2018 Project Play Summit Morning Plenary Session

We call it youth sports, but it’s designed by adults, and if we’re honest with ourselves, for adults. Adults pick the teams, choose the coaches, and determine everything from the rules and uniform colors, to who makes which teams and plays which positions. Kids entertain us, and we hope they develop in certain ways, athletically and otherwise, through sports. But what if kids called shots? Created experiences that met their social and emotional needs? What would youth sports look like then? And who better to moderate this conversation than Kobe Bryant, who has made the social and emotional lives of kids playing sports a focus of his post-NBA work.