YOU Belong Sports & Leadership Initiative, a new, nationwide camp series launching this summer, is focused on empowering LGBT and straight-ally youth.

The four camps were developed by NFL player Wade Davis and LGBT rights activist Darnell Moore and will focus on different sports. The first camp, slated for July in Chicago, features basketball and is open to high school and college students.

A youth sports summit in Alexandria, VA this week seeks to develop practices to address and prevent child abuse. The summit, organized by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, expects over 50 organizations from across the youth sports spectrum to attend, including Special Olympics, USA Swimming, and more.

The summit was organized to help prevent future situations along the lines of the Jerry Sandusky situation at Penn State. While not a new situation, the fact that it was a high profile situation helped draw attention to the important issue.

Youth sports are more competitive than ever. A recent article by the Associated Press likens it to an "athletic arms race". Despite this competitiveness, participation in youth sports has dropped in the past decade. Where's the disconnect?

Fewer Spots

According to the article, there are more kids playing sports due to an increase in population but fewer available roster spots on High School teams due to budget cuts and other reasons. This leads to increased competition, especially at younger ages, in order to compete for roster spots in High School and with clubs.