Though traditional sports like football, basketball, and hockey aren't exactly going out of style, the world of so-called extreme sports keeps growing in popularity.
Some kids are happier riding their skateboards than dealing with the structure of soccer practice.
Others like cruising around on their BMX bikes until their legs just quit, surfing themselves silly, or spending the entire weekend learning new tricks on their inline skates. For many kids, traditional team sports mean a lot of coaching, rules, pressure, and competition. It s easy to see why some kids are attracted to the individuality and athletic self-expression that are the hallmarks of extreme sports. Of course, kids are also attracted to extreme sports because they re cool. Snowboarding, the bad-boy little brother of skiing, was legitimized by sports traditionalists when it became an official Olympic event at the 1998 Nagano Games.