The Physician

I see the damage firsthand.

I am a non-operative sports and exercise medicine physician at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush in Chicago, where I serve as team physician for the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox. I have spent over 15 years treating athletes of all ages, and the most heartbreaking cases I see are not the professional athletes. They are the 14-year-olds who have already had Tommy John surgery. The 16-year-olds whose knees are worn down from year-round single-sport training. The kids who come in burned out, injured, and done with the sport they used to love.

The research on early specialization, overuse injury, and athlete burnout is clear. Most people just have not read it. That is why I write.

The Sports Dad

I live this alongside you.

I am also a dad with kids active in youth sports. I sit in the same bleachers you do. I feel the same pull between wanting to give my kids every opportunity and knowing that more is not always better. Knowing the research does not make those sideline decisions any easier. It just gives me a framework for making them with intention.

That tension, between the parent I want to be and the pressures the system creates, is one of the things I write about most honestly here.

The Former Athlete

I remember what it felt like.

I grew up playing sports in the 1990s, when kids still played multiple sports, pickup games still existed, and the travel team industrial complex had not yet taken over youth athletics. I was a Division III college pitcher. I know what it means to love a sport, to compete, to push through adversity, and to eventually put it down. That experience shapes how I think about what youth sports should give kids, and what we are taking away when we professionalize it too early.