A first-of-its-kind investigative book on the least examined and most important topic in sports today.

Youth sports isn't just orange slices and all-star trophies anymore. It's 14-year-olds who enter high school with a decade of football experience, 9-year-olds competing for national baseball championships, 5-year-old golfers who shoot par, and toddlers made from sperm donated (for a fee) by elite college athletes. It's a year-round "travel team" in every community-and parents who fear that not making the cut in grade school will cost their kid the chance to play in high school. In short, a landscape in which performance often matters more than participation, all the way down to peewee basketball.

Much as Fast Food Nation challenged our eating habits and Silent Spring rewired how we think about the environment, Tom Farrey's Game On will forever change the way we look at this desperate culture besotted by the example of Tiger Woods. An Emmy award-winning reporter, Farrey examines the lives of child athletes and the consequences of sorting the strong from the weak at ever earlier ages: fewer active kids, testier sidelines, rising obesity rates, and U.S. national teams that rarely win world titles.

He dives into the world of these games that are played by more than 30 million boys and girls, and along the way uncovers some surprising truths. When the very best athletes enter organized play. The best approach to coaching them. And the powerful influence of wealth and genetics. Farrey has written a surprising, alarming, thoughtful, and ultimately empowering book for anyone who wants the best for the newest generation of Americans, as athletes and citizens.

Praise for Game On

Bob Costas, NBC sports analyst and author of Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball:  "The classic images of kids at play are innocent and blissful. But modern youth sports has become hyperorganized and deadly serious. In Game On, Tom Farrey identifies the problem and, more importantly, points us toward some solutions."  

Jay Coakley, author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies: "This book is an eye-opener. Using children and sports as a focal point, Farrey provides an insightful analysis of American society today and gives us a provocative look at its future. He pulls together research findings and weaves them into stories that take us into the lives of young people today and expose what needs to be changed in youth sports. I'll refer to his analysis of sports in society for a long time to come."

Former U.S. senator Bill Bradley, author of Values of the Game: "Game On debunks the myths of child rearing and shows the lengths we go to and methods we use to build our children into athlete-entertainers at almost any cost."

Armen Keteyian, chief investigative correspondent, CBS News: "Illuminating, penetrating, sobering, Game On is dead-on: a fiercely intelligent, must-read portrait of athletic ideals gone horribly wrong, while at the same time offering a smart way out of a deep, dark national obsession."

Robert Lipsyte, New York Times contributing writer: "A powerful, disturbing, yet exhilarating investigation into how we
simultaneously empower and exploit our young. Reads like a thriller and will be the Silent Spring of sports: the book that launches a movement to protect a natural resource. In this case, our children."

Mark Fainaru-Wada, coauthor of Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports: "From parents with kids in T-ball to travel-team coaches, from NFL owners to Olympic administrators, from ‘journalists' who rank 10-year-old basketball players to agents who garner three percent of multimillion dollar deals-all these people should pledge to become part of the solution to this mounting crisis so artfully exposed by Tom Farrey."

Nick Bollettieri, U.S. tennis coach, founder of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy: "Sports development isn't just about nature vs. nurture; it's about inspiration and drive. Tom Farrey takes an honest look at how sports have evolved in today's society and what motivating factors drive parents and children to pursue excellence in sport."

Steven Mintz, author of Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood: "A must-read for anyone who cares about children, this richly researched, compellingly written book has a powerful message: That we have made sports less accessible to the poor and late bloomers and those kids who simply want to play sports for fun."

Paul Stricker, Olympic physician and author of Sports Success Rx!-Your Child's Prescription for the Best Experience: "Tom Farrey has pinned the tail on the donkey that we as a society have created that approaches youth sports in unreasonable and unrealistic ways. This book should be a wake-up call and should help us view the youth sports experience much differently."