love and a bat into the crib of his first son is an American cliche simply because it symbolizes something typical about American hopes and fears" (Coffin, 1971, p. 3). Drivel of a similar sort motivated latter day adults to form youth athletic programs emphasizing football and basketball.
The first formal youth athletic program established in the United States was the Public Schools Athletic League in New York City in 1903 (Martens, 1978, p. 6). By 1910, 110,000 boys were participating in this program. Athletics and recreation directors in public schools and governmental administrations, however, generally opposed preadolescent sports. This disapproval led to the development of privately organized youth athletic programs across the United States.
Little League in 1939 was the first of the privately organizations formed to administer youth athletic programs (Meyer and Rowan, 1977, pp. 340-363). The organization of P.O.N.Y. League Baseball for adolescents, and Pop Warner Football for preadolescents followed in the 1940s.
Youth athletic programs have always been controversial (Fine, 1987, p. 4). Many professional recreation directors and educators believe that such programs are detrimental to the social development of preadolescents because of the competitive emphasis in such programs and the quasi militaristic character of the organizations administering the programs (p. 195). Opposing such professional opinion, however, is the perception that the benefits associated with youth athletic programs are akin to gifts from God. Even major league baseball players disagree on the outcomes associated with preadolescent programs. The following are contradictory quotations from two Baseball Hall of Fame pitchers, Robin Roberts and Bob Feller.
There is a lot of pressure on these young people to do something that is unnatural for their age so there will always be hollering and tremendous disappointment for most of the play...