Boys Still Want Sports, but the Participation Supply Has Shrunk

Alanna Williams framed the American Institute for Boys and Men’s interest in youth sports as part of a broader pattern of male disengagement: in education, employment, and mental health. The institute, founded about two and a half years ago by Richard Reeves, approaches the issue as “non-zero-sum,” Williams said — supporting boys’ well-being and girls’ well-being need not be in tension.

The policy hinge was not that boys have stopped wanting sports. Williams said that when AIBM and the Aspen Institute began looking at stagnating participation rates, one possible explanation was that some boys simply preferred theater, Model UN, or other activities. That was not what they heard.

That supply-side diagnosis gives the discussion its direction. Zach Young presented five responses the Aspen-AIBM project has been developing: open alternatives for boys who are not on “the team,” design systems for later-developing boys, address surveillance and spotlight culture, develop policies that prioritize student demand, and strengthen coach readiness for boys.

Sports became a concern for AIBM because they have historically been one of the places where boys were most likely to find connection: to peers, communities, adult role models, and school itself. Williams pointed to signs that boys’ sports participation has either stagnated in some surveys or declined in others. For an institute already focused on disengagement, that raised a sharper question: whether boys pulling back from sports might be “another manifestation” of the same disconnection showing up later in school, work, and mental health.

For Williams, the next step is not to persuade boys to value sports. It is to build more places where boys can participate without first clearing the narrow gate of competitive team selection. She emphasized free play in communities — boys wanting to shoot hoops, be physically active, and move in less formal ways — as one of the most promising forms of unmet demand.

Zach Young summarized four forces the Aspen-AIBM project heard from boys and adults who work with them: performance pressure in a digital world, coach unreadiness for today’s boys, no place for later beginners, and “is it worth it?” thinking. Those four forces were also shown on a Project Play Summit slide as the project’s working frame.

The first force is not just ordinary athletic pressure. Young described boys growing up in an environment where every movement can be recorded, posted, compared, and judged. He contrasted that with his own experience as a 31-year-old who came of age as social media was taking off but did not play under constant recording. Boys now face what he called “cringe culture”: a form of online and peer self-policing around what is cool and what is not.

In that culture, trying hard can become “cringe.” Caring too much can become “cringe.” Even trying out for a team can become socially risky. Young said that dynamic has moved from online spaces into offline life, and that the research team heard it repeatedly from boys.

The second force is that coaches may not be prepared for the boys now in front of them. Young said many people have treated “coaching” as effectively meaning coaching boys, without considering gender unless the team is girls. He included himself in that bias, saying his experience coaching girls has made it more visible. But boys told the project they want more caring and nurturing relationships with coaches, especially relationships that recognize them beyond performance on a field, court, or track.

At the same time, survey data with coaches suggested that coaches often do not feel prepared to discuss mental health, direct athletes toward resources, or help them navigate social media. The result is a mismatch: boys want more from coaches as mentors, while coaches may feel under-equipped for that role.

The third force is the disappearance of a credible path for later beginners. Young was careful to say “later” rather than “late,” because the project is not declaring a universal right time to begin a sport. But by high school, boys who have not played seriously — often year-round and with some specialization — get a strong signal that it is already too late. That message comes through selection processes and peer comparisons. It is reinforced by the same performance-pressure culture that makes public failure costly.

The fourth force is a calculation boys make about whether sports are worth the time, money, energy, and social risk. Young tied that calculation to college admissions pressure, longer-term financial anxiety, social media, TikTok, and video games. He floated the possibility that “video games are the new playground” as part of the competitive environment that sports now occupies.

The project’s proposed solutions begin with a challenge to the default definition of school sports. Young said high school sports are often assumed to mean “the kids that are on the team.” Intramurals and physical education have receded from that imagination. In interviews, the boys Aspen and AIBM spoke with did not seem to understand what intramurals even were, which Young found surprising.

That finding matters because the first proposed solution is to open alternatives for boys who are not on “the team.” The second is to design systems that better support later-developing boys. Young pointed especially to the club space, where age rules can be rigid: a 15-year-old generally cannot play with 14-year-olds. He suggested that programs might find ways to “bend those rules” and group boys more by developmental stage than strict age.

The third proposed solution directly addresses the way youth sports have become part of a surveillance culture. Young noted that schools have debated no-phone policies, but sports have often been left out of that discussion. One idea under consideration is “no recording zones” for certain ages. He also noted an asymmetry in consent: conference attendees had signed off on being recorded and having content produced with their name, image and likeness, but children generally are not asked in the same way. If a child steps onto a field, Young said, they are liable to be filmed.

The fourth solution is to develop policies that prioritize student demand. Young said he learned during the project that one of the three prongs of Title IX is meeting student demand, not only ensuring proportionate opportunities between boys and girls. He described the team as interested in what can be done there, including whether a school might add boys’ volleyball when there is demand.

The fifth proposed solution returns to coaching: strengthen coach readiness for boys. Williams said she is especially interested in training and recruitment mechanisms, including teacher-coach models. As men have declined in the classroom, she asked whether schools and communities can encourage teachers, particularly male teachers, to coach as a way of seeing boys more fully — in the classroom, on the field, and in the community.

Charlie Ward grounded the discussion of performance pressure in the reality of coaching adolescents who are receiving mixed signals. Ward, now head men’s basketball coach at Florida A&M University, previously coached high school football and basketball, coached in the NBA, won the Heisman Trophy as a quarterback, and played Division I basketball at Florida State. He said pressure comes from both internal and external sources, and young athletes are often trying to navigate all of it before they have the maturity to do so cleanly.

His most concrete example was parental voice during competition. Ward said he has had parents talking to their sons while the player is on the floor and while the coach is also trying to communicate. The child is then “in the middle” and confused. Ward’s response was to meet with parents about the importance of “one voice” and getting everyone on the same page. In his view, that alignment helps relieve pressure on the student athlete.

Preparation, for Ward, is part of the same problem. Athletes make better decisions under pressure when they have developed good habits. Those habits “come out in the end,” he said.

Ward also described coach readiness as the product of exposure to many kinds of coaching. His father was a coach, which made his own path easier, but he also said he has been coached by many different types of leaders and learned “something to do and something not to do” from each. The key lesson he emphasized was individualization: every young man is different, and coaches have to find the style that helps each one become the best he can be.

Charlie Ward gave the policy discussion its clearest practical example through a story about a high school manager named Micah Reuben. Reuben was the team’s manager in the year Ward’s high school team won the state championship. He did not ride the bus to the championship game; his parents drove him. Ward described him as “the analytics guy” — “analytics 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.”

The next year, Reuben told Ward he wanted to try out for the team. Ward had a policy: he carried only 12 players. But Reuben came to class every day after the championship game and put in the work. Ward changed the policy and added a 13th roster spot.

Reuben became the 13th man on the bench. Ward said he received the loudest applause when he entered games and became one of the team’s favorites by the end of the year. Ward later named an award after him — not because he was the 13th man, but because of his attitude and the ways he helped the team succeed.

Reuben went on to graduate from Florida State University School, attend Florida State University, and become the person Ward said “they look for” for video and instant replay coordination. The point was not that every boy must play on the court. Ward explicitly said everyone cannot do that all the time. But programs need enough flexibility to see different contributions and create room for a young person whose development may not fit the standard roster logic.

Charlie Ward described Champions Ranch as a response to the same kind of friction the policy discussion surfaced: families and programs often have to piece together support across separate locations and systems. Basketball practice happens in one place, training in another, tutoring somewhere else. Champions Ranch is intended as a “one-stop-shop model” that brings sports, education, wellness, and related supports together on one campus.

Ward called the project a “collective, collaborative impact model” emerging from the work he and his wife have long done through their family foundation. The new nonprofit is intended to “support youth and families” and “cultivate lifelong champions.” In the context of the broader discussion, the model illustrated a practical version of lower-friction support: not only creating more chances to play, but surrounding young people and families with multiple forms of development in one place.

The slide shown for the Charlie Ward Champions Ranch described it as creating “intentional, positive transformation” by building “confidence, character, and connection through purposeful experiences with youth, adults, and families.” It listed athletics, recreation, wellness, education, performing arts, life skills, and more. It also displayed partner names including Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Florida State University Institute of Sports Sciences & Medicine, and 99Sports, and located the project in Tallahassee, Florida.

Ward said the project is being phased as a nonprofit and is meant to have local, regional, national, and international impact.

Alanna Williams said AIBM’s approach is to support boys and girls without placing their well-being in competition. Young acknowledged that the issue can appear divisive because boys have historically played sports more than girls. But the project’s focus was not on reducing girls’ opportunities. It was on understanding what mentorship, connection, and developmental support boys have historically received through sports, and what may now be getting lost.

That framing shaped the Title IX point. Young did not describe the law as a barrier to boys’ participation. Instead, he emphasized that he had learned student demand is one relevant prong, and that the project team is interested in what can be done where boys want sports that are not being offered. His example was boys’ volleyball.

Williams’s supply-side diagnosis also keeps the issue from becoming a complaint about girls’ gains. If boys still want to play, as she said the project heard, the question is whether communities are providing enough forms of participation: formal teams, intramurals, free play, later-beginner pathways, developmental club structures, and coaches trained for today’s social and emotional realities.