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Project Play Summit

Summit Recap: Project Play network rallies around 63X30

BERKELEY, CALIF. – The largest crowd in the history of the Project Play Summit came to the campus of the University of California prepared to share ideas about what it will take to help the nation get 63% of youth playing organized sports by the end of the decade, a call to action made a year earlier by partners of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program.

The more than 700 attending the sold-out event, plus more than 1,000 on livestream, left the two days and its 26 main stage and breakout sessions with clear opportunities to do so.

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How Oakland is mobilizing for kids

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Oakland’s passion for sports was recognized by the Aspen Institute in “State of Play Oakland,” the 11th community report from our Project Play initiative. Two data points stood about above all: only 14% of Oakland youth received the 60 minutes of physical activity per day recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (below the U.S. average of 23%). And just 9% of Oakland girls were sufficiently physically active. The good news is many organizations and leaders in the city saw the numbers and got to work. 

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: State of Play featuring Maryland Gov. Wes Moore

The Project Play Summit closed with an inspiring perspective on how one state is leading the charge of organizing and supporting the growth of youth sports. 

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore discussed the value of sports in his life and for children, along with the role of government to help provide access. Joined by moderator Greg Olsen, Moore said his passion to use his platform to benefit youth sports came from being impacted as a child through playing sports.

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: Building a Youth Sports Policy Agenda

Project Play is creating the nation’s first policy framework for youth sports and used a panel discussion at the Project Play Summit to explore the creation of a politically durable agenda to improve safety, access and governance.

Moderated by Dr. Ashleigh Huffman, a policy consultant for the Aspen Institute Sports and Society Program, the panel highlighted the work, present accomplishments and future goals of building a youth sports agenda.

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Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: Service Learning Through Sports, featuring Josie Portell and Rishan Patel

Inspired by the School Sports Equity Toolkit, the Aspen Institute’s Service Learning through Sports is a one-year program that provides micro-grants and mentorship programming to select U.S. high school students who lead, or aim to lead, a project or initiative addressing an issue of sports access. At the Project Play Summit, two high school students explained how they are making a difference for their communities and teammates.

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: Catch Her If You Can, featuring Diana Flores

Like the trajectory of women’s sports in the U.S. today, Diana Flores seems to be faster and more elusive than anybody who can keep up with her.

The captain and quarterback of Mexico’s national flag football team joined USA Today’s Christine Brennan at the Project Play Summit for insights into ways to engage girls from Hispanic families. Hispanic girls are often the most elusive, and underserved, populations of youth in sports.

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: The Key to 63, featuring Christina Hixson, Kim Hegardt & Kevin Martinez

Just 54% of youth in the U.S. played on a sports team or took sports lessons in 2022. At the Project Play Summit, the Aspen Institute challenged its Project Play network to embrace a goal of 63% by 2030 – an outcome that research shows would unlock at least $80 billion in societal benefits.

Project Play Summit 2024 Student Recap: Health Equity in Youth Sports, featuring Mike Locksley, Marci Goolsby & Mayrena Hernandez

Providing qualified athletic trainers to secondary schools, reducing potentially career-ending knee injuries through neuromuscular training, and paying attention to the mental health of athletes were discussed during a Project Play Summit panel on health equity in youth sports.

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: Baltimore as Beacon with Kevin Plank

Baltimore may not be his hometown, but Under Armour Founder and CEO Kevin Plank is committed to the city. With an ambitious project to raise high school graduation rates in Baltimore public schools and a new company headquarters opening in the fall, Plank is using the brand he built to energize a city he loves.

At the Project Play Summit on May 15, Plank discussed Project Rampart, an initiative Under Armour started in 2017 that has renovated Baltimore school gyms and outfitted every varsity athlete and coach in the city with uniforms.

Project Play Summit 2024 Recap: Children’s rights, youth sports policy take center stage

BALTIMORE, Maryland – Maryland became the first state to sign the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports after Governor Wes Moore endorsed a framework that all youth should have the opportunity to develop as people through sports.

“Some of my earliest memories are on a basketball court in the Bronx, where it was a place of escape,” Moore said May 15 at the Project Play Summit, the Aspen Institute’s annual youth sports conference. “It was a place where you felt safe. It was a place where you met some of your lifelong friends. It was a place where you learned all the beautiful things you can learn from team sports – how to win properly, how to lose properly, the importance of being able to trust the people to your left and right and make sure you’re practicing so they can trust you back.”

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How Baltimore is improving sports access for children

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Baltimore has a rich history of developing its children and communities through sports – from the childhood of Babe Ruth to the proliferation of recreation centers in the 1960s and ‘70s, from the rise of decorated Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps to the basketball successes of Carmelo Anthony, Angel Reese and many others. The Aspen Institute recognized as much in State of Play Baltimore, the first community landscape analysis from our Project Play initiative, which included findings and recommendations shaped by an eight-member local advisory board that included then-City Council member Brandon Scott. Since 2017, Scott - now Mayor - and local leaders have worked hard to make Baltimore’s children active through sports.

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Maryland pioneers model that brings soccer into high-poverty schools

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TAKOMA PARK, Maryland – It’s 3:40 pm on a fall afternoon, and as classes let out, about 40 children flood into the outdoor patio at Rolling Terrace Elementary School. They come for snacks and soccer and receive life lessons along the way.

On this day, many are antsy to play soccer, tying their free cleats and chatting loudly with friends rather than listening to their mentors discuss what optimism and persistence mean. Lukas Barbieri, a high school student who is the youngest of Rolling Terrace’s soccer mentors, eventually quiets the kids down.

“Does anyone remember what optimism means?” Barbieri asks.

“Helping your friends,” says one child. “Being thoughtful,” adds another.

“Sort of,” Barbieri replies. “Optimism means you have to believe in yourself.”

In a sense, this scene represents what optimism for youth sports looks like.

Project Play Summit recap: Olympic reform panel explores big changes

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO – The independent commission set up by Congress to review recent reforms and governance of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its affiliated National Governing Bodies of sport plans to do so with an eye toward how those organizations fit into and contribute to the larger sport ecosystem, a co-chair of the commission said at the Project Play Summit.

In a livestream session, Dionne Koller discussed the scope of the work of the Commission on the State of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics, and the need for better sports policy. The USOPC and NGBs get their statutory authority from the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, the law that created the current U.S. Olympic system in 1978.

Summit rewind: What kids want and need

As kids across the country return to school, the importance of centering their voices couldn’t be more timely. The first play in our youth sports framework is Ask Kids What They Want.

At the most recent Project Play Summit, we asked three girls how they got involved in sports and what they feel like when playing. Only 15% of girls nationally meet the CDC recommendation for 60 minutes of physical activity.

Summit rewind: Soccer lessons to revitalize your rec league

Jason Targoff, president of Cambridge Youth Soccer in Massachusetts, set out to change the perception that travel teams are for the “good” players and local or rec leagues are for the rest. Or that you have to choose one or the other. By implementing small changes focused on making the league more fun and engaging, he said the kids were more enthusiastic and games became more of a community event. So how did they do it?

Summit recap: National soccer leaders call for more local play

Top soccer leaders endorsed the creation of more local programs as a solution to the often expensive travel team model that has come to dominate the youth soccer ecosystem, limiting access to a sustained experience for low-income youth, including many minorities.

USA Gymnastics adopts Athlete Bill of Rights amid turmoil

“It’s a north star as to how we feel athletes should be treated by all of our community members,” USA Gymnastics CEO Li Li Leung said at the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Summit, noting that gymnasts were a vital voice in creating the document. “It’s about the right to participate in an environment that’s safe for them.”

Jeremy Lin on racism, mental health, and the problem with game highlights

Every pro athlete knows pressure; it’s a part of the game. But for many athletes, the game also includes fear and anxiety—and it’s not only the pros who are suffering. Jeremy Lin knows those feelings as well as anyone.

Jeremy Lin: Here’s how youth sports can tackle racial bias and mental health

Basketball star Jeremy Lin’s message to kids: Every athlete faces fears. “Courage is what allows people to fight through their fear,” he said. “It’s not that you don’t feel fear at all. You’re going to feel fear and that’s OK. It’s whether that fear cripples you and doesn’t allow you to move forward.”