For the Love of the Game: Does Youth Sports Lead to Career Success?
Open Access
- Author:
- Bisi, Chelsea
- Area of Honors:
- Accounting
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Scott Collins, Thesis Supervisor
Samuel Burton Bonsall, IV, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- youth sports
specialization
sampling
career success
leadership - Abstract:
- Participating is youth sports is a commonplace that is experienced by many children around the globe. This topic is one that is heavily researched in order to identify potential advantages and disadvantages of participation. However, there is a fine balance that exists for parents when deciding how many sports to let your child participate in, and this research can help aid in this decision. This thesis researches two different youth sport experiences children may partake in. In recent years, a new experience of youth sports has emerged, specialization. This study defines specialization as intense year-round training with exclusion of other sports at a young age. In addition, sampling is defined as children playing a variety of sports and physical activities. A survey was deployed in an attempt to find any differences in future career success between professionals who sampled youth sports and professionals who specialized in youth sports. Understanding these differences will allow parents to make the best decision for their child with regard to youth sports in order to set them up for future success. This study found no statistically significant differences between the two experiences. In order to answer research question two, regression tests were used to determine whether differences existed in future career success as the number of sports participated in increased. This study found one statistically significant result that indicated for the sampling group, as the number of sports participated in increased, future career salary increased.