Every once in a while you see something happen in youth sports that is just simply disgusting. That happened to me on Saturday.

To explain what happened, I need to give a little background about a show called Friday Night Tykes. Friday Night Tykes is a one-hour reality television show that follows middle school and younger football teams in Texas through their fall season. The show is often depressing. While I am sure there are lots of positive things happening in Texas youth football, this show is edited to highlight the drama and often the outrageous. Every season is filled with coaches screaming at the kids and each other. You can be sure you’ll see parents screaming at coaches, players, other parents, the other team, and (of course) the referees.

But I just watched the final episode of season four and it hit a new level. The 12U San Antonio Outlaws – a show mainstay who moved to the Snoop Youth Football League (run by rapper/entrepreneur Snoop Dogg) – were playing the Long Beach Patriots for the 2016 National Championship. Outlaw superstar Myzell Miller is a key player for his team often playing both ways.

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What were the most shared posts about youth sports in 2017? Leveraging the power of BuzzSumo, I’ve found the six stories that were shared over 20,000 times in 2017. They touch a variety of topics and everyone is worth taking a few minutes to read.

The most shared story on the list was shared over 208,800 times. this is significantly more than the others. In fact, this is more than the next five combined – which were shared a combined total of 155,000 times.

The list:

1. The epidemic that’s ruining youth sports, Kirsten Fleming, The New York Post, June 19, 2017, shared 208,800 times
2. Who’s to Blame for the Decline in Multi-Sport Athletes in Youth Sports, Alex Flanagan, I Love To Watch You Play, January 9, 2017, shared 47,000 times
3. Knowing When to Quit, David Mcglynn, The New York Times, June 2, 2017, shared 32,700 times
4. Jaguars’ Telvin Smith Lashes Out at Players Who Charge for Youth Camps, Zac Wassink, Bleacher Report, April 14, 2017
5. Verbal abuse from parents, coaches is causing referee shortage in youth sports, Nick Ellerson, Washington Post, June 16, 2017, shared 27,500 times.
6. Youth basketball coach savagely blocked his own player’s shot in middle of game, Charles Curtis, USA Today, March 3, 2017, shared 20,100 times

One of the most viral articles about youth sports is titled: I Never Thought It Would End This Way. It’s written by a dad who spent years coaching and watching his daughter play soccer. It’s about watching his daughter’s last soccer game. This quote has always seemed especially important to me:

If all coaches could see into the future, to that very day when a kid puts away the cleats or the hi-tops for the last time and walks away from a game………would they choose to coach individual kids differently than they presently do?

Every kid walks away from their chosen sport someday…….then what?

Effective youth coaching is psychiatry and it is parenting.  Each player is unique, and they have specific needs that team sports can bring them.

I spent years coaching soccer. Some would call it a career – 10 years coaching as many as three teams at a time. More often than not, coaching young girls. I’ve coached three-year-olds (if you can call it coaching) all the way up to high school players. I’ve read books about drills, attending conventions, and gotten coaching licenses.

But the simple question presented here is the most important question that every coach and parent needs to ask.

The answers will be different for every family. And there is no one out there you can go talk to and see if your answer is correct. But you need to ask the question:

If you could see into the future, to that very day when your kid puts away the cleats or the hi-tops for the last time and walks away from a game………would you choose to take a different path?