Duke Medical Minutes are produced by local sports radio affiliates, and allow Duke specialists to give a brief snapshot into health offerings at Duke.

In this episode, William Garrett, MD, PhD, discusses the growing popularity of soccer in the U.S.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: We’re talking with Dr. William Garrett, chairman of sports medicine and physical fitness -- on the physical fitness committee for the U.S. Soccer Federation.

You’ve been affiliated with Team USA back from 1989 -- that’s a long time since we’ve seen U.S. soccer grow. Explain just how much it’s grown to the laymen out there.

Garrett: Soccer’s had tremendous growth. I think it is now the third or fourth sport with the largest number of participants in the U.S. and the largest in the world, and that doesn’t count the stockcar watchers . . . (laughter) . . . but people who are doing the exercise themselves.

The rapid growth in numbers and in people playing has been in the younger ages, so with these youth travel teams -- a lot of the teams outside of the school system in actual soccer organizations -- growing very quickly, which is probably part of the reason our women’s national team is much more a powerhouse in the world than the men’s team. In other countries, the men have been playing soccer all the time since they were very little. In the U.S., now the women are doing it as well.