As the pre-football summer starts to wind to a close, we wanted to take some time to tackle a few topics that might be of interest to you folks. Today's episode is the first of a multi-part podcast about the youth sports scene in the United States and elsewhere. We start off by discussing the backstory of why the United States has the (largely) education-based sports development model that it has, while Europe and elsewhere utilize different approaches. We discuss the early days of organized sports, the introduction of certain team-based sports into the educational environment, and how the methods and motivations for training and developing athletes have directly affected things over the years.