Mark Benton - Buffalonews.com
Updated: July 16, 2010, 12:18 pm /
Published: July 10, 2010, 12:30 am

When my two sons ask me what is the difference between youth sports today and when I was growing up in the 1960s and early '70s the answer is simple: Organized street teams.

Little league baseball didn't begin in our neck of the woods until 1959. Youth football followed seven years later. But outside of those two sports for boys only, that was it. A few of my friends and I benefited in basketball because our local parochial school had a middle school team.

There were no organized youth leagues in soccer, hockey, softball or any other sport so we created them ourselves. I was nine years old when we put together the first group of neighborhood kids in the sport of wiffleball to challenge our counterparts from the other side of town.

Phone calls went back in forth in March when the snow was still on the ground to set up the first contest of the season. Everything was ironed out in these preseason discussions between nine-year olds. Where would we play, what time, how many balls, bats, and bases did we have? By the time the first pitch was thrown, everything was in place. No umps, no parent interference, our rules. And we played.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson led the N.F.L. in rushing the last two seasons. So why is Peterson in seemingly every commercial, but Johnson is rarely seen?

"It's all about image and perception," Jerry Horowitz, the N.F.L.'s director of youth tackle football, told a group of high school players at a league-run clinic last month in Jamaica, Queens. "The days of hoodlums are over."

Johnson has never been in trouble off the field, but he told The Orlando Sentinel in April that "I know people think I'm a bad guy because of my dreads and gold teeth."

As Commissioner Roger Goodell has cracked down on player misconduct, he has made clear his aim is not only to punish lawbreaking but to prevent actions that tarnish the league's reputation.

Horowitz left no doubt that he saw a link between the N.F.L.'s efforts to clean up behavior and the more than 125 high school player development clinics the league is running around the country this summer.

Speaking to nearly 150 high school players at the start of the camp in Queens, he opened his remarks by saying, "The landscape of the N.F.L. is changing."

The programs, co-sponsored by the National Guard, generally run for 10 hours over five days. In their 10th year, the free clinics will reach more than 20,000 high school players in 34 states. Participants practice football skills, but they will also take part in character development lessons.

By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
Wall Street JournalThough it faces little competition for the distinction, today's meeting between the U.S. and England at the World Cup in South Africa is the most anticipated soccer match in American history. Millions are expected to tune in, and more than a few know the star players for Team USA--Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey in midfield and Tim Howard in goal, the trio featured on the cover of last week's Sports Illustrated.

Also watching closely in person at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium near Rustenburg will be a reedy, Indian-American economics lecturer at Columbia University. Sunil Gulati isn't a household name. His last glory days on the field came as a sweeper on Bucknell University's JV soccer squad three decades ago. But Mr. Gulati figures as prominently as anyone in any serious discussion of the sport's growth in America. His story shows how far the game has come, and how far it has yet to go.

"One of the most connected and intelligent men in American soccer," the San Diego Union-Tribune once wrote of Mr. Gulati. "An enormous asset for U.S. soccer; if Sunil's in charge, I'm signed up," John Skipper, ESPN's content guru, tells me.

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