Sports fans are familiar with organizations like the NCAA that regulate student athletics at the collegiate level and state bodies, like the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, that oversee high school sports. But, to date, there haven’t been any umbrella groups governing sports for elementary and middle school-aged athletes.
Massachusetts lawmakers are looking to change that and become the first in the nation to create a statewide agency that would regulate sports for kids and pre-teens.
A new report outlines 11 recommendations for the Massachusetts Special Working Group on Youth Sports, chaired by Josh Zakim of the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission. The group was established in 2024 “to examine the current state of youth sports in the Commonwealth and develop recommendations to ensure that youth sports remain safe, accessible and focused on the wellbeing of children.”
One of the recommendations in the new report introduces centralizing oversight for coaches and officials through licensure. Currently, background checks for employees are administered by individual youth sports organizations. Under the agency, a statewide licensing system would handle that process.
Sen. Barry Finegold, an attorney and Democrat from Andover, was appointed to the group by the president of the state Senate.
“I do think that we have to change the way we approach youth sports. I think that it’s becoming too expensive [for families], too long and denying kids opportunity,” Finegold said. “I think this report is a very good step in that direction to begin making changes to youth sports, which at the end of the day will benefit everybody.”
He said he plans to file legislation in January that would try to push some of the recommendations into law.
The report also stipulates setting up a code of conduct, health and safety protocols, education and awareness campaigns and access to public grant funding. It also wants to remove any bans allowing the public to record games and create regulating agencies that would standardize the timing of sports activities and the length of seasons.
Steph Lewis, president and CEO of the urban academy The BASE is also part of the initiative. He was appointed to the special working group by the governor. He said that different sports groups work independently, and an overall umbrella group would bring them onto the same page.
“The idea that there can be an agency to create a lot more togetherness and a sense of uniformity, I think, is something that will be pretty big for the commonwealth,” Lewis said.
Another recommendation is to create heightened penalties for assault and battery of coaches and officials.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport released a national survey earlier this year that revealed many “youth-sport coaches are feeling burned out and fed up with verbal harassment and abuse, mainly from parents of athletes.”
“It happens more often than it should,” Lewis said. “If a parent is unruly toward a coach, they may be kicked out, but then they can come back the next game and that’s it, right? And that’s where it ends.”
He explained that the disruptive parent may even have a child that plays more than one sport, so the agency would have the ability to communicate across the board to regulate problems.
“Parents are taking youth sports way too seriously,” Sen. Finegold said. “Everybody thinks that their child’s going to be the next Tom Brady or Caitlin Clark, and it’s foolish. The goal of youth sports is for kids to have a good time, enjoy themselves, learn life lessons about hard work, being a team. The vast, vast majority of kids aren’t going to be playing in college, aren’t going to be playing in professional sports. So, we need to have parents stop acting like their kid is destined to play in professional sports because it’s ruining the game and it’s ruining the experience for the younger people.”
Rick Catalano, a co-director with the associate officials program for the Eastern Massachusetts Lacrosse Officials Association, said he has mixed feelings about the agency.
“I think it’s a good move. I think it’s something that’s needed,” Catalano said. “There needs to be much more control and, I think, accountability for the actions from both the official side and the coaches and parents and players side. So, I think this will provide that. I think the apprehension I have is that, how is it going to be enforced? How is it going to be mitigated?”
He said that his lacrosse program has 450 to 500 associate officials, so getting everybody onboard and able to understand the new requirements and workflow changes will be a challenge.
“It’s going to require all of the parties involved to embrace it,” he said, “and not just assume that something magical is going to happen.”
