I feel this to the core. My personal solution was to try and find a way to start an organization that would allow kids to play without all of these inverse effects that happen but I kept coming to an issue with liability. Any organization I could run would need insurance and the venue would have to be sanitized of any possible risks to the point where I was beginning to doubt it was even possible.

The current culture doesn't seem to have room for what I was envisioning. I've lately held an intense interest in some sports that seem to have popped up out of nowhere. Pickleball is never going to be a massive professional sport, but when it comes to adoption it has taken our city by storm. All of the tennis courts which were completely empty are now pickleball courts. My hypothesis is that the closer a game looks to the real thing, the pro version, the less likely that the organized youth version of it will be adaptable to children.

The more it looks like a silly "game" (pickleball is similar to wiffleball in that the ball is a plastic silly thing) the more fun it will likely be for kids just picking it up in the local neighborhood. When the game mirrors a professional sport like hockey (on real nice looking professional rinks, and baseball with pro jerseys and pristine fields, and soccer on fields that would make the second leagues in England blush) it begins to take on these high stakes qualities that lowers the accessibility.