ABSTRACT
With widespread physical education in schools, the passage and implementation of Title IX and increased attention to children’s physical health, American sporting opportunities now target younger and younger athletes. This chapter takes on the distinction between sport and play to investigate the values that children learn from sporting competition. Turning to the legacies of muscular Christianity for children, I examine scouting, summer camps, and youth physical education to show that the ‘character-building’ promised by muscular Christians is often accompanied by gendered expectations, competitiveness, and reward for putting bodies at physical risk. In conclusion, I point out that children and youth sporting activities are not innocent but are implicated in the same complex systems of power that govern the worlds of adults.
