Projo Sports Blog

By CRAIG SMITH
The Seattle Times

SEATTLE - Tom Farrey, investigative reporter and father of three, spent years examining kids' sports in America and has a two-word description: "Runaway train."

"It's less and less accessible to the late bloomer, the genetically ordinary, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other - the clinically obese," Farrey writes.

Farrey, a former Seattle Times sports reporter, is now a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, and an on-air journalist on ESPN's E:60 newsmagazine. His work has won two Emmys for outstanding sports journalism. This, his first book, is an important work in that it touches almost every American home with kids.

Some of the information in the book is startling: college athletes being paid for their sperm by women or couples who want athletic children; a "world championship" golf tournament for 6-year-olds; fourth-graders getting letters of interest from college basketball coaches; a national ranking for fourth-grade basketball players; 6-year-olds with personal trainers; and a New England couple that spends an estimated $100,000 a year on sports for its five kids who aren't yet in high school.

Click here to continue reading.

 Tags  ESPN Tom Farrey Youth sports

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.