"It's extremely difficult to make the pros; we all know that," says Tom Farrey, the director of the Sports and Society Program at the Aspen Institute and author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. Yet, in recent years, he has started to see a shift among the parents of kids playing youth sports. "The difference is that a lot of parents today see those odds and say, well, I'd better get started early with my kid.