The Ride Home
Thursday, 01 May 2014
One of the saddest things I had to do as a Director of Coaching for numerous soccer clubs was conduct exit interviews, meetings with players whom had decided to leave the club. Children quit sports for a litany of reasons, and my job was always to see what we could learn, so we could improve
- Published in Confidence, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
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The Race to Nowhere in Youth Sports
Monday, 24 March 2014
“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
- Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
The Incredibly Massive Importance of Play
Tuesday, 04 March 2014
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
- Published in Coaching, Deliberate Practice, Motivation, Sports Parenting
The Bare Essentials: Three Things Every Athlete Needs to Succeed
Thursday, 06 February 2014
Elite performance is determined by a number of factors, amongst them innate talent and genetics, hours of deliberate training, coaching, and luck. But performance is also great affected by what is between an athlete’s ears: mindset. An athlete’s state of mind is perhaps the single greatest factor that affects performance. In his great book The
- Published in Coaching, Motivation, Sports Parenting
What About the Single Sport Athlete? Specialization Part II
Monday, 27 January 2014
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
- Published in Problems in Youth Sports, Specialization, Sports Parenting
Is it Wise to Specialize?
Monday, 13 January 2014
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
- Published in Problems in Youth Sports, Specialization, Sports Parenting
To Cheat or Not to Cheat…Is that Even a Question?
Tuesday, 07 January 2014
“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
- Published in Coaching, Leadership, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
5 Thoughts That Will Change Your Youth Sports Experience for the Better
Wednesday, 01 January 2014
“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
- Published in Coaching, Family Values, Sports Parenting
The Surprising Story of Simon Kjaer: Why Talent Selection Does Not Always Work
Monday, 23 December 2013
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
- Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
Rescue Your Kids From “Affluenza”: Teach Them Grit!
Monday, 16 December 2013
The recent news out of Texas, where a 16 year old driver was only given probation for driving drunk and killing four innocent bystanders, popularized a new psychological term in the process. Apparently, parents raising children in wealthy suburbs with little oversight, few rules, and utter indifference to their behavior are causing “affluenza,” a supposed
- Published in Mental Toughness, Praise, Sports Parenting
The Most Thought Provoking Sports Books of 2013
Monday, 16 December 2013
Now that I get to make my living as a writer and a speaker, I have many perks. Perhaps my favorite is that I get to write off all of my book purchases as a business expense, research for past and future writing! In 2013, I read a ton of great books, but here are
- Published in Book reviews, Coaching, Leadership, Sports Parenting
Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification
Monday, 09 December 2013
Many youth sports coaches claim to be great talent identifiers, and point to the results of their 11 year all star team as proof. Yet they are not talent identifiers. They are talent selectors. The difference could not be more striking, or more damaging to our country’s future talent pool in many sports. Talent selection
- Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
The Missing Ingredient
Monday, 02 December 2013
If you have coached long enough, you have probably said this about a player: “He’s got a lot of talent, but he is just missing something.” I have written on similar subjects in the past, and there has been academic research in this area. In all likelihood, that missing ingredient was often the inner drive
- Published in Mental Toughness, Sports Parenting
Why We Rage: The Science Behind Crazy Parents and Over the Top Coaches
Friday, 13 September 2013
Have you ever noticed when you go to your child’s soccer game that you react one way to bad calls, aggressive fouls, or intense situations in your game, but have little or no reaction to similar situations in the game prior to yours, where you have no emotional stake? Do you can sit there with
- Published in Coaching, Leadership, Sports Parenting
Trust Your Gut When It Comes To Youth Sports
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Every time I speak, I am always approached by parents who tell me that all the pressure and emphasis on winning for their young athlete, all the pressure to commit year round to a sport prior to puberty, just feels wrong. In their heart, they know that their children want to play multiple sports, and
- Published in Family Values, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
“You Might Need New Friends!” Part II of Three Things Great Coaches and Leaders Do
Monday, 05 August 2013
In Part II of our 3 part series, I relate a simple business adage to sports. In business, it is said that if you take the five people who are your primary business advisers, add up what they make and divide by 5, that is probably what you are making. Coaching and leadership are similar.
- Published in Coaching, Leadership, Sports Parenting, State
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