(Yesterday I had the opportunity to present to a group of orthopedics, physical therapists, athletic trainers and coaches on FOMO: Fear of Missing Out, and why I think it is driving early specialization, burnout and dropout for our young athletes. I figured it was a good excuse to share an old blog of ours on…
We have all seen it. I was recently watching a 12-year-old boys soccer game, and I saw it again. Like a deer in the headlights, the left defender on the blue team was seemingly stranded on the field and unsure where to go or what to do. He turned to one sideline, where his coach…
This week I am headed to Chicago to speak at a youth sports conference called Rev, for clients of one of our partners, the web development and online registration organization Sprocket Sports. I have been tasked with moderating a panel called “The Secret Sauce of Taking Your Club from Transactional to Transformational,” and I am…
Yesterday was a tough day. It was a tough day because I had a conversation with another coaching friend who had lost his job. He was not fired for doing anything illegal. He was not fired for anything inappropriate. He was not fired for bullying or demeaning behavior. He was complimented for his integrity and…
I recently came across a great quote from the poet TS Elliot, who says “Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security with the delight of adventure.” The quote…
In late February I was traveling and speaking in Sydney and Perth, Australia, working for a variety of sports organizations including the Football (Soccer) Federation of Australia, Football New South Wales, the Western Australia Department of Sports and Recreation, and the WA Aussie Rules Football Committee. While on site, I got to visit the brand…
Kevin McLaughlin, USA Hockey’s Director of Youth Hockey Development, was not looking forward to opening his email in January 2009. He knew it was going to be full of angry posts. He knew he and his colleagues at USA Hockey would be accused of destroying the game and taking the toughness out of the sport.…
“My daughter and I had to miss her grandfather’s funeral when she was 12 for a cheerleading competition.” I had to read that twice to be sure what I was reading. This was an actual comment we received recently on Facebook. We receive a lot of heartbreaking stories from readers, but this one sentence stopped…
As soon as I stepped out of my car in the parking lot, I could hear it. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon of travel soccer, but there it was. You know what I’m talking about: that sometimes beautiful, often times excruciating cacophony of sounds that we have come to know as “cheering for our…
“What do you think is going to change in the next ten years?” That is a question that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos gets all the time. He thinks that is an interesting question, but not the best one people could ask. “I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next…