Just going to keep reposting this to combat this narrative. Are American youth sports a mess, yes. Is it the reason we aren’t competitive in soccer, no. Are we still the best country for all-around sports. Yes. By a mile.
Excluding football, the only sports invented in America are basketball and volleyball.
Basketball: men won 17 of the 21 golds in the Olympics including the last 4. Women have won 10 of 13. Neither team has not medaled in an Olympics.
Baseball: Has one gold and two runner-ups in the last 3 World Baseball Classics, second-most medals of any country. Tied for second-most medals of any nation in Olympic baseball, only behind Cuba
Golf: Have the best women’s and men’s golfers in the world. And probably the 5 of the 6 best golfers of all time
Hockey: Just swept men’s and women’s at the Olympics. Men’s and women’s hockey have the second-most medals of any nation in the olympics
Women’s Soccer: most medals and golds of any nation in the World Cup history including the last two
Women’s indoor volleyball: most medals of any nation in Olympic history, including medaling in the last 5 and gold in 2021 Tokyo
Men’s volleyball: tied for most medals and tied for most golds of any nation in Olympic history
Softball: Most medals and golds of any nation in Olympic history.
Track and Field: we have 860 Olympic medals in its history. The next closest nation is England with 219.
We have 2,765 total medals in the summer Olympics well over 2x the next nation (Soviet Union at 1,010). And 3x the amount of golds over them. We have the second-most golds and medals ever in the Winter Olympics,126 and 363, only behind Norway at 166 and 447.
We are one of the top 3 nations in most sports. Of the really popular ones, men’s soccer and tennis is where we aren’t. All of these sports have the same youth development structure as our soccer. So what’s different
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