and parents who participate are having a blast. If not for the parents participating, many of these girls would not be playing lacrosse, having fun, and getting in shape. Instead, they would be sitting on the couch, watching TV, eating cheetohs and getting fat. If you are concerned that your child might be headed in that direction, here's some friendly advice: Help your child find a sport they think might be fun, and become a "Bob Edgar" in your own household. Michael Patrick Leahy is the Team Manager for the Knight Eagles Girls Lacrosse Club of Middle Tennessee. 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