AI meets youth sports

How do you make the experience around the game as memorable as the game itself?

With two kids in travel sports, I spend a lot of time on sidelines, at tournaments, and in the car getting from one field to another.

Somewhere along the way, I also became the unofficial DJ.

I play the walk-up songs for my son's baseball team and my daughter's softball team. And I love it. There's something about watching a kid walk up to the plate while their song plays. Their personalities come through. The dugout gets louder. The parents get into it. Music becomes part of the experience.

That got me wondering: What if AI could help me take that one step further?

I started experimenting with AI to create original songs specifically for the teams my kids play on.

Not generic sports anthems. Their songs.

For my daughter's softball team, the Cobras from Scotch Plains, New Jersey, I created a song around their team identity, their energy, and what it feels like to be part of the team.

And then something unexpected happened.

It became their song.

They play it. They recognize it. They sing along to it. It became another small part of the culture surrounding the team.

That's what I find fascinating about AI.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how AI can help us work differently. But some of my favorite experiments have nothing to do with productivity. They're about using these tools to make something that previously would be beyond my own skill set.

I'm not a songwriter. I'm not a music producer.

But I know these kids. I know their personalities. I know the moments that make a season special. And now I have tools that can help me turn those ideas into something they can hear, play, and make their own.

AI provided the capability. The kids provided the inspiration.