Dave Eggers takes a look at why soccer hasn’t become a more popular sport in the US. GOOD and the New York Times explore the same question, but with a twist: is America’s obsession with college getting in the way of producing more soccer talent?

No other nation has as comprehensive a college-sports system as exists here, and none assume that an elite athlete will seek (or benefit from) higher education. “You have a major problem in the ages of 17 to 21,” Huw Jennings, now the director of the youth academy at Fulham, in the English Premier League, told me when I visited him in London. “The N.C.A.A. system is the fault line. I understand that it is good for a person’s development to go to university, but it’s not the way the world develops players.”

It’s a very interesting discussion and now makes me think about the NBA’s age/college requirements. If we’re talking NBA, I think more players looking to skip college should take the Brandon Jennings route (but maybe for longer than a year).

An older New York Times article points out how an uptick in the number of kids playing squash can be tied to their (or their parents) college ambitions.