Courtesy of USADA
An op-ed published in The Chicago Tribune calls for more government funding and support for youth sports, citing state-level initiatives in California and Illinois as examples.
Illinois has dedicated almost $14M to community-based youth sports programs in partnership with Laureus Sport for Good USA
Over 50 orgs have provided no-cost opportunities to over 40K kids in "77 high-poverty, high-violence zip codes"
Illinois also established a national-first state youth sports commission this year
California is currently considering the Youth Sports for All Act
The bill would create a commission tasked with investigating whether the state should have a centralized youth sports body
The commission would also create recommendations for reforms and access expansion
The column was co-authored by Laureus board chair Edwin Moses — a former Olympic champion hurdler and USADA chair — and Renata Simril, the president of the Play Equity Fund.
“By treating access to youth sports as a public policy issue rather than a privilege available to only elite kid athletes, Illinois and California are modeling what it looks like when government engages to uplift every child, not just the ones whose families can afford the fees, equipment and transportation,” they wrote.
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