[background noises] i like to call this hearing back to order. for our final session of the day we have four witnesses who can help us understand broader trends in youth sports participation the view from the private sector, issues involving coaching and how other nations have structured governance and oversight. with us for this session as project manager the institute sport and society program. sally, co- executive director of the united states at peace players, jeremy goldberg the president of a leak asking tom the founder and executive director of the aspen institute sport and society program is was a former sports journalist and author of the 2007 book game on the all american race makes a champion of our children print out also like to note katrina from the u.s. department of health and human services

represent the president's council on sports, fitness and nutrition has submitted written testimony which will appear in the record alongside other testimony from the session. as a reminder all witnesses are asked to keep to five minutes for the prepared testimony. and as you can see if the timers on the wall in front of you we are doing our best to keep to that. i will now yield each of you five minutes. >> good afternoon distinguished members of the commission. project manager with the sport society program of the aspen institute. thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in the future sports in america particularly the state. admittedly bring a diverse perspective to the states hearing when i started coaching at 18 although i found a service to many families particularly underserved communities coaching quickly became a calling than a career but not in the way i thought. rather than learning an inning living as a coach i became a coaching researcher first at uc barkley than internationally.

my quest was to understand how we develop the next generation of coaches, educated, youth focused and well folk verse two. i've lived in new zealand, the pacific nation coaching research and recognize international innovation coach development. while in his own and earned a phd in coaching worked and set coaching sector including a coach and trainer and consulted on national coaching strategy. assure the >> and help you understand the context of my testimony i help my perspective agency important work of this commission. to begin lme to briefly step back and set the scene on youth sports physical activity in america. first the research is unequivocal. after kids a better life there once had this likely have obesity, more likely to go to college, most likely just have a range of chronic chronic and cancer and active appearance and role models more likely to have active kids. mental health crisis get to play sports are less likely to suffer from anxiety and depression were likely to enjoy life. breakthroughs healthy people 2030 initiative federal government set a target of 63.3%

participation in organized sports for youth ages six -- 17. only 50.7% of children played in 2021 most recent year available federal data. that is the middle of the pandemic even before the rate was just 56%. now, let's look at the population of interest to the commission. female, minors individuals with disabilities. only 40% of girls played from a five percentage points less than boys. the gaps are wider among minorities included black 42%. hispanic 40%, native american and native hawaiian youth 34% among youth with special needs just 43% of kids played. now, improving the state of youth coaching is not only solution to listen these numbers it is an important one though because coaches are key agents in keeping kids involved in sports and lemon the benefits of participation we seek. in fact research concisely

demonstrate how coaches shape the expensive sport strongly influences the decision to join, stay, quit. for example when a lack of enjoyment is a major factor in youth sports dropout. interestingly when research act makes it fun they point at coaching behavior such as praise, think positive through mistakes, make easy to talk to but regardless of ability to know coaches impact motivation. however to meet coaches behave in destructive ways including but not limited to abuse. site of climate support they can kill the intrinsic motivation needed to reach one's personal best often through favoritism or being too controlling. given the incredible power coaches can wield over aphids or system could not continue to take their work for granted. unfortunately our sports ecosystem has never truly made coach development a priority. especially the grassroots level. relative to other leading nations this leaves us behind. to illustrate this point consider new zealand and asked

to dance aside to the new zealand slide. sport missoula is a national agency responsible for grassroots development. including coaching. partnership with agency responsible for high-performance sport their affiliated national bodies national government bodies develop a community sports coaching plan i whined to a high-performance coaching plan. important both plans are underpinned by his coach development and aligned to national coaching strategy which outlines coaching communities and pathways. other sport governing bodies drop on the plans to build development programs for their coaches including licensing requirements, online resources and correct on ground support. helps reach targeted outcomes and the recruiting into coaching western democracies coordinate interagency planning is indicative of well-developed sport coaching policy. but not in the u.s.

especially for community coaches. i have many training courses, programs and resources of the ecosystem they operate in silos. devoid of guiding policy program or system is especially true in the world of coach licensing and recertification and db are widely in their requirement for equipment delivery the result not enough coaches training key issues like mental health, and recent national survey of 10,000 coaches we found 70% cited low confidence in their ability to help athletes navigate social media and linked to mental health resources. it is not have to be this way the u.s. is home to incredible thought leadership in both coaching and coach development. time for a serious national dialogue on how we improve our system piglets are the clear overarching vision for coaching in this country. drawing in our asset such as american development model or center for sports coaches natural coaching strategies what should they be competent and when and how? and partnership of the governing

by the creation of coaching plans are for recreation club school national team setting from common sense minimum standard and benchmarks for continuing education. national registry can help track progress will also generate database research and coach demographics training in these outcomes explore ways to better support coaches. for example tax deductions for coaching costs such as gas, equipment, training. ease the burden on primarily volunteer workforce. simulate stop leaving coaches on an island growing their own grassroots workforce would go a long way toward providing the on the ground support wheat no help coaches learn and grow. finally close the gaps in access reference at the top which increases size and diversity of the coaching community. that begins with putting more wind, coaches for disabled youth, minorities and people from low income backgrounds. the time is now to build a coaching community the reflexive committees they serve and can deliver on the promises for american society.

thank you. >> hello, it is really an honor to be a part of this process. not only represent my organization but representing the wider sports communities. i am the coexecutive director. our mission is use the power sport to equip young people with the resources, skills and experiences for their communities to build more peaceful more thriving communities but we did this by increasing access to high-quality committee basketball programming centered on leadership development conflict transformation and in andglobal engage my purse i word an sport social impact and community development for over a decade. both here in the u.s. and globally. our award-winning programs are one of few year-round no cost programs serving young people have been left behind by the

current. i share my testimony today is aleve an organization that makes sports assessable to over 2000 young people, across five major cities some of the least resource neighborhoods in our country. i also share my testimony as an immigrant kid who grew up in ine youth sports system for middle school all week to college i can attest to the barriers are also the life changes having access to sport has had on me. i youth sport system in america has availed millions of young people. overinvestment competitive athletics marginalizes the late bloomer marginalizes young girls who do not have a safe space to learn where they are not judge. but marginalizes low income families and young people with disabilities. cc the youth sports system is not just an access issue it's a basic fairness issue.

in fact it's a social justice issue. you think about the young people who are not included and sports and do not have the opportunity to reap the social, economic and health benefits of having played sports. i have a 30 live from the adult version of young people were trying too and i can tell you it's because i play sports that i'm the person i am today and feeling a sense of empowerment around pursuing my goals. for the system has fallen short, committee sports organizations are stepping into film barriers. the southside of chicago we readily provide transportation for young people to get to program in part because of safety issues and the shortage of facilities in the neighborhoods. in brooklyn, new york we have built for grassroots girls basketball pipeline from third grade all the way through high school that includes girls with very skill level also part of the wider ecosystem of

organizations provided access to girls and adult women to sport our gross able to see what a trajectory of the sport looks like when they become adults have access to positive role models. in l.a. many community centers have succumbed to the system costly books for private sessions. i have also been priced out of the local committee centers we are working with our local who offer programs to make their gyms accessible. in detroit we facilitate quarterly community conversation partnerships. in other local stakeholders with youth sports the wider detroit community. these are a few out of many examples of how other organizations like ours are putting a band-aid on the wound. believe in the power of collective action across various stakeholders including government moving the needle toward more access for all young

people. especially young people of color, girls and youth with disabilities. we've already begun the work over the last six plus years at this point to our partnership with kellogg foundation and a number of local stakeholders but we are censoring investment access and childhood all the way to early adulthood economic opportunity in supporting young people their journeys to leadership in your communities. all of what i've shared i would love to share a set of recommendations as you all build out your report to submit to congress. the sports -based youth involvement the community sports organizations do not exist outside of youth sports ecosystem. we are part of it we are not adjacent to it it's important we are integrated into those conversation and investment rates these organizations. it is important that we invest in local collective action efforts including youth sports

access and quality of sporting experiences there number of these coalitions by slick six c, newark, new orleans where cities are working the coalition also serves massachusetts and maryland. then lastly it supports the personal health investment today act which allows pretax flexible medical savings account to cover physical activity expenses effectively reducing out-of-pocket expenses for american families and individuals for youth sports fees, health club dues costs and much more. i would love to close the story of the group of young people have the opportunity to coach a couple of years ago in brownsville, brooklyn. brownsville at the you are familiar is a small neighborhood in brooklyn. it is the highest concentration and housing develop in the americas. not a lot of activity in high-quality spores not a lot of role models. i had the opportunity to coach

to coach the middle school girls they want a place to play the rutgers student competition at the time just wanted to get better for sport they enjoy great overtime i got to learn about the challenges these young girls a face some people had experience homelessness at some point. many were taking care of younger siblings and had barriers to show up. those barriers include transportation we reduce those barriers by programs directly in the schools later on the principal would share with me being involved was by far one of the biggest impacts in their lives. this summer a lot of those girls graduate high school couple are going to university. many were considering dropping out of school in six or seventh grade. this is the power of sport. a lot of the young people are trying to reach economic

opportunity. >> thank you, mr. goldberg. >> ladies and gentlemen. let me start over at lady and gentlemen of the commission is an honor to appear before you today. more than 25 years ago i was roaming these halls on capitol hill when i had the privilege of serving as an intern for the late great senator from indiana and i had a critical responsibility as an intern. i was supposed to go reserve the softball field at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon for a few hours in front of the washington monument and every week i was reminded of the power of sports to bring people together across every conceivable division. my own sports experiences will the data from leading experts make it clear that playing sports creates advantages that help you win at life. the data also tells us way too many children are not able to

access those benefits. there is a reason white nelson men that della extolled passionately about the power of sports to change the world. i think the work of this commission, the work of all of us really reflects this critical question. if sports has this kind of awesome power, what does that say about the responsibility of all of those who have the power over sport? my insights and perspective on youth sports is reflecting all the different roles that i play i met youth sports appearance. cofounder president of a sports technology company, started to nonprofits focused on access as cochair and cofounder. play sports coalition and fun play foundation member of project play 2024 group. all of those different perspectives have given me conviction when that youth sports sector is discussed the focuses frequently on the national governing bodies and association. to be sure there's a critical role for them to play.

but often missed is the role of hundreds of thousands of youth sports organizations as the delivery mechanism for youth sports. the makeup of these organizations has changed dramatically. youth sports is no longer largely driven by volunteer led community organizations comprising the majority of member organizations associate with national governing body. is that youth sports industry is in a transition from a hobby to a profession. you also the deeper engagement or professional leagues, professional takes as well as consolidation been driven by investment capitol the proliferation of franchise models. the structural shift in how youth sports is organized is being hastened by the way the organizations on technology to improve how they operate in scale, how they run their programs, how they are coach that's before the full impact of augmented reality ar virtual reality and even ai. inevitable. the evolution of the sports

industry has profound implications on the sector. to be sure the organization with greater capacity are investing more in coaching and training and safety. the vast majority are well intended i'm deeply committed. it's also clear there is no coherent youth sports system in this country. first there is a lack of governance with no structure or standards that stewards used for experiences in this country. instead of the coveted pandemic offering a moment to reestablish the leadership and influence of governing bodies and the association, the crisis crystallized a lack of authority and resource capabilities which reveal itself every day and the inconsistencies around safety and quality for the second is a widening gap in terms of access for underserved sports sector severely under resourced both in terms of governance even more so the local level in terms of organizations. the promise of this commission

is to address these issues and galvanize cross sector support for there is an important role for the private sector. the focus of any strategy should be recognizing and supporting at the grassroots are key agents of change. take the los angeles dodger rbi programmer of the last decade they have served more than 75000 participants. that increase participation by more than three 100% during that time. i am of a sports program that vision is a reality. which is serving thousands of kids annually with special needs across 20 different universities. you heard about peace players.

>> i urge the commission to add passage of this bill to the list of recommendations to congress lastly this commission has an opportunity to make sure policymaker and decision makers appreciate the importance of youth sports that goes well beyond a game. you should be encouraging legislators to incorporate sports participation as an

essential tool in education as well as combating mental and physical health crises. i think the commission for your leadership and on and a half of my colleagues play foundation play sports coalition we stand ready to play our part. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you mr. goldberg, many perry. >> member of the commission thank you so much for having me. as mentioned, i'm founder and leader of project play which is convene many organizations over the past ten years now a group of about 20,000 leaders who we have a conversation with we basically aim to facilitate conversation about how to build healthy community through sports and this started with a book i wrote at the espn called game on all american to make champion of our children which is a work of investigative journalism that asked can we really be the world's sports superpower? if our kids are most of our kids are pushed out of the system by age 12? if just one in four are getting

enough physical activity, and what's with all of the abuse in the preventable injuries that we see kids who are still in the game -- suffering. so when we peel back layers i found a failure of sports governess of policy -- i wrote a chapter on the 1978 amateur sports act which tasks the u.s. olympic committee and affiliated mgb with a, selecting and supporting teams that represent our country and b, coordinating and developing participation opportunities down to the community level. but it was an unfunded mandate within a few years they were telling congress explicitly it can't both get americans off the couch and on to the podium that is lacked resources and the authority to do so. and they were right. and i think it is time we listen. you saw the research that my colleague vincent highlighted

that has now been a mast that active kid simply do better in life. a virtuous cycle can be unleashed if we can get off them off the couch and off phones and into the game without running them into the ground but this isn't going to happen without incentives for programs to get and keep every kid in the game. or without adherence and accountability to best practices in athlete development or without honoring the human rights every child is born with -- to safe and healthy environments. to an equal opportunity for equal growth to be treated with dignity to simply play. we have a framework the children's bill of rights in sports is a statement drafted through project play that has been endorsed by 200 organizations including the u.s. olympic and paraolympic committee and most of the national governing body of

sports who most haven't done and can't do under the current sports act is change their business model to prioritize mass participation and support for quality programs. there beholden to corporate sponsors interested in media stars to draw eyeballs to productst that's why each submits high performance plan to the u.s. opc which then districts more than 110 million dollars annually to help podium potential athletes. it is a commitment to individual excellence which is good, but it's also a recipe for dysfunction without an even greater commitment to systems excellence. what we need is for every mgb to submit a grassroots performance plan or a gpp as i would call it. a grassroots performance plan would include a strategy in reporting verified by a third party on efforts to grow participation rates to recruit youth from underrepresented

populations to improve coach quality, to partner with schools to prevent all forms of abuse emotional, physical, and sexual. put whatever you want in there, efforts to promote injury prevention, multisport play, no games on mother's day -- and raise another 110 million dollars or 500 million dollars to get distributed based on the quality of the mgb's gpp. then, redistrict much of that money to community programs that align with best practices and deliver results. the work of this commission is important. our aspen program has studied structure of sports systems in ten pure countries research we will establish next month a preview, every country deals with the issues we face here in the u.s. they are not unique. and in all except for perhaps china, rely on community based programs and mostly, jeremy is

right environment is changing but volunteers still make a lot of these programs go. there is no perfect system. that's one thing we found but those that are most effective connected treetops to the grassroots. here that would start with registration, a database of all programs that offer the sport. which of them are training coaching and meeting minimum standards help families find the trusted providers that can't do that right now and reward register organizations with i don't know -- free fbi quality background checks. access to grants, insurance discounts, this is a way that usa hockeys began to organize their pipeline effectively and a greater voice in mgb governess. this is how you better coordinate amateur sport activity across the landscape. mgb need to be held accountable as well to serve the interest of public health u.s. is not a good

fit for the grassroots role anymore, then oversight needs to go to another entity. options could include an office within the u.s. department of health and human services. could be a quasigovernment entity such as the akin to the u.s. indiana doping agency or center for safe support and nonfor profit with a necessary focus, expertise, resources and independence to do the job. that body should be guided by a national sports policy which we don't have developed with input from stakeholders across key sectors, public and private funding streams can and should be identified to support this essential work. there is a better future for sports in america. please believe that and it starts with policy. rewrite the amateur sports act and center the needs of yowts and communities and watch

everything that sits on top of that base flourish more athletes, better athletes, yes more olympic and paraolympic inspiration thank you for your time and have you take any questions. >> thank you to all of the witnesses -- for your testimony i'll yield first commissioner of cohen. >> question is -- peace player operates in many cities and states across our country and i'm just wondering if you're able to track the data and trengdz that gives the sense for youth participation and sports access across the nation and also where gaps might exist that we need to pox on. focus on. >> it is because we recognize the impact we're trying to have it is a long-term, it is a long-term game and so in the u.s. we're about five and a half years old and i would say if you count the covid years we're about two and a half, three years old so we're very young.

however, we're part of a global organization that has over 20 years of experience working in act of regions that uses sports to bridge divides and for example i work in palestine we have an eight year control study that measured effectiveness of a sport as a tool for bridge building and developing young people as leaders and a lot of lessons learned from there has informed our work in the who's we first fired in up in the u.s. we have university of michigan work with us on a study to better understand like where are the gaps in the communities we're hoping to work in and we learned that one, there's lots of playgrounds but a lot of them sit empty because of -- gun violence gun and gang violence and second, there are community centers that have a ton of programs but it's hard to attract young people to attend programming in their community center and kind of in relation to what was shared about coaching -- there are gaps in how young people are coached at the

grassroots level and there's a need for adults who are working with young people to have access to the professional development and the opportunity to recognize how to properly use sport as a tool for positive outcome and we're learning as we're gong. we have currently our system is track our young people in the long-term. so every young person who is entering a peace ware program taked place in a baseline std that seeks to understand where they're at currently in terms of loir leadership, self-skill and each year they're taking part in that same service. where was a measure that changed impact that's happening over a prflt. so we recognize that this is a long-term game. and so we can talk about where the gaps are and where we've learned in working in the underresourced communities that have a ton, ton of potential. especially human potential.

>> thank you. commissioner privo has questions to witnesses to i'll yield to her. >> first to mr. perry, do you believe that the usopc is capable of overseeing coordination and development of youth and grassroots sports in our country as congress has directed undercurrent statute even if it had more funding? >> not under current statute there's many wonderful people there who want to do the right thing but it is not said the law is not written in a manner that allows them to have sufficient level of authority over the grassroots. it just says coordinate amateur sports activity. that's a national goal, but how? i mean, this is language is written nearly 50 years ago. it was their first attempt at sport governess in this country.

it was a start. but we can do much better. >> all right my next question is for doctor -- what is a define problem that we see in youth sports that could be significantly minimized if coaches were trained and supported to implement leading practices? >> thank you for the question. i'll preface my answer by saying that coaching is a field that really struggled with research to practice translation, and we have a number of really important issues across the sector some of them are already mentioned relating to abuse in terms of trauma and practices but also in areas related to pet dlption -- there's a way of learning but the issue i would highlight is interesting one that cam up quite a bit in the women's world cup had is acl injury preens. you know, we've learned through

our work in this space that there's two decades of research into effective proven solutions we know it is a complex issue. we know that there's a lot of factors involved but what we've learned is that preventive training muscular training really, really effective and control studies we see 50 to 80% reduction in risk and the problem is implementation and that means coaches. coaches are a key actor in the design of training sessions, particularly warmup had is the place where we tend to want to promote preventive practices but when you study coaches and attitudes to prevention and this space, we get our answers like i don't have enough time. i don't understand the training. i'm not sure it is my responsibility isn't it someone else's responsibility. so when you think about that piece and knowing that -- dealing with prevention has a proven a proven starting point not the solution of the issue. what we needs, can do through a facility a facilitated program much like concussion because i

think with concussion we've made massive trains around coach training and education this is not example if we can get coaches simply implementing programs that we know that has demonstrated effective we can see injury risk because it is actually one of the few controllables we have on this injury but we need coach and coach we need training support we need endorsement we need mandate there's a whole subset of kind of collective support and around this issue that we would need for coaches. acl prevention would be a good one. >> thank you. commissioner fitzgerald i'll yield to you for your questions. >> in your answer -- lost track of teal so i have a question for you. i want to know what changes you're seeing in term of participation opportunities and the regulation of the youth sports experience that are a result of the decreasing youth

sports. >> something that comes to mind someone who works at the intersection of sports and technology i think of the steve jobs quote and you have to skate to where the puck is gong so first of all to kind of think about the landscape i think it is to participate that this system is dynamic not static that we're in the middle of a really evolutionary period of how youth sports is currently operating in this country. a lot of that is driven by privatization and one of the trengdz we see a lot of it is consolidation so for example what we've seen through our 75% of the problem mat egg speptionding in this country and youth sports is now concentrated in less than 20% of all organizations. and if you've also look in term of growth the participation where the growth of organizations is typically happening in organizations with much greater scale and size. that is only accelerating because there's a lot more investment capital coming in to the market a lot of private

equity dollars and franchise related models and you have also deeper engagement of the professional league and youth sports so what are the implications this? the changes -- on participation, there's the potential for growing participation. especially if that energy is focused on more recreational and a experience if you look at programs like mlb, rbi program which i sited earlier and wreck leagues or doing learn to play program you have ability to growth game by engagement of private sector and even the more innovation that's happening especially where we see these franchises emerging is happening at the base of that pyramid opposed to only most competitive aspect of sports in terms of regulation and experience, i would reframe that to talk about the standardsization of that experience around quality and accountability and in which the organizations that are trying to replicate especially ones that are bringing more professional staff and training have the promise or potential to create higher quality programs and

higher adherence to kind of safety protocols. but i'll leave you with this thought no matter what's happening in the private sector there are gaps and during koad when we started sports coalition we created a google document to crowd source what organization governing bodies were doing in response to keefned that was what was governing how people try to figure out how to respond because there was no authority with that insight to literally people trying to figure it out on their own and i think we can do better. >> thanks. i have follow-up question and having, you know, been alongside you in creating this place work coalition it's been a slug. but i think we're finally making some progress. i wanted to see the question is around this national sports policy that you were talking about. but how do we move, merge two together this privatization of youth sports, and provide the proper governess oversight accountability that's required?

how do we incorporate them? it seems that something that was missing out of the amateur sports act in the oversight that is required to put the courses back in the barn or get -- [laughter] start that process at least. >> yeah. so a couple of things i think sally mentioned this which is first way to approach is start to break down the artificial distinction that we created within youth sports. all right the difference between a youth development organization is and a private organization shouldn't be all that different right every organization if they're focused on youth sports should be focused on sports based development and there's a lot of practices around how those organizations operate in the private sector that might be able to replicate and support how organizations are scaling. so first of all is that idea of a for profit it is just a tax distinction and real question is are those programs operating with highest level of standards and quality? and whining we talk about the professionalization of youth sports, the kids need to be

amateurs they have to be kids and adults have to be professionals right they need trained and accountability and i think that's where there's an opportunity for collaboration and partnership. where the governing body in organizations have ability to have standards and provide that requirement and incentive and empower the grassroots to be able to deliver those programs to meet to those standards but i think that's there's well intended people that people can work together with a goal to access and higher quality and i'm optimistic that can happen and i think that commission represents that. >> thank you. mr. perry in your testimony you talked about the need for a national sports policy and i'm wondering how do you think this should be formulated, a policy? >> yeah. let me by the way -- i meant to make a point to your question earlier. in our research when you asked if it is the entity to still run the grassroots in our research of ten systems around the world what we found is no other

country asked the olympic committee to organize grassroots usually sitting next to it part of a confederation among other stakeholders and no one says the olympic committee should be entity to do this. much less with no money to do so. i'll make sure that i get that into the national record it is important because it sets priorities like why do we do sports in this country? is it for child development is it community development is it entertainment, is it what is it for? there are lots of reasons we -- we want to prioritize sports, so a statement a national policy on why we're doing sports in this country can be valuable starting with government it can help guide, you know, government grant funding it can grant inner agency cooperation development of data, how you begin to think about sport governess at the mgb or other levels so i think that will happen and this needs to be something of a consensus process and key stakeholders need to be around a table and i really --

identify what a good sport policy ought to be. and then there ought to be some entity within the government maybe with hss or otherwise that guides the process and does all of that coordination. i also think that policy can help think about what that overarching confederation of sports that -- mgb can report to with grassroots performance plans that i'm a big fan of. it can guide that. it can guide the type of criteria that you put into such document and you know, set up the reporting around. >> thank you. >> i yield now to commissioner hux -- >> my question is for mr.men dlrks har -- >> yep, thank you. so often when we hear about youth sports we often hear about

it when they've been accused of abuse. and i was wondering what impact that that has had on youth sports and their willingness to be trained or the -- yeah. yeah. youth coaches like what impact does that have with all of those stories coming for forward? >> fantastic research question for a researcher out there i would say. my response would be a few things. one that in general, there is a tendency for training coursework if we think about sort of the reaction of coaches to, you know, things like mandatory trainings or what have you there's already a disposition among primarily a volunteer base. why do i have to do extra stuff this is already hard enough. i have hardly enough time. so i think one challenge is

dealing with a perception as a community that you're not good at what you do or that you're out to get someone. or that you -- i think coaches this is sort of part of this challenge i think of how we positioned coaches in the youth sports lands scape so you have already sort of intimidating piece of parents kind of -- criticism certainly the challenge of making the experience work within your time and your lifestyle. but also this sort of question of am i alone in this? and do i have any support and i know coaches have a tendency to be very siloed, to be off on their own doing their own thing but we set them up that way and we hire them and say here's your bag of balls or here's your field go off and do your thing and i think there's already in this case like a set of barriers to engaging with an infrastructure of support and training it is not a culture we don't have continuous learning and a culture of coaches wanting

to embrace getting better and learning and it is a function of a lot of different factors and i would argue this is why we need to be more intentional about cultivating not just a scheme or a structure but a way of thinking about the place of coaches the way in which we grow and develop coaches are deserving not just of -- you know, accountability which i think we all jump to immediately when we see a negative story -- but they're deserving of support and one of the things we've learned internationally is i think there's a more robust approach to simply supporting coaches -- usually on the ground to coach developer which is a professional status that is not as common in this country -- and so i think, you know, there's just simply a whole subset of issues that coaches already facing and when there's a -- a story that positions coaches as being this evil person and admittedly so some of these stories are, obviously, real.

but not every coach is that. i think there's a need for us to not jump immediately to accountability and to training but also think about that in relation to support and help. and i think those things need to be working in harmony together. >> thank you i yield to commissioner -- i'm sorry ms. namani you mention in developing youth programs you worked in partnership with organizations includings nba and companies like nike in your experience, does the usopc and governing bodies specifically usa basketball share a role in grassroots in youth sports development in the communities where you and your colleagues and your team have been working? >> i believe there's been in rent recent years ton of developments in the grassroots

space. organizations and companies rxz there's a business opportunity in invest in grassroots sports so you see usa basketball has a number initiatives for example the hard time play initiative which is centered around getting more girls to play and we partner with them on events they host throughout the year. dick's sporting goods but nike has been a core partner -- in the work and i think nike has been investing in grassroots space from a systemic stand point, from a grassroots stand point i can share a number of examples. nike has the game of initiative which they have paused recently due to the pandemic but that initiative allowed young people to work with their local nba team to identify gaps in their communities around girls participating in sports.

and begin to recommendation solutions on how communities the nba and nike can collaborate around increasing participation. that initiative is not just invested in access it's also giving young people an agency an opportunity to look around to say well, what role can i play and in part in change in my community which i think is very important because young people don't believe their voices are hard of that process and even welcomed in that process so when there's opportunity and real opportunity for them to contribute i think that's very important so that's that from a grassroots perspective from a systemic -- a structural stand point i think nike has invested a ton of resources towards research and develop and guides and tools around increase participation for girls and young people who typically are not part of the sports ecosystem. so we have to think about those from a multiple perspective it is not just rolling off

basketball and running you have off the comupghts and getting excited it's how do we want to create opportunities for young people to contradict their opinions drive those processes and also -- what tools and guides and resources and mandates that we put out there to inform how opportunity is shared out across the board because -- you look at youth sports system where family income is a number one driver of if you're going participate in how long you're going to participate. so when we create resources for young people who are for young people to influence and have a voice at the table, and also to support the coaches and people who are leading the programs, i think that's what's going help drive in the conversation forward and certainly nike and nba i think in recent years have made a lot of investments from multiple places multiple verticals in moving this conversation forward. >> i'll yield to commissioner schmitts for a couple of questions. [inaudible conversations]

we heard testimony regarding how movement sports are under safety umbrella of the u.s. senate for safe sports organizations that aren't overseen by a national governing body fall outside of safe sports jurisdiction. so -- how do these private sector youth sports organizations protect the safety of parpghts when it comes to abuses? .... so the reality is standardization. it depends on the leadership of the organization, the accountability they want to provide with respect to their programs and the expectation of the parent serving with them. there are exceptions a partnership with the nba

standardization of background checks are certain requirements to participate. even if the organizations might operate outside the purview of the governing body association. my general perspective is across the landscape in general have organizations that want to do the right thing. organizations have more capacity or hard work professional staff. they are taking quality very seriously not averaging the depends on the individual organization for it ultimately parents off of the organization is safe they will go elsewhere. the gaps created by that. ultimately linking systems together. >> my second question is a follow-up related to the question from a constitutional perspective. my opening statement i mentioned

america first things. one of our first things as the bill of rights. which includes the tenth amendment assess all powers not delegated to the national government are reserved to the states and the people respectively. so as i'm kind of listening to these great ideas of eight national sports and policy, i am thinking to myself clint commissioner mosley already asked the question who would write such a policy? i think your answer was it should be conceptual of all the different stakeholders. and then i'm thinking back to the slide he's got the new zealand sports policy. new zealand is out of a tenth amendment it's very easy. so my question i think is for or maybe tom that it is a follow-up to commissioner mosley's

question. do we have any 50 states that have ridden state sports policies? do we have any best practices that we might be able to learn from? frankly the safety of a state police power. obviously with the olympics is a national hook. i don't see a constitutional federal rule. frankly. lex there is an appropriate role at the federal and national level. it's completely hands-off situation. however it you raise a good question is there a role for states to play in organizing sport activity? the answer is yes. many companies we look at are the size of states as norway, it's new zealand et cetera however there's a lot of good practices to pull from that.

in the united states have no state that said there is a commission, a sports commission reporting to the governor coordinating activity. being the gathering place of the stakeholders to help set policy on cutting down or otherwise. the only other parallel is puerto rico department sports and recreation. what's required there, right about this in the "new york times" afford to pull it out. what's required there is if you are offering sports in puerto rico you are required to register the state the use that registration to make to their background check and key competencies et cetera et cetera. puerto rico does not have much of the way of resources imagine if we could do that here. imagine if minnesota or the state of washington said if you'regoing to offer sport actin our state you got to register it now have a communication channel

to push coaches education, standard, save sport what ever else it may be down the pipeline. texas might look different the minnesota and that is okay. as long as eight minimum condition of human rights is being honored. there is a real opportunity parade there is an opportunity to rent local sports government cities using power of the permit for access to public fields, gems et cetera. if you as a nonprofit or for-profit this appropriate role for government at each of those levels. i don't know if that's helpful. >> thank you. mr. goldberg you spoke a little bit about some of the challenges with athlete safety adoption with organization building out of the purview.

there are at least some things you think would encourage more private sector organizers of the sport to adopt safe sports standards at least participate in centralized discipline. works as a couple different ways i would approach that per the first thing i would in general say my experiences in a lot of cases you will have expectations around training. can you not focus on the outcomes. there is discussion around safety make sure the training happened nobody asked the question of did it work? the general question how do you create accountability and tracking it's the outcome? quickstart mechanisms and think about the incentives. tom mentioned one potential incentive which is to ask space requirement. i mentioned earlier for programs affiliations associate with professional leagues or teams or other kinds of incentives that might approach that the third might be eligibility around

grants are the ability to support her and coached trading. if you are willing to accept certain kinds of standards. and returns for funding and support that allows you to make sure coaches are trained and accountable. i think in general most private organizations want to do the right thing. they ultimately need to be nudged and understand what's available to them. thanks thank you i will yield to cochair. >> of ng pt. if i get that right. my mind goes a dollar signs that sounds really expensive. they give testimony i believe earlier today talked about ng be and how under resource they are in terms of human resources and people from dollar resources. what are some potential new funding streams that in your

view could be considered to support grassroots and youth sport development? >> the first thing we need to do is an assessment. identify all the sources of federal and state support for sport. and that they are out there. there are agency grants. there are legislative earmarks. they are our proceeds oil drilling allocated to sports facilities through the water conservation fund which has been around since the 1960s and help build more than 40000 fields and sport spaces over the past several decades. every state has benefited from this. if you play sports you probably plan a field that's supported in part for this one actual federal money. as a cut of proceeds with oil drilling.

i would encourage us do not think about direct funny the government but are there other resources, private sources sports betting which right now is a state issue. but, as things evolve a certain opportunity to tap into sports betting, gambling or other excise taxes? i think that's worth exploring. i also think there's a good conversation to be had around maga events in our country. we don't maga events in the past to produce really solid legacies. 1984 olympics the surplus part of it went to ng bees and part of it want to create something called l.a. 84 foundation which introduced millions and millions of dollars in grants into southern california ecosystem since the 1980s. 1994 men's world cup produce the u.s. soccer foundation which is

now driving hard building many pictures around the country 2002 salt lake olympics. the utah legacy foundation created work in utah. as you know charlie 2026 feet that men's world cup possibly the women's world cup coming and the 28 olympics we need to have a good conversation about what an appropriate legacy from the event and the sponsors of the event. but there's going to be a surplus should all go to elite athletes? where should it go to funding youth and community development or some combination of the two that makes sense to the american people. i could cite we have seen the research. americans overwhelmingly like youth sports they want their kids involved in sports they get

the value proposition. there even supportive of public funding of it. much less a part of a funding of proteins, colleges, et cetera. but they understand the value when it comes defendant youth in school, sports is a key piece as well. we need to have a conversation per week to do the research and identify the potential sources and develop some consensus around them. >> thank you, thank you, and your testimony, thank you for that. you shared some of the benefits to young people individually come from participating in sports. mers some the positive impacts on the community investment ends and expansion of youth sports that are affordable and

accessible? quickset is a great question. the emphasis is centered on building thriving communities the role of sports and doing that. i love the question is committee center because ultimately that's what we are trying to accomplish young people filling the sense of agency in their community and sport being the platform in which we do that. an example i would share as i spoke a little bit about brooklyn. i named in the city often mainly because i worked there for a time. the example and going to share similar across the board in places that we work in l.a., detroit, baltimore and chicago. every summer we run a six week a basketball camp. we run outside. i shared earlier help local playgrounds are empty because of safety issues and gave violence in that neighborhood. one summer the park we chose is known as the most dangerous a

block in the neighborhood. we wanted to be a positive example of what is possible when the committee collaborates together. with privilege and the work we do in brooklyn we have local partners and people who believe in the idea of what we're trying to accomplish. the organization leading it they are trying to build more thriving communities and you sports to do that right the surrounding areas around the park drug years have come by every now and then. people are sitting outside and drinking. they're coming out to watch and all of a sudden asking what is this? who was involved with this? instead being involved in with the other groups were building. the next couple of weeks we had a number of people who live in

the community. residents, people who worked in the community coming by and figuring out ways to align the organization and what we were building. while that is a small example it is a testament to the role sport can play from different walks of life in a community we are not even talk about the u.s. as a whole you're talking about community. there is a group called brownsville community justice center that works directly with young people a bit in touch with the juvenile system centered on providing opportunities to find employment back to school. we work with a number of other organizations are part of that ecosystem of the economic piece it. young people have to have pathways that are reachable to them and what role can the community play in doing that? on the way we think about diving

thriving community and peace worst economic empowerment on one hand and leadership on the other. the supportive environment is the community and nurturing young people in that path. i gave an example brownsville, brooklyn this is very similar to what were doing in south l.a. the southside of chicago east and west of baltimore and detroit and all of these places is not just sports or access to sports it is access to the social economic and health benefits of sports. and young people's feeling a sense of agency empowered to look around. which is of a thriving community. excel yield to commissioner: for our next question. >> my question is mr. goldberger. i am wondering what are the most worrying trends we are seeing and youth and grass roots sports? especially post- pandemic?

what type or should the question for the first thing i'll say is any trends that happens in the pandemic have been the acceleration of the trends thatr attribute for the pandemic. the most pressing what is a question of access and who has access to sports. those that had continue to have in those organizations serving those who have it means had access they were the first to respond that access to their own space. organization serving those had the most need. we were really left behind. they were less able to adapt because of technology organizational capacity. you have this acceleration of inequality that mirrors the broader inequality in our society buried the really interesting question is where's the opportunity to solve that? no make us all -- they live a better providing direct services to the underserved communities like pc players through our

plate fund foundation we work with one or 75 different nonprofits through technology and cash grants to support them. that's why the sports collision is advocating for more funds of the federal and state level to directly support those organizations that are solving the gap. the second is me too encourage organizations to think more creatively about participatory programs as a market opportunity. you can't run low cost programs meet the committee bring the men as opposed to only focusing on the very top of the pure in the most elite the most competitive. at the broad based programs that bring higher quality coaching and standards but at eight recreational purchase a bright level that is far more affordable. the second trend is ultimately a question of the idea of the divide between bouncer -based organizations and professional organizations. i am of the mind sports is so

important and we talk on the importance of coaching. i went to a coaching close the clinic last night to coach mike kindergarten's flag football league property versed in youth sports and not that qualified to get the spray sat around the room does not like let's talk about positive coaching mines and how are getting a better coaching experience is like here is how you run a fake picked plate to open up a receiver for your kindergarten or first grade this does not seem right in and looking around you're saying they're very well-intentioned. this cannot be the right wave and trust in the developing of our kids what seems to be very they have professional staff and training isn't focus on the recreational experience that is a missed opportunity. one of the trends i went focusing on the wrong thing. and hopefully you work on the right problem. >> can i comment on that clinic

briefly? i want to take the opportunity to say we trust the our volunteers to well-intentioned but ultimately under it supported or simply unaware of the work that goes into this important practice. coaching can be recognized a legitimate the academic study of rigor. but also an important place we need to develop people's capacity to do it. you don't just know how to do it because your cv said you played are you coach last year. we simply can't keep taking for granted this work. perfect i will yield to you because i've a question for you, tom. being where the only olympic committee in the world -- mike is the only country that doesn't

have a sports minister possess a very different situation that almost every other country in the world. i think it's probably a blessing i would hate to have funding for corporate development contingent upon a continuing resolution for example. you mentioned a couple of points we had a very may beat the 1984 olympics will produce a huge windfall in other possibilities including world cup football going forward. has our system compares other countries approaches to providing public oversight for youth, grassroots and high-performance sports? and i guess you could say sports for good versus sports for development. clicks all these countries are finding things and do things

slightly differently purchased not one model to pull from. again none are perfect. in general one entity within the government or its claws a government like you sought out the u.s. center for safe sports blessed by the government partly funded by the government that is in charge of running hard on grassroots sports. mass participation, quality standards, talked with the clubs. that is her focus that is their business, that's with the trying to do. then the olympic committee over here it's often like a private organization study offended by the government but sometimes it is. their jobs at the athletes of the olympics and support them on the way. their work with the tp to be top of the folks. that makes sense. what matters to most people when it comes to sports is 99% of the population but it's their kids, the community will publish all

this in october and it will be free and i can share more than. can i make one more point? because i don't know if it will come up tonight we talk about athletes an athletes voice. we talked but the olympic movement whether it's 11 million people are 16 million people, it's about 36 million children who play sports in this country ages six -- 17. midterm athlete is not applying to 99% of people in that movement we are talking and i think as we go forward here we need to be mindful recognizing anybody who has a body as an athlete. anyone who is playing. it's a kid down the street. it's a kid down the hallway print they need to count as much as an elite athlete at that point were they thinking? what are they feeling?

what do they need? me too listen to the 11 -- 36 million through surveys, through other methods. we have good feedback we cannot design a support system in this country if we do not understand how it's being experienced by the people. that is a piece we need to figure out. out encourages group as we go forward and talk about athletes us to be very clear for only talk about elites, olympic, podium ready type athletes the top one half of 1% of our population or are we talking about all assets within the movement? thank you for indulging me. >> thank you for that commissioner i'm going to take that as a last question for today. i'll take that as a last word i'm going to also for the record of finger talk about terms of olympic movement and paralympic movie reaching all children who can benefit from sports.

we average the end of our time for this session. we want to thank you all for sharing your insights with us. i want to thank all of our witnesses today took the time and investment to travel here to washington to provide testimony to our commission. and answer our questions. as a reminder the testimony full transcript of the proceedings will company the final report. also to thank our commissioners for their thoughtful participation as well as my cochair who led today's questioning. i'll turn the gavel over to him to deliver closing remarks before returning our hearing. >> thank you all for spending the day with us today. today we heard voices and across the u.s. olympic and paralympic movie the voices of athletes, voices of officials, the governing bodies and safe sports as well as voices from outside

stakeholders. we heard from a survivor of some of the most horrific abuses. we heard from those who have been marginalized and excluded unfairly. they join the thousands of individuals of the many organizations our commission heard from this year. congress gave us a mission to listen. listening is what our commission has been doing. drop the course of our work our bipartisan commission has been striving to hear from all the voices of the movement as we conduct independent study and prepare to make recommendations. but we haven't heard so far including today is that we need to make adjustments to the system of governance and public oversight of the u.s. olympic and paralympic movement to make tough challenges, ensure maximum transparency and accountability. first and foremost is clear athletes must be at the center of this movement. to make certain that happens appropriate influence representation within that

movement centers of decision-making. that isn't the case now we too can tutor the appropriate reforms to make that happen. athletes also need to know they can participate in sports safely. this is of particular concern for parents like me and many others who want to be enthusiastic about engaging our children and sports. not worried about whether to let them do so because it might be unsafe. we need to ensure movement stakeholders and the american people can trust and safe sports to protect all who participate. at the same time our commission has been looking into barriers that prevent all americans in excess movement toward equity. particulate the youth and grassroots level we found too many people are deterred from participating or seeking to participate because of high costs, lack of adequate facilities for burgers to assess ability. for americans with disabilities excess means equity in support

the quality and respect of attention. while today's hearing may be ending our commission work will continue. on september 30 the study phase of our work will conclude. based on the findings of our studies we work to produce a report with recommendations to congress and to movement stakeholders on how to make the future of sports in america better reflect our common vision for success. that report will be shared in the spring of 2024. i referred to a common vision because while there may be some debate within the movement on how best to achieve them we have identified broad agreement on values and priorities. it is a vision that transcends party for ideology. one brings harm it to the many different voices that make up our movement as well as our country. so, even though our challenges are many they are not insurmountable. of this anything high-performance athletes at

thomas just when you think the achievement is out of reach, it becomes possible and then seems inevitable. with forward to sharing a report in the spring and encourage congress and the public to read it and consider the commission's recommendation. again, thank you all for being a part of these proceedings on this important process pretty hereby adjourn the commission's public hearing. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible twain's

influence and his impact on popular culture. >>