Linda Flanagan investigates how youth sports evolved from neighborhood play into a high-pressure, high-cost enterprise that consumes family life while often failing to serve children's actual interests. Drawing on her experience as a running coach and parent, Flanagan examines the forces that transformed Little League and recreational soccer into year-round travel teams, elite academies, and college scholarship pipelines. She interviews parents who spend tens of thousands of dollars on training and travel, coaches who profit from the frenzy, and athletes whose love of play has been replaced by anxiety and burnout. The book traces how economic inequality shapes access to athletic opportunities, with affluent families able to buy advantages that working-class families cannot match. Flanagan examines the myths that drive the youth sports industrial complex - particularly the belief that early specialization and intense training are necessary for athletic success, which sports science research contradicts. She looks at the college admissions scandal that exposed how wealthy parents used athletics to buy admission, and the broader corruption in recruiting that scandal revealed. The book offers guidance for parents trying to navigate these pressures while preserving what makes sports valuable for children: physical activity, teamwork, and the simple joy of playing games. Flanagan's analysis indicts not individual parents but a system that has turned childhood into a competitive marketplace.