From Sport For All To Not About Sport At All

Sport is often perceived as being divided into two separate domains: mass participation and elite . In many countries, policy and funding in these two fields are managed by separate agencies, and investment is often seen as a choice between the two. Elite Sport and Sport-for-All explores the points of connection and sources of tension between elite and mass participation sport. The book’s multi-disciplinary and international line-up of contributors seeks to define, examine, and develop solutions to this problematic relationship. Drawing on research and case studies from around the world—with examples from Denmark, Canada, South Africa and Israel—the book explores key contemporary issues including: does effective talent identification require depth of participation? do elite performances inspire greater participation? the role of the Paralympic movement in mass participation and elite sport; and the economic aspects of their co-existence. The first study of its kind, Elite Sport and Sport-for-All addresses a central dichotomy in sport policy and, as such, is important reading for all students, researchers, policy-makers or administrators working in sport development and policy.

The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.

“A tour de force of reporting” (The Washington Post) from a Pulitzer–prize winning journalist that examines the often-corrupt machine producing America’s basketball stars “Indispensable.”—The Wall Street Journal “Often heart-breaking, always riveting.”—The New York Times Book Review “Tremendous.”—The Plain Dealer Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting• Winner of the Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Youth Sports Using eight years of unfettered access and a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, journalist George Dohrmann reveals a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron,” and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to unrealistic expectations. Complete with a new “where-are-they-now” epilogue by the author, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly compelling narrative exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory. One of GQ’S 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century • One of the Best Books of the Year: Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews This edition includes an exclusive conversation between George Dohrmann and bestselling author Seth Davis.

This collective volume contributes to a growing debate concerning the extent to which we are now living in a global society shaped by sport in addition to economy, technology and so on. It covers 36 countries from five continents, analyzed by 87 contributors, so it offers a large comparative study. It is also a data bank of national information resources for students, researchers, policy-makers, sports leaders and managers. By means of a standard framework used in all chapters, the collected data from national cases on history, management and culture of sport provide interpretations of marketing, sponsorship, finance, target groups, settings for activities, strategy of promotion and social changes as related to Sport for All. This cross-national approach seeks to offer adequate meaning to the practices of each country, stimulating further research on specific themes of physical activities for health and leisure, either in affluent or poor social conditions. The concluding chapter lays the groundwork of Sport for All.

How do the world's best coaches get the best from their athletes? How do top coaches design practices, inspire their players, and build teams that sustain their excellence season after season? Is there a difference between coaching men and women? What about coaching your own child? Most importantly, are these secrets available to the rest of us coaching youth, high school, and college teams? In Every Moment Matters, renowned coach educator John O'Sullivan has collected hundreds of interviews with top coaches, sport scientists, psychologists, and athletes and distilled them into a blueprint for becoming a more effective and inspiring leader. It will reshape your coaching journey by helping you answer four simple questions: Why do I coach?How do I coach?How does it feel to be coached by me?How do I define success? Great coaches realize something that others do not: every moment matters! You must be intentional about everything you do. Whether you are coaching your local youth soccer team, leading your high school football program, or competing for an NCAA Championship, Every Moment Matters will give you the tools and strategies to become the coach you always wished you had, and the coach today's athletes are craving. Get ready to have your best season ever!

Sport has always been central to the movements of both the nation-state and the people who resist that nation-state. Think of the Roman Colosseum, Jesse Owens’s four gold-medal victories in the 1936 Nazi Olympics, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s protest at the 1968 Olympics, and the fallout Colin Kaepernick suffered as a result of his recent protest on the sidelines of an NFL game. Sport is a place where the body and the mind are the most dangerous because they are allowed to be unified as one energy. Bodies Built for Game brings together poems, essays, and stories that challenge our traditional ideas of sport and question the power structures that athletics enforce. What is it that drives us to athletics? What is it that makes us break our own bodies or the bodies of others as we root for these unnatural and performed victories? Featuring contributions from a diverse group of writers, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Fatimah Asghar, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Louise Erdrich, Toni Jensen, Ada Limón, Tommy Orange, Claudia Rankine, Danez Smith, and Maya Washington, this book challenges America by questioning its games.

What is, or what should be, the function of sport in a globalized, commercialized world? Why does sport matter in the 21st century? In Ethics and Governance in Sport: the future of sport imagined, an ensemble of leading international experts from across the fields of sport management and ethics calls for a new model of sport that goes beyond the traditional view that sport automatically encourages positive physical, psychological, social, moral and political values. Acknowledging that sport is beset by poor practice, corruption, and harmful behaviors, it explores current issues in sport ethics, governance and development, considering how good governance and the positive potentials of sport can be implemented in a globalized sporting landscape. Ethics and Governance in Sport suggests a future model of sport governance based on well substantiated projections, and argues that identifying the root causes of harmful behavior, those things that are characteristic of sport, and engaging sport managers, policy makers and leaders of sport organizations, is essential if sport is to thrive. The book’s interdisciplinary examination of sport, encompassing philosophy, sociology, economics, management and sport development, and its forward-looking approach makes it important reading for advanced students, researchers and policy makers with an interest in the place and development of modern sport. Its clear messages invite self-reflection and discussion, especially within sports organizations.

Sport is often seen as an indicator of the civic maturity of a community, an aspect of the rights of citizens to health, education and social integration. This book examines the relationships between participation in sport and physical activity, and welfare policies across Europe. It argues that the success of campaigns for the promotion of sport depend on the existence of dedicated welfare policies promoted by the European states and explores variations in cultural models and structures of governance across Europe. Addressing the function of supranational institutions such as the EU as well as voluntary networks, the book illuminates key issues in European societies such as migration, financial austerity and Brexit as they relate to sport policy. This is important reading for scholars and students in the fields of European sport and physical activity, sociology, political science and organisational analysis, as well as operators and managers of the sport systems involved in advanced training programmes.

This edited collection problematizes trajectories of health promotion across the lifespan. It provides a distinctive critical social science perspective of the various directions taken by dominant policies in their approach to promoting sport for all ages. It offers an array of theoretical and methodologically diverse perspectives on this topic, and highlights the intersections between different life stages and social, economic and cultural factors in the developed world, including class, gender, ability, family dynamics and/or race. Sport and Physical Activity across the Lifespan critically explores dominant policies of age-focussed sport promotion in order to highlight its implications within the context of particular life stages as they intersect with social, cultural and economic factors. This includes an examination of organised sport for pre-schoolers; ‘at-risk’ youth sport programmes; and the creation of sporting sub-cultures within the mid-life ‘market’. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learning more about how age and life stages affect the way people think about and participate in sport, and to better understand the impacts of sport across the lifespan.