Understanding the Sport Parent Psyche with iSport360’s Ian Goldberg

Ian Goldberg is a sports dad, coach and Founder of iSport360, a SportsTech company that is helping coaches, kids and parents set goals, share player feedback and track player progress.  His informative and frequently-funny youth sports newsletter has 70,000 subscribers, earning Ian a place on the Advisory Council of the National Alliance for Youth Sports. https://isport360.com/ Connect
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Why Do We Think Physical Punishment is a Good Teaching Tool in Sports?

The other day I got an interesting question via email from a mom of a young travel volleyball player. Her daughter and her team had missed quite a few serves their previous tournament. There were serves into the net. There were serves wide of the court. There were serves over the endline. They were told
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USA Hockey Technical Director Ken Martel: How to successfully implement a Long Term Athlete Development model

With over 25 years of experience in player development and a long history as a coach with USA Hockey, Ken Martel was named technical director of USA Hockey’s American Development Model in May 2009. He is charged with helping provide a framework for associations nationwide to follow for optimal athlete development. From 2006-08 at USA Hockey’s
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How to Find Your Coaching True North with Celia Slater and Jerry Lynch

Celia Slater Celia brings nearly 30 years of unmatched experience in college athletics as both an organizational head and a collegiate basketball coach, most recently serving as co-founder and executive director of both the NCAA Women Coaches Academy (WCA) and The Alliance of Women Coaches (The Alliance). The WCA started as a professional development program
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“If you love the process, the process will eventually love you back” a conversation with Super Bowl Champion Strength Coach Jon Torine

Jon’s professional career began with the Buffalo Bills as assistant strength and conditioning coach. For 14 years he worked as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Indianapolis Colts where he was the youngest to be hired in this role. His responsibilities were many and are proud to have worked on a fully integrated
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An Open Letter to the Out of Control Sports Parent Sitting Next to Me in the Stands

Dear Out of Control Sports Parent, You. Yeah, you. The one shouting “Get the rebound!!!” to your kid. The one with the heart palpitating so loudly that you cannot contain yourself. The one yelling and complaining about the coach. The one hollering at the 13-year-old referee.  The one angry at my kid for making a
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“How to Put Play Back into a Child’s Day” with Eric Seibel and Tim Bedley from “Global School Play Day”

Global School Play Day is an ad-hoc leadership team of educators inspired by Dr. Peter Gray’s research on the decline of play and the adverse psychological, emotional and physical effects this has had on children. They continue to be a shoestring operation, promoting almost entirely through Twitter, Facebook and occasional spots on educational podcasts. No fees are
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Parenting Young Champions and Peak Performance with Gold Medal Winning Sport Psychologist Dr Roberta Kraus

Dr. Roberta V. Kraus is currently featured as an expert in a new video series launched by TrueSport, an educational program powered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that inspires athletes, coaches, parents, and administrators to change the culture of youth sport through active engagement based on cornerstone lessons of sportsmanship, character-building, and clean and healthy
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“You Coach a Child, Not a Sport!” with Dr. Martin Toms

Dr Martin Toms is a senior lecturer in Sports Coaching in the School of Sport & Exercise Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences. Dr Toms has been involved in sport coaching and development for a number of years, and has experience of teaching in schools, as well as coaching (Professionally) prior to undertaking posts
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# 103 How to Build a Model Youth Sports Organization w/ John Luetkemeyer

  Join us as we talk to John Luetkemeyer about how a youth sports organization went from a local disaster to national recognition based on volunteers changing how we trained players! It is an incredible conversation filled with nuggets of wisdom. John has spent 25 years as a youth hockey coach working with players from mini-mite to
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“Is there a difference between Coaching Girls and Coaching Boys?” with Dr. Kristen Dieffenbach

Kristen Dieffenbach is an associate professor of Athletic Coaching Education and the director of the Center for Applied Coaching and Sport Science at West Virginia University. She earned her PhD in exercise and sport science with an emphasis in sport and exercise psychology and is an Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) certified mental skills
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How to Create a Season to Remember with former MLB player Jack Perconte

John Patrick “Jack” Perconte (born August 31, 1954) is a former second baseman in Major League Baseball who played from 1980 to 1986. In addition to his Major League baseball career, Perconte has authored three books: “Creating a Season to Remember: The New Youth Sports Coaching Leadership Handbook “The Making of a Hitter- A Proven and Practical Step-by-Step Baseball Guide” “Raising
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#100 “Every Child is One Relationship Away from a Successful Life:” A Lesson on Transformational Coaching from Joe Ehrmann and Jody Redman of the InSideOut Initiative

This podcast would not exist, the Changing the Game Project would not exist, if it were not for Joe Ehrmann. Many years ago, I read his incredible book InsideOut Coaching, and it changed my life forever. It validated for me that there was more to coaching than Xs and Os, and that I wanted to
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The Professionalization of Youth Sports

“The Fulham coaches distilled the threat, defined the tactics and dictated the tempo at which they expected their team to play. It was a tough European tournament, featuring Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Anderlecht and Feyenoord, but it was deemed to be winnable.” So begins Chapter 2 of the great book No Hunger
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The Best Sports Books of 2018

Yes, it is that time of year again, time for our favorite books of 2018, and time to get the coaches, parents and athletes in our lives some good holiday reading material. The Changing the Game Project team is always reading, always listening, and always learning, in order to help you take your coaching, parenting,
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Our Children Become the Messages They Hear the Most

Picture the young swimmer stepping up to the starting blocks in a championship race. What is he thinking in that moment? Visualize the soccer player, stepping up to take the deciding penalty kick. What is going through her head? Think of the basketball player, standing on the free throw line needing to make two free
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“When I’m Running, it Feels like I am not Disabled:” Lessons on Being a Great Teammate from the Best Team You’ve Never Heard Of

Dick Hoyt was not a runner in any sense of the word. By his own accounts, he could not remember the last time he had run more than a mile. So when his son Rick told him in the spring of 1977 that he wanted to participate in a 5-mile run to benefit a classmate
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Why is Abusive Coaching Tolerated in Sports?

On May 29, 2018, University of Maryland lineman Jordan McNair ran the last sprint of his life. After a series of 110 yd runs, during which he became disoriented and had trouble standing, McNair collapsed and died of heat stroke. He had a body temperature of 106 degrees in the hospital. He was only 19.
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“Make Failure Your Fuel”: How to Help Your Athletes Learn from Adversity

In May 2018, retired US Women’s National Soccer team star Abby Wambach gave the commencement address to 600 women from Barnard College in New York City. Wambach, the all-time leading scorer for Team USA, an Olympic and World Cup champion, and an inspirational athlete known for playing with passion and giving her all every time
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Our Favorite Books for Summer 2018

Every year, as summer rolls around, we give you the list of our favorite reads of the year so far. Between Memorial Day, Fathers Day, and that upcoming vacation I hope you are taking, it’s a great time to catch up on some reading. There have been some great new books that have come out
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In Youth Sports, there is no LTAD without STAE

“Imagine youth sports was a room. On one end of the room, there is a door where everyone enters. At the other end, there is another door where everyone leaves.” So began a long conversation I had with Peter Hugg, the Head of Football (soccer) for Football New South Wales in Australia, on my recent
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How to Make Coaching a True Profession

“It ain’t what you know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know that just ain’t true.” – Mark Twain “What makes you a professional?” That was the question Dr. Richard Bailey, Head of Research at the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education, posed to me and 250 PGA instructors in Orlando
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When Will Youth Sports Actually Serve the Needs of Youth?

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
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Pound the Rock! What the San Antonio Spurs Can Teach Us About Getting 1% Better Every Day

One of the most successful sporting franchises across the globe the last few decades is the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA. With five NBA titles since 1999, 22 overall division titles, having won at least 50 games for 18 consecutive seasons, and having missed the playoffs only 4 times in their history, the Spurs
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Winning the Race to the Right Finish Line in Youth Sports

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.
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The Culture Code: Our 2017 Book of the Year (Plus Other Staff Picks)

It’s that time of year again, our final blog where we review our favorite books of 2017. There were some amazing books out there this year, and the choices were tough. This year, we also brought in some staff favorites to add to our master list. Hopefully, you can find a great read for the
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The One Question All Coaches Should Ask Their Athletes

Coaches, imagine if there was a way to gain insight, understanding, and connection with your athletes by asking a simple question? There is. let me explain how. A few years back, I coached a talented, yet underperforming sixteen-year-old girl I will call Maddy. She was incredibly inconsistent in her play and often looked very depressed.
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The “Power of Moments” in Youth Sports

The Magic Castle Hotel is one of the top three rated hotels in Los Angeles. Of its nearly 3000 reviews, 93% rate it very good or excellent, putting it above properties such as The Four Seasons and the Ritz Carlton. Yet, as you flip through the photos online, you don’t see much that makes you
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Performance is a Behavior, NOT an Outcome!

Last week I received the following email (edited for anonymity). We get calls and emails like this quite often from amazing, passionate coaches who are trying to make a difference. Take a read: Dear John, I’m currently a head football coach…I took over the program last January after being on staff for the previous 10
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A Final Game of H-O-R-S-E

A few years back, my wife Lauren and I took our kids back for one final visit to her childhood home in Fairport, NY. Her parents were preparing to sell their house and move to a warmer climate, and we took the opportunity to fly across the country to say some final goodbyes to the
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