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Choosing the Hard Right in Youth Sports

Wednesday, 20 January 2021 by John O'Sullivan
As many long time listeners and readers know, I am a graduate of Fordham University in New York City. This past Monday, on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, one of my former teachers and current university president Father Joseph McShane sent a letter to alumni about courage. I thought it was worth
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  • Published in Coaching, Parenting
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Reimagining Youth Sports in a Post-COVID-19 World

Tuesday, 14 April 2020 by John O'Sullivan
“When do you think we will play again, coach?” “Will we finish our season, coach?” “I sure miss practice, even the fitness!” “What about tryouts?” If you are part of a school or youth sports club, these are the questions you have been fielding on a daily basis. Since the state of Oregon closed down
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  • Published in club sports, COVID-19, Youth Sports
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An Open Letter to the Out of Control Sports Parent Sitting Next to Me in the Stands

Wednesday, 20 March 2019 by John O'Sullivan
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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  • Published in Article
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#101 How to Create a Season to Remember with former MLB player Jack Perconte

Sunday, 10 February 2019 by John O'Sullivan
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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The Professionalization of Youth Sports

Friday, 18 January 2019 by John O'Sullivan
“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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No Excuse for the Abuse: Don’t Tolerate Negative Coaching

Wednesday, 07 November 2018 by John O'Sullivan
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that to get children to do better, first we have to make them feel worse?” – Jane Nelsen Early in my coaching career, I was speaking with a parent of an athlete about the methods employed by her daughter’s coach. The parent explained how the coach ruled
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#78 Pause before you post – why athletes must be intentional on social media, with 2x All-American and USA Basketball Assistant Coach Scott Fitch

Sunday, 09 September 2018 by John O'Sullivan
One post. One moment of poor judgment frozen in time on social media. That is all it takes to alter your future trajectory as a youth athlete. In this episode Scott Fitch shares stories of athletes who should have “paused before they posted” and much more. Enjoy the Show!  Show Notes 1:15 Scott’s development journey
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#77 Mindfulness, Peak Performance, and “Playing in the Space Between” with Dr. Amy Saltzman

Sunday, 02 September 2018 by John O'Sullivan
What would it look like if all your athletes were able to acknowledge, resolve, and let go of emotions and feelings during games? If they could choose the right behaviors, even in moments of high pressure because they were able to understand and forgive their own feelings and thoughts and not get stuck in negative
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Parenting and Coaching The Perfectionist Athlete

Tuesday, 08 May 2018 by John O'Sullivan
Last week, we received a question that we get often, so we thought it would make a great blog: “I was wondering if you could provide some advice. My son is 8 years old and plays on a travel baseball team. [He is ] blessed with athleticism. He’s fast and has great hand-eye coordination. The
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  • Published in Coaching, Parenting
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WOC #29 Retired NBA Player, Bob Bigelow, Just Let the Kids Play

Sunday, 01 October 2017 by John O'Sullivan
“When I was a child, the vast majority of my sporting activities were in playgrounds and sandlots. Now, the majority of youth sports activities are organized and administered by adults …. The biggest problem in organized youth sports is very simple to explain — too many adults who want to compete through children.” — Bob Bigelow,
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  • Published in Podcast, Problems in Youth Sports
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WOC #28 Brett Fischer, PT for the Arizona Cardinals, on injuries, early specialization, and teaching movement before technical skills.

Sunday, 24 September 2017 by John O'Sullivan
Brett Fischer used to see Tommy John Surgery in 25 to 28 year old athletes. Now he is seeing it in 13 year olds. What has happened to simple joy of the game and playing for fun when we push our athletes so hard they need surgeries at half the age they used to need
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  • Published in Podcast, Specialization
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WOC #25 Dr. Richard Bailey, Head of Research at ICSSPE, On What We Need to Make Coaching a True Profession

Sunday, 03 September 2017 by John O'Sullivan
Is the way we coach based upon the latest science, research, and best practices of how children learn? Or is it based upon how we were coached growing up? In this fantastic interview, Dr. Richard Bailey, Head of Research at ICSSPE, separates fact from fiction and discusses some of the common mistakes that he sees
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  • Published in Coaching, Podcast
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A Final Game of H-O-R-S-E

Tuesday, 08 August 2017 by John O'Sullivan
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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  • Published in Family Values, Parenting
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WOC #17 Lynn Kachmarik, First Female Coach of a Men’s Division I Sport, On Protecting Our Children In Sports

Monday, 10 July 2017 by John O'Sullivan
Lynn has over 45 years of experience in youth, high school, collegiate, and professional sports. Lynn was an All-American water polo player and swimmer at Slippery Rock University where she received her BS and MS Degrees in Physiology and Education. She was a 12-year member of the United States National Water Polo team, and then
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  • Published in Coaching, Podcast
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When Will What We Know Change What We Do in Youth Sports?

Tuesday, 13 June 2017 by John O'Sullivan
“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
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  • Published in Bullying, Parenting, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting, Youth Sports
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It’s Time to End the Sideline Sportsanity

Monday, 10 April 2017 by John O'Sullivan
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
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  • Published in Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting
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Is Your Child’s Youth Sports Experience Transactional or Transformational?

Monday, 03 April 2017 by John O'Sullivan
Back in January 2017 I moderated a panel at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America convention on “Reimagining Youth Development in the United States.” An audience member asked us very interesting question. He spoke about how families were always jumping ship to the neighboring club that focused on winning and not development. The neighboring
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  • Published in club sports, Family Values
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Is “Fear of Missing Out” Ruining Youth Sports?

Sunday, 12 March 2017 by John O'Sullivan
I remember the day I coached my son TJ’s first soccer game. He was only five, and I was so proud, so excited, and couldn’t wait for him to play the game I loved. There was one problem. He didn’t want to play. When the game was about to start, he said, “Dad I don’t
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  • Published in Sports Parenting
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An Open Letter from the Back Seat

Tuesday, 31 January 2017 by John O'Sullivan
Dear Mom and Dad I wanted to start this letter by saying I love you, and I know you mean well. I appreciate all the time and energy you put into taking me to my games and practices, and I know you sacrifice a lot to do it. I also appreciate when you try to
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  • Published in Sports Parenting
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The Unspoken Problem in Sports

Wednesday, 18 January 2017 by John O'Sullivan
(This week’s blog was written by Alecko Eskandarian (@alecko11), former US National Team player and current Assistant Coach of the NY Cosmos of the NASL. This article originally appeared 11/18/16 on the Players Tribune and they have graciously granted us permission to reprint it. We have read many articles about concussions, and this one really
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  • Published in Concussions, Injuries
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Let’s Stop the Early Sport Specialization Madness!

Tuesday, 27 September 2016 by John O'Sullivan
“I have a question,” said a mother recently at one of my speaking engagements. “I have an 8-year-old son who loves soccer. But the only soccer team in our town requires that he play all year round, and he still wants to play other sports. What are we to do?” Sound familiar? Across the country,
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  • Published in Specialization
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3 Questions That Turn Losing into Learning

Wednesday, 03 August 2016 by John O'Sullivan
“Do you want to win every game you play for the rest of your life?” That was a question that Olympic gold medalist and current USA Women’s Volleyball team head coach Karch Kiraly asked his team as they prepared for the 2014 World Championships. “Because we can,” he told them. They could schedule easy opponents,
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  • Published in Coaching, Parenting
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The Ostrich Effect: Why We Ignore Our Coaching Problem, and How to Fix It

Tuesday, 19 July 2016 by John O'Sullivan
“Come on, you pachyderms,” boomed my first soccer coach, Tom Breit, with a big grin on his face. “Squash those bugs! Move your feet. Quicker, quicker! Come on O’Sullivan, is that as fast as you can go?” Calling us baby elephants? Telling us to squish bugs? What was going on here? We were 7-year-olds, learning
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  • Published in Coaching
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It’s Time for the NCAA to Stop the Early Recruiting Insanity

Thursday, 19 May 2016 by John O'Sullivan
I recently received a phone call from a friend who is one of the national directors of coaching for a major US sport governing body. He told me the story of a recent phone call his office received from a distraught parent: “We just had tryout for our local club and my son was placed
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  • Published in College Recruiting, High School Sports, Youth Sports
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Why Sports Matter

Wednesday, 02 March 2016 by John O'Sullivan
In February 2016 I was speaking at an all day workshop in Montrose CO, and as I was finishing my morning setup the participants began arriving. It was the usual collection of coaches, parents, city recreation administrators, city officials and some younger kids decked out in the gear of their respective sports team. Then another
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  • Published in Coaches Across Continents, Family Values
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What is Your Club’s D.N.A.?

Sunday, 24 January 2016 by John O'Sullivan
(This weeks blog is written by Todd Beane, Founder of TOVO International. Todd is the co-founder of Cruyff Football and Senior Advisor to the Cruyff Institute, and has consulted for FC Barcelona, Ajax Amsterdam, Chivas Guadalajara, Melbourne City FC, Mamelodi Sundowns, Austrian Football Federation) “We pretty much let the coaches decide what to do with
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  • Published in Leadership, Team Culture
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Raising the Bar in Youth Sports

Tuesday, 05 January 2016 by John O'Sullivan
“Have I ever told you about the defining moment of my coaching career?” long time University of Portland baseball coach Chris Sperry asked me the other day over lunch. “It is a speech that changed everything for me at the 1996 American Baseball Coaches Association convention.” “No, please tell,” I said between bites, and so
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  • Published in Baseball, Coaching, Family Values
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Does Youth Sports Get the Math All Wrong?

Monday, 14 December 2015 by John O'Sullivan
“I did not know there would be math on this test,” is something I say (jokingly) when I get a difficult question at my speaking engagements. Recently, I received an email from a frantic mom, and it got me thinking about math. Yes, math. When it comes to our current sporting environment, I think we often
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  • Published in Problems in Youth Sports, Specialization, Talent Development
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Redefining Success: 8 Tips for Being a Great Sports Parent

Wednesday, 28 October 2015 by John O'Sullivan
By James Leath “When did parenting get to be so stressful?” began a recent post on the Changing the Game Project Facebook page. “I worry that if I don’t provide them with the best equipment, or get them on the best team, or take them to every camp or tournament, then I am letting my
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  • Published in Article
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Release Your Child to the Game!

Sunday, 27 September 2015 by John O'Sullivan
“I don’t know where to turn,” an exasperated dad recently told me after a speaking event. “My son is fast, and he is skilled. We do lots of extra practice, we go to a private skills coach, we are doing everything it takes to get to the next level, but something is not right. He
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  • Published in Goal Setting, Sports Parenting, TED talks
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