Coach Keating

NLCS MVP Jake Bauers shares how letting go of results helped him find a different level of freedom as a competitor. "I think what changed for me this year was I stopped caring about results. I started caring about competing. I started caring about being in the moment and getting out of my own way." Sometimes, the biggest obstacle to performing at your best isn't a lack of preparation or ability. It's the pressure you place on yourself to produce a particular outcome. You become so concerned with what you want to happen that you lose touch with what the moment actually requires. Any performer can unlock a new level when they learn how to be fully invested in the competition without becoming imprisoned by the outcome. 🎥: Fox Sports

‘Travel sports,’ a term that has come to encompass all sorts of private teams, leagues, and clubs, used to be for the truly exceptional young athlete. Now, they’re for anyone willing to pay — an expensive, exhausting commitment that has become popular not necessarily because millions of parents want them for their children but because it can feel like there’s no other choice. Rec programs are underfunded and struggle to compete with for-profit leagues for prime field, rink, and court times. And the level of play is diluted, often very early, as travel teams are incentivized to enroll children at young ages. Around 5 million children in the U.S. now compete on travel teams. Parents find themselves trapped. They know the benefits of sports and want that for their children, yet giving it to them often means buying into a sports ecosystem that’s inherently flawed. As the pay-to-play model increasingly takes hold, so does the idea that kids should start competing at younger and younger ages, risking their sense of self along with their shoulders and ACLs. “I never want my kids to look back and say I didn’t do everything I could to help them live their dreams,” a mother of three soccer players said. She’s hired professional photographers to take action shots for her 12- and 13-year-olds’ Instagram accounts — the platform has become a recruiting tool — and they’ve both asked her to pay for personal trainers. “I think the word isn’t ‘specialize’; you are ‘professionalizing’ your kid early. You are exposing them to everything professionals have to deal with — I’m talking injury, time, schedule, everything,” said John Van Benschoten, a former MLB player and travel-baseball coach. It makes one ask: All this for what? And for whom? Read Caitlin Moscatello’s cover story on how travel leagues have made youth sports more expensive, hypercompetitive, and all-consuming — and the investors who are making a killing: nymag.visitlink.me/1-gbZQ