For young children, the opportunity of joining a sport is endless. From the age of 3-5 to about 12 years old, children are allowed to join practically any sport they want to join. They have the opportunity to learn and to grow within that sport, but if they miss that window between ages 3 and 12, their opportunities suddenly plummet.

But why? It is always stressed by adults how important it is to join a sport, especially for adolescents as they are going through life changes. Why is it so difficult for an adolescent to join a sport if they had not put their entire childhood into it already? It is unfair to limit children from joining sports at a "late" age.

Once a child gets to middle school, they begin passing the age limit for recreational sports, and their only option is the school team. More often than not, there are so many kids trying out for a school team that the coach is not able to take everybody onto the team, and has to make some cuts. This can be devastating to a child. Why is it that if they did not make the school team, they cannot play at all?

This is not always a matter of not starting young enough, either. I have been a victim of having to give up a sport solely because of the fact that I was cut from the high school team. At the time, I was 17 years old. It was my junior year of high school, and we had gotten a new varsity coach for the softball program. Because it was a new coach, he had certain views for the team, and wanted a young team in order to build up the program from scratch. I was eliminated because of the fact I was a junior. I was devastated, and am still recovering from the mental damage this did to me.

What crushed me the most was the fact that I had no options. I simply had to give up the sport altogether, because I was too old to join an outside league. Having been in the sport for 14 years, I was completely lost, to the point where I felt physically sick. It had been as if I had gone through a breakup from a relationship that lasted nearly my entire life.

At the time, I was already dealing with enough stresses in life. I was enrolled in all AP and honors classes, I was a high honor roll student, I was enrolled in a vocational program, I was in the midst of my college search. What gets me the most, however, is that I had plans on continuing softball through college. Junior and senior year, in particular, is absolutely crucial to the recruitment into collegiate sports, but I had that opportunity ripped away from me.

I had dedicated my entire life to this sport, and made it a year-round process. I put so much into it, just to have it ripped away from me, simply because of my age. If I had the opportunity to play in an outside league, I absolutely would have, and I would probably be playing in college right now.

It is completely unfair that children are having to hang up their jerseys early due to politics that are fully out of their control within the sport. As an adolescent, that can be so damaging to mental health and confidence, and that can carry into adulthood. It may be a seemingly insignificant step to create a recreational team for adolescents in any sport, but it would honestly save so many adolescents who fall victim to being told they are not good enough.

I hope to never see any child have to go through what I went through in athletics.