Help, My Child is a Late Bloomer: 5 Tips for Overcoming the “Relative Age Effect” in Youth Sports

“Here is my question,” a mother concerned with her 10 year-old son’s sports experience recently wrote me. “I am not afraid that my son will quit sports by the time he is 13.  I am afraid that he will be denied the opportunity to play. My son is coordinated and coachable. He LOVES sports; we
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Why Kids Quit Sports

“I just can’t take it anymore coach,” a talented but underperforming player named Kate told me a few years back. “I think I am done playing.” My mind went through all the reasons this might be happening: burnout, other interests, team dynamics, I was too hard on her, the gamut. What could it be? “It’s
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The 4 Biggest Problems in Youth Sports Today

When you run an organization such as the Changing the Game Project, you hear many youth sports stories from parents, coaches, and players. Some stories are absolutely heartbreaking, others inspiring. Recently I encountered the absurd. Many of us have seen the news about a volleyball player from Washington DC who was taking her playing time
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The Adultification of Youth Sports

The other day I had a conversation with a coaching colleague about the state of youth sports. I stated that the emphasis on travel sports and playing multiple games per day for young children was hurting kids and damaging sports. “I agree with what you are saying,” he said, “but you are forgetting that youth
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What Youth Sports can Learn from Video Games

On a recent sunny Saturday, I took my kids out to the local park to play soccer with some friends. They ran, they jumped, and they competed hard. They laughed, they schemed, and they made the rules. Everyone played, no one was excluded from the game, and all the kids tried and failed over and
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The Perils of Single-Sport Participation

For the last few days, my email and social media accounts have been lit up by a simple image first shared with me on Twitter by @ohiovarsity. It is amazing because the image portrays something that is widely known among experts, widely discussed in coaching circles, and has certainly been written about by me and
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The Enemy of Excellence in Youth Sports

“My daughter is the tallest fourth grader in her class and loves to play basketball,” said a father to me recently. “Sadly, I know that she will ultimately grow to be of average height.  Since she is now only allowed to rebound and give the ball to shorter-ball handler players on her team, she will
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Faster, Higher, Stronger: An Interview with Mark McClusky

Every day the limits of the human body and being pushed. From sport science to nutrition, and from psychology to neuroscience, elite athletes are being trained differently, and are pushing the boundaries of performance. In his fantastic new book Faster, Higher, Stronger: How Sports Science Is Creating a New Generation of Superathletes–and What We Can
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The Best Youth Sports Books of 2014

As you may know, I am an avid reader, especially when it comes to youth sports, psychology, coaching, leadership and sport science. I buy a lot of books, and I drive my wife crazy because our bookshelves are overflowing, yet still I purchase more. And every year, I like to compile a list of the
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The Tipping Point in Youth Sports

“What happens to us parents and coaches,” I often get asked, “that turns us from sensible, relaxed people to stressed out adults roaming up and down sports sidelines and screaming at every play?” It is a question I ponder a lot, especially as I often get to watch my young children’s games played side by
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Youth Sports Coaching: Not a Job, but a Calling!

So they call you Coach, huh? Have you ever stopped to consider what that means? You have taken on one of the most beautiful, powerful, and influential positions a person can ever have. Some people may call it a job, and others a profession, but in reality, being a great coach is not that at
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Is Social Media Ruining Your Youth Sports Experience?

Do you turn get on Facebook, or Pinterest, or Instagram, and ever think to yourself “Everyone’s kid has a trophy, won their big game, and is having great success, but mine is not?” Does it drive you nuts when everyone else’s kids seem to be achieving something remarkable, or looking so happy, and you are
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Are Great Coaches Becoming an Endangered Species?

When you are in the coaching profession, one of the things you learn early on is not to take things too personally. Your biggest fans when you win may become your biggest critics when you lose. Your players may love you one moment, and grumble the next, and it is important to maintain perspective and
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How to Raise a Lion Chaser!

“Coach, I don’t want to take a penalty shot,” said a very nervous 13 year-old player of mine a few years back. We were in the Oregon Soccer State Cup semifinals, and this talented but not quite confident young girl looked in no mood to take a shot in the penalty shootout to determine whether
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A Higher Purpose Than Winning

If you put a bunch of top coaches, sport scientists and psychologists in a room together, they may not agree on much. They would agree on one thing though: an overemphasis on winning and competition, instead of practice and development, is detrimental to the long term performance of young athletes. Unfortunately, today in youth sports
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Changing the Game in Youth Sports

On April 26, 2014 I had the honor of presenting a talk at TEDx Bend Oregon entitled “Changing the Game in Youth Sports.” The power of the TED platform, and its international recognition as a brand that brings “ideas worth sharing” to the forefront of conversation, was such an incredible platform to be able to
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Starting Your Athletes the Right Way

(A child’s first contact and first impression of a sport goes a long way to determining whether or not he will fall in love with the game. As basketball great Steve Nash says, upon receiving his first ball and playing in his first organized league at age 13, “I felt like I had a new
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Surviving Tryout Season

Spring and early summer usually bring about an annual rite of passage in youth sports: TRYOUTS! They can be a time of great joy, or tremendous disappointment. Tryouts can be a time filled with pressure, stress, politics and many of the other unsavory aspects of youth sports. They can also be a time where a
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Three Books That Will Make You a Better Coach

As most of you know, I am an avid reader, and I am always looking for great ideas on athletic development, parenting, and my first passion, coaching. For all you coaches out there, this article is for you (and for any teachers or business people who are trying to improve their “team” culture, also highly
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The Race to Nowhere in Youth Sports

“My 4th grader tried to play basketball and soccer last year,” a mom recently told me as we sat around the dinner table after one of my speaking engagements. “It was a nightmare. My son kept getting yelled at by both coaches as we left one game early to race to a game in the
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The Awesome Power of Sport

“In 2011 we were working in Uganda with 93 children, most of them former child soldiers and victims of the awful Civil War that has ravaged that region for decades,” said Nick Gates, the founder and CEO of Coaches Across Continents (CAC), an organization that is a global leader in the Sport for Social Impact
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The Incredibly Massive Importance of Play

Let me be blunt and scream this from the rooftop: the best athletes PLAY sports. They don’t work them, they play them. When sport becomes more work than play, athletes struggle, they grind, and if they cannot get back to playing instead of working, they eventually drop out. From youth to pros, when the fun
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The 4th Path: Reinventing US Youth Soccer Player Development

When it comes to the development of young soccer players in the United States, many parents and coaches come to that proverbial fork in the road, and are unsure what path to take. Most parents want their child to try many sports, yet are faced with the harsh reality of high participation costs, nearly year-round
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The 10,000 Hour Myth

A myth is a false belief or idea that is widely held. One such myth that has enveloped youth sports is the idea that to become an elite athlete all one needs 10,000 hours of sustained, deliberate training. This is a myth in every sense of the word. I recently gave a talk at a
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What About the Single Sport Athlete? Specialization Part II

My article on sport specialization, “Is it Wise to Specialize,” prompted quite a bit of discussion, commentary, and controversy, with people chiming in from all across the globe. Certainly the dynamics of single v multiple sport participation, and its effect upon performance, injury, and burnout, is not a settled issue, and arouses many emotions. It
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The Armpit of American Youth Sports: “Friday Night Tykes”

The armpit is the part of the body that is dark, stinky, and unattractive. Everyone has one, but no one wants to see it or acknowledge it, and would rather cover it up and move on. The armpit of American youth sports is the culture of win-at-all-costs, uneducated, over the top coaches and parents who
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Is it Wise to Specialize?

The greatest difference between our children’s sporting experience and our own is the rise of year round, sport specific organizations that ask – even require – season after season of participation in order to stay in the player development pipeline. The pressure to have your child specialize in a single sport at a young age
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To Cheat or Not to Cheat…Is that Even a Question?

“Young players play with a great deal of fairness and sportsmanship. Once they learn how important the game is to adults, they will learn how to cheat.” – Dr. Ron Quinn, Professor of Sports Ethics at Xavier University. My friend Ann Dewitt is a family therapist and parenting expert, as well as the host of
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5 Thoughts That Will Change Your Youth Sports Experience for the Better

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But
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The Surprising Story of Simon Kjaer: Why Talent Selection Does Not Always Work

In 2004, FC Midtjylland in Denmark set out to establish Scandinavia’s first youth soccer academy. As a new club, it did not have the pick of the litter of Danish soccer talent, which went to bigger, far more established clubs. And as the coaches put together their first team, they were short one player. With
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