The Journalist, the Dad & the Dugout: A USA Today Columnist on What Youth Sports Gets Wrong
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Episode Summary
In Episode 5 of Be Valiant, Todd Merkow sits down with Steve Borelli — sports special editions editor at USA Today, weekly youth sports columnist, Georgetown English graduate, and the man his readers know simply as Coach Steve. Steve has spent decades coaching his two sons in baseball, basketball, and flag football, and since March 2023 has been writing a weekly column for USA Today that has become one of the most widely read and shared voices in the youth sports parenting space. Todd found him through a LinkedIn post and knew immediately: this is someone parents need to hear.
The conversation opens with Steve's origin story as both a coach and a columnist. His flexible schedule at USA Today allowed him to be deeply present for his sons' athletic lives from the time they were five or six — coaching their teams, traveling with them, and accumulating the kind of firsthand experience that most journalists covering youth sports simply don't have. When USA Today approached him about a column in 2023, he was ready. The feedback since has been a steady stream of parents saying the same thing: I thought I was the only one going through this. That shared recognition — that the chaos, the pressure, and the confusion of youth sports is universal — is the engine behind everything he writes.
My older son said to me when he was eight or nine: 'Dad, I don't like baseball as much as you do.' I had to step away. He developed his own love of it without me — because I was in danger of losing him.
Steve is candid about his own evolution as a sports parent. He was not always the calm, observational presence he describes being now. Like every parent in this conversation, he had to learn the hard way that the car ride home is not the time for analysis. He credits the 24-hour rule — waiting a full day before discussing a game or performance — as one of the most important tools a sports parent can adopt. His approach now: let the conversation come from the kids. If they want to talk about it, he's there. If they don't, he lets it go. He describes sitting in the stands at a high-stakes 17-and-under tournament in Atlanta, watching his son pitch against a lineup full of Division I commits, and doing nothing but watching. A few quiet fist pumps after strikeouts. That was it.
You are on camera from the second you walk in. My sons always say, 'Dad, don't walk to the signing table with me.' They want to do it by themselves. Coaches do not want to see parents helping out.
The episode moves through several of Steve's most widely read USA Today columns. The first is his eight red flags piece — a checklist for parents trying to identify whether they are in a toxic youth sports program. The flags range from fearing that speaking up will get your kid punished, to being pressured not to play other sports, to the hotel-stay mandates that emerged from a colleague's investigation into the Dallas Stars youth hockey program. Steve identifies the most insidious flag as the one that keeps families trapped longest: the fear that there is no better option. That fear, he says, is almost always wrong — and it is exactly the kind of fear that Be Valiant was built to address.
The Todd Frazier column — published July 4, 2025, titled 'You're Not Getting Scouted at 12' — is one of the most direct pieces of advice in the entire Be Valiant catalog. Frazier, who played in the Little League World Series and went on to a major league career, told Steve plainly: no one is scouting your eight, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve-year-old. Not until they get to the big field. Steve covered the Little League World Series in person and saw firsthand what the experience actually looks like when parents get out of the way — kids along for a ride they can barely believe they're on, parents cheering and nothing more. Frazier's other observation, that a good team begins and ends with good parents, is one Todd returns to throughout the episode.
You're not getting scouted at eight, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve years old, man. Not until you get to the big field.
The 'Work of the Devil' column brings in two unlikely voices: Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, who left an interview with President Barack Obama to get back to his daughter's travel softball tournament, and Richard Reeves, a British author who observed American travel sports from the outside and found the whole enterprise baffling. Lewis's experiment with a low-pressure Berkeley softball league — designed to minimize parent interference and balance competition — ultimately collapsed when the kids entered the real travel sports world and started losing badly. Steve's takeaway is not that the experiment failed, but that it revealed how hard it is to create a healthy sports environment in isolation when the surrounding culture is built around winning at all costs.
The Annika Sorenstam column is one of the most practically useful in the episode. The Hall of Fame golfer, who has every credential imaginable to coach her own son, made the decision to step back and find him a real coach instead — and then attended his lessons not to correct him, but to listen, so she could stay consistent with what the coach was saying. Steve's point is simple: if Annika Sorenstam can do that, the rest of us can too. The episode closes with the Coco Gauff column, which uses her emotionally raw US Open run — switching coaches mid-tournament, double-faulting under the world's scrutiny, crying after matches, and still advancing — as a lens for understanding what fun actually means in sports. A George Washington University professor's research found over 100 determinants of fun for young athletes, and almost none of them were about winning. Getting feedback from a coach. Overcoming an obstacle. Being with your friends. Hitting the ball exactly right. These are the things that fill the fun bucket.
Todd closes by asking Steve what he hopes his sons remember most from all of it. Steve's answer is immediate: not the tournaments they won or lost, but the time they spent together. The hotel rooms, the road trips, the games of catch in the backyard. His advice for parents just starting the journey is a single word: relax.
Top 5 Takeaways
The 24-hour rule is not a suggestion — it is the minimum standard for the car ride home. Steve was not born knowing this. He learned it the same way most parents do: by doing it wrong first. The rule is simple: nothing analytical, critical, or instructional for at least 24 hours after a game. Let the conversation come from the athlete. If they want to talk, be there. If they don't, let it go. The game is over. Your relationship with your child is not.
You are being evaluated at every showcase, camp, and tournament — and so is your behavior. College coaches are not just watching the field. They are watching the stands. They are watching whether parents hover at the signing table, deliver water bottles to the dugout, or make noise when things go wrong. Autonomous kids who handle failure well and support their teammates are what coaches want. Parents who demonstrate they can stay out of the way are an asset to a recruit, not a liability.
The eight red flags are a checklist every sports parent should read before signing anything. If you fear speaking up will get your kid punished, if you feel pressured not to play other sports, if you can't honestly answer 'is this worth it' — you are already in a toxic environment. The fear that there is no better option is almost always wrong. That fear is the mechanism that keeps families trapped. Name it, and it loses most of its power.
Fun in youth sports is not trivial — it is the whole point. Research by Professor Amanda Visek at George Washington University identified over 100 determinants of fun for young athletes, and winning was not at the top of the list. Getting feedback from a coach. Overcoming an obstacle. Being with friends. Learning a new skill. Hitting the ball exactly right. These are the things that fill the fun bucket and keep kids in the sport. Parents who optimize for outcomes are optimizing for the wrong thing.
The play-cation is a vacation. The hotel rooms, the road trips, the team dinners, the games of catch before bed — these are the memories your kids will carry. Not the tournament brackets. Steve's sons are teenagers now, and he is already thinking about how different it will be when they're playing in college and he's just a face in the crowd. The time you have with them in the dugout, in the car, in the stands — that is the experience. Don't spend it worrying about the scoreboard.
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