Who's Killing Kid's Sports

Who's killing kid's sports today? I don't know about elsewhere (Well, isn't the world so much the same that our cultures are practically indistinguishable?), but in America the answer may be "mom and dad". That's right. Parents are behaving so badly about their children's' sports activities that many kids have given up the idea of even playing an organized sport.
Across the country, millions of kids are being chewed up and spit out by a sports culture run amok. In my childhood sports days kids played organized sports at local playgrounds for fun. There was not an all star league, or expensive trophies for winning, and the concept of first place was not the dominant motivation for joining a team. But not now!
Now parents push their little ones to be the best, to win and sadly the children sometimes provide a way for the parent to live his or her own life through the child's own achievements on the playing field. It's not now uncommon to see scouts and coaches of higher level teams, even pro scouts, haunting the playgrounds in search of the next Michael Jordan or David Beckham. Parents send the winning and being best" message to kids and the kids often respond by using steroids to win for mom and dad. In short, the crisis in kid sports can be summed up in one word- adults. Adults run the kiddy sports programs and they run them badly.
The emphasis isn't on having fun and learning a skill, but rather in being first and best. Nothing else is seen as acceptable. Because of this, many kids no longer want to compete. Youth sport participation numbers have declined dramatically in the past few years. And who can blame the kids?
Some parents behave ..well...like children..when attending games. They curse officials, blame the coach their little one isn't in the game or staring, and in an ugly increasing trend, even physically attack opposing players, coaches, the officials or their child's own coaches. Some kids are too embarrassed by their parents' bad behavior to participate or are uncomfortable by moms and dads who push them to be first.
Fortunately for me, my daughter was interested in karate, a sport that is totally in their control of the coaches, is an individually designed activity, does not have frequent "competitions" and is one in which parents re observers rather than vicarious participants. But I see many playground sports where children are unwilling participants, their normal childhood enthusiasm ruined by the inappropriate behaviors of mom and dad. It only takes one and adult example to ruin a child's perspective for sports, and we have millions of bad examples every day.
Perhaps parents and adult coaches of little ones should be educated to encourage all the kids to participate, regardless of skill level, to emphasize enjoyment, to be realistic about their children, to leave coaching to coaches, and to ..err... how do I sugar coat this...to SHUT-UP and let kids have fun.