A must read...What lends Hyman's admonitions such chilling credibility is his willingness to lay bare his own foibles...Such candor is compelling and engaging...A candid...indictment of youth sports today.
It's likely that every parent and coach who reads Hyman's anecdotes will relate to at least one, will glimpse their own bad behavior, whisper a personal mea culpa and seek out ways to undo inflicted damage and do their part to fix a national problem that needs fixing.
In short, Until It Hurts is a compact, compelling read that has received much praise in just its first two weeks of release.
San Jose Mercury News
This book should be the sports Bible for every parent with a kid in youth sports and for every coach.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Mark Hyman's Until It Hurts is a hair-raising look at everything that is wrong with youth sports today. More than just a splendid job of reporting and writing, it is a work of true public service. Every parent and every coach who has ever been involved in youth sports and cares about kids has an obligation to read it.
author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August
As his teen-aged son undergoes major surgery so he can pitch again, a sports dad examines the physical and emotional minefield of youth sports and comes up with ideas to make it family-friendlier. If you've got a young jock in the house, this book is more important than a private coach.
author of Raiders Night
It took a son's sore arm for Mark Hyman to recognize a hard truth: We're destroying youth sports, and maybe not even making our kids better athletes in the process. Until It Hurts is a sobering manifesto that should be required reading for every parent, coach, administrator and referee. Though my daughter's U-7 soccer team doesn't know it, I've already implemented its smart, sensible and long-overdue advice.
NPR sports commentator and author of A Few Seconds of Panic and Word Freak
Mark Hyman illustrates – through personal anecdotes and meticulous reporting – the transformative power of sports in the lives of young people. More important, he shows how adults are ruining the experience by turning youth sports into a high-pressure, big-money enterprise. When did kids' sports become more work than play? Until It Hurts provides the answer—and offers the solutions we've been looking for.
author of Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
Hyman has authored a richly-detailed, eye-opening look of an America hell-bent on turning our children into “winners” – no matter the physical or emotional cost. Important, compelling, and painfully honest Until It Hurts looks in all the right directions, including the mirror.
Chief Investigative Correspondent, CBS News
Everybody “knows” that playing sports is healthy for kids—building competence, teamwork, physical resilience. And so everyone assumes that youth-related sports injuries are simply too much of a good thing, or the result of bad coaching or poor supervision. In this passionate and eye-opening book, Mark Hyman shows how helicopter parents, professionalized sports programs and technological changes have produced a perfect storm—with our children's physical and mental well-being at the vortex.
author of Manhood in America
