McHenry County youth recreation sports participation on the decline

Randy Giebelhausen, a father and baseball coach from Huntley, is fed up with the current landscape of youth sports. He feels the rise of travel teams and the decline of recreation leagues is not the way it is supposed to be.

Recreation youth sports seem to be dying a slow death in recent years. Nationally, the numbers of kids that participate in youth sports has decreased in many of the most popular sports. This trend has also occurred on the local level with many youth leagues run by towns and districts shrinking in the past five years.

Youth leagues are being affected by anything from economic factors, population decrease and the rise of travel teams.

“I think there are too many travel teams,” Giebelhausen said. “I think that they are depleting the in-house level just for the sake to say their kid is in a travel program.”

Giebelhausen and other parents feel the rise of travel teams because of many parents taking it upon themselves to form travel teams either to expose their children to a more competitive league or for namesake. The growth of travel leagues have resulted in not only numbers but talent in recreation leagues to suffer.

Parents such as Giebelhausen are also concerned the quality of travel teams suffers because almost anyone can form a travel team and they end up accepting anyone who is willing to pay.

He said this is a result of a “stigma” surrounding in-house leagues that he feels should not be there. When such talent disparities permeate travel teams that are supposed to be the best players, the leagues tend to see lopsided scores and some parents do not feel that belongs in travel ball.

“Not every kid is built to play travel baseball,” said Erin Reed of Lake in the Hills. “And parents don’t want to hear it.”

Reed is also concerned some of the baseball travel teams that are independently formed are taking players from the recreation leagues and that has lowered the talent in both organizations. Her two sons both played travel baseball but her older son went back to the recreation league.

Reed recognized that it was a good idea, because he was not enjoying the high intensity of travel ball and did not want to play with that type of pressure. His enjoyment of the game was not there in travel ball, so she was more than happy to let him play in an environment that was more fun for him.

“He found his love of the game again after he quit travel,” Reed said. “And the sad part is that the rec leagues go away. There isn’t a place for those kids to go anymore.”

While travel teams are one of the main reasons for youth recreation leagues losing players, there are other factors affecting this trend locally and nationwide.

A report by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) shows that national participation in youth sports is on the decline since 2008. Less than one in three children between the ages of 6 and 12 took part in a “high-calorie-burning sport or fitness activity” at least three times a week.

While certain sports (soccer and basketball) have experienced smaller increments of decreased activity, participation in the most popular youth sports is down across the board. There are 2.6 million fewer kids nationwide participating in basketball, soccer, track and field, baseball, football and softball in 2013 than in 2008.

But while a high-contact sport such as football has seen a drop in participation partially due to concerns over head and other serious injuries, sports like softball and baseball have seen comparable decreases in that time period. Football has seen a nationwide decrease of 28.6 percent. Baseball participation decreased 14.4 percent and softball saw the largest decrease or 31.3 percent.

The SFIA report also showed that participation in youth sports was largely dependent on family income. Children coming from families earning six figures or more routinely make up the largest percentage of participants in youth sports.

They make up 27 percent of football and baseball participants, 29 percent of basketball participants and 35 percent of soccer participants. The dip in nationwide youth sports participation makes sense during the time period of 2008-2013 as the country was recovering from the “Great Recession.”

As for local participation rates, they seem to reflect the national trends. We looked at local communities’ various youth sports organizations, not including travel teams.

For example, in Dundee Township, participation in youth soccer and basketball has seen a 13.6 percent decrease from 2010 through 2015. In Huntley, overall participation in the seven sports the recreation leagues offer dropped by 5.3 percent from 2012 to 2014.

Also mirroring national numbers, baseball and softball were among those sports with the largest decrease. This was seen most dramatically in Woodstock with baseball and softball participation dropping by half between 2008 and 2015.

Other towns in the area have experienced the same thing.

Jack Hacek, the former president and director of Player Development for Cary Youth Baseball and Softball, claims the decrease in participation in the Cary Youth Baseball and Softball program directly correlates to the drop off that the school system has experienced in the number of students. Hacek was with the program long enough to experience it first hand. He has only retired within the last year from coaching.

“We have a lot of kids in the travel program,” Hacek said. “Many are transitioning away from recreational sports leagues to travel ball. It is incredible how big our girls program became. That is what Cary is experiencing, and I believe everybody has experienced the same. There are kids that are playing different sports. There are kids playing soccer, there are kids playing lacrosse.  Baseball and softball are difficult sports to play.”

Hacek believes the specific skill set required to excel in baseball and softball might play a part in the participation drop in the program, as hitting and pitching both often require lessons outside of the regular practice time.

In McHenry, parks and recreation leagues are also seeing kids gravitate toward travel teams. Administrators like Joe Meyer, McHenry Baseball Association President, feel that youth sports as a whole are becoming more serious with the increased emphasis of travel ball and all that comes with such a commitment.

“Baseball is just not a fun thing to do,” Meyer said.

While most sports have consistently seen these decreases, in McHenry, the soccer programs have actually remained relatively stable. But the reasons for this also comply with the pattern of parents wanting their kids to play at higher levels or dropping out due to rising costs or commitment.

Like most administrators, though, McHenry Soccer Federation President Melissa Gasmann has been dealing with issues like a decrease in population and kids turning to travel teams.

“People are moving out of town to play,” Gasmann said. “Which is really our struggle.”

Despite those struggles, Gasmann and McHenry have benefitted from families in smaller surrounding communities participating in the McHenry Soccer Federation instead of their local leagues. Gasmann says this is because McHenry is essentially the “next step up” from the smaller town participants looking for more competitive teams.

In this largely unregulated realm of travel sports, recreation leagues are finding it harder and harder to stay afloat. Many parents, coaches and administrators are growing increasingly frustrated with the lowering of participation in rec leagues and the lowering of talent of travel teams. With almost anyone able to start a travel team, many feel as if something needs to change in order for rec leagues to survive and the balance of talent to be restored.

“The town should have their team and you either make the team or you don’t,” Reed said. “It’s not everyone gets to play travel because they feel like it.”