When the University of Washington’s Sports Institute teamed up with the King County Play Equity Coalition to create the Youth Sports and Physical Activity Legislation Tracker, researchers and stakeholders had one focus: concussion policies. However, the legislation tracker grew beyond their expectations to encompass silos for safety (injury prevention, concussion protocols and mental health), coach training requirements, physical activity policies in schools, oversight and reporting requirements.
“We’re seeing development in the youth sports and physical activity space as a means to support youth wellbeing,” says Julie McCreery, a professor at Washington and co-director of the UW Center for Leadership and Athletics, as well as the founder of the King County Play Equity Coalition. “We hope people who are interested in those types of policies and in supporting youth wellbeing from a regulatory and governance perspective can look at what other states are doing and learn the ways they could go with their own policies in their own states.”
The legislation tracker includes an interactive map of the United States. Users can select a single state to view a summary of that state’s youth sports legislation, or filter by topics such as coaching, cardiac arrest or concussion.
“Folks who are advocating for policy in their states and also researchers can use the tracker,” McCreery says. “For example, you could look at every state that requires mandatory reporter training for youth sports and [use that to] understand how the outcomes for youths in those states are different than for other states.”
“We meet every six months to keep the tracker updated,” explains Scott Polovitch-Davis, associate director of The Sports Institute at UW Medicine. “We have student assistants who do the input work. It takes a few hours to go through all the state and federal laws.”
Both McCreery and Polovitch-Davis emphasize that visibility of policy is a priority for their teams because youth sports are not heavily regulated or owned by one organization for consistent oversight. In that sense, the space differs substantially from college athletics — one frontier that the legislation tracker does not currently reach. Polovitch-Davis says that is for good reason. College athletics has the benefit of a central governing body, and given the ever-changing landscape of collegiate athletics in the era of revenue-sharing, researchers behind the legislation tracker do not believe now is the time to keep track of that arena. Their focus will remain on the under-18 demographic.
“We want to tame the wild west a little bit,” says McCreery of the youth space. “It’s a great goal.”
While some states still have tumbleweeds rolling through youth sports oversight and policy, others are flourishing. McCreery and Polovitch-Davis point to Alabama as one of the states leading the way in prioritizing youth wellbeing.
“Alabama has a package that is primarily focused on physical safety, but also includes some mental health training for coaches,” says McCreery. “Passing a bill is one thing, but then setting up opportunities and financial support and monitoring to ensure that people are actually meeting those qualifications and standards is another. Alabama is doing a really good job of that in youth sports safety.”
McCreery and Polovitch-Davis say there are three or four states in addition to Alabama that have implemented the Coach Safely Act, and both Illinois and California have passed bills to create commissions to examine youth sports more broadly and understand issues of safety, quality and access.
“Our goal is to help people understand what is being legislated in youth sports and showcase where folks are deciding that it is time to bring child protections to youth sports,” McCreery says. “We want to increase youth physical activity and opportunities. At the same time, we want those opportunities to be both physically and emotionally safe.”
