“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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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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Parenting and Coaching The Perfectionist Athlete

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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#56 “Some parents are crazy, but most are just stressed!” Why parent engagement is key to fixing youth sports with Skye Eddy Bruce, Founder of SoccerParenting.com

Are you one of THOSE sports parents? All too often, we lump sports parents into one large category based on the behaviors of a few. Skye Eddy Bruce joins us to explain that not all parents are that way and the key to creating a better sports experience may be found with engaging parents more effectively.
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#54 How Desirable Difficulties Help Our Children Succeed in Sports and Life with Jessica Lahey, Author of The Gift of Failure

Are we robbing our kids of valuable self-directed executive function when we solve everything for them and don’t let them make mistakes? This is a valuable life skill needed to succeed in college and beyond. Listen in as Jessica Lahey explains on the newest podcast. Subscribe to the Way of Champions Podcast on iTunes Show
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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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#45 How a tiny Vermont town quietly became a Cradle of Olympians with Karen Crouse

A small town in Vermont, with only 3,000 full-time inhabitants has put at least one athlete in every Olympic games since 1984, including the highest ever finisher in the ski jump from the US. What are they doing to create such elite athletes? The answer has little to do with sports… Bio Karen Crouse is a
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WOC #21 Nate Sanderson, Two-Time Iowa High School State Champion Basketball Coach, On The Art of Engaging Parents in a Winning Team Culture

If an athlete’s inner dialogue is made up of the voices they hear most often and most intensely in their daily lives, what are we as parents and coaches saying that can form a champion’s mind? Join us as we talk to Two-time Iowa High School State Basketball Championship winning coach, Nate Sanderson, to discuss
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Looking for Answers? Get Our FREE Booklet With Links to Our Most Popular Articles for Parents, Coaches, Athletes and Youth Sports Organizations

Here at Changing the Game Project, every week we get a call or email that says “remember that article you wrote about…? We want to use it in our newsletter and we can’t find it. What was it called?” Well, after four years of publishing thousands of words a month, we have realized that we
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WOC #13 Nicole LaVoi, Co-Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport

Author of Women in Sports Coaching, Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer in the area of social and behavioral sciences in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota where she is also the Co-Director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, and the co-founder of the
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The Talent That Whispers

The scouts snickered. They looked at the time again. To this day the 5.28 second 40 yard dash time is one of the slowest for quarterbacks in the history of the NFL combine. His 24.5 inch vertical leap didn’t have them lining up at his door either. He had been a good, but not an
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It’s Time to End the Sideline Sportsanity

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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Don’t Turn Your Young Athlete Into a Mini Me

“Dad, am I a disappointment to you?” My son asked, choking back tears. I stopped dead in my tracks. We were walking out of a local amusement park on our way to the car. We had spent the day at the park to bond. It seems the plan backfired. I gathered myself. Inside I was
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The Unspoken Problem in Sports

(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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Coaches, Stop ‘Dealing with Parents’ and Start Engaging Them!

(This article was written by Nate Sanderson and originally appeared on Breakthrough Basketball. Nate is a great friend of Changing The Game Project and coach of the Iowa State Champion Springville Girls Basketball Team.  We highly encourage every coach and parent to read this and institute this in your team). For the past 14 years
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The Rocky Road of Excellence

“How many of you want to be a college athlete?” I asked this question to 3,000 middle school students in Southern California recently. In all, about 1,000 kids raised their hands. “What about an artist? A singer? What about a musician?” Maybe 500 students raised their hands. “What about running a business? Raise your hand
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What is Your Club’s D.N.A.?

(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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Does Youth Sports Get the Math All Wrong?

“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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Redefining Success: 8 Tips for Being a Great Sports Parent

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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Release Your Child to the Game!

“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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An Uncommon Man: Life Lessons from a True Sporting Role Model

Back in the summer of 2000, I was just completing my first year as an assistant men’s soccer coach at the University of Vermont. Between sessions of summer camp, I often ducked out of the heat by having lunch in the cool confines of UVM’s famed Gutterson Field House, watching some of the planet’s best
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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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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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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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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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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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FUN is NOT a 4-letter Word!

When I was a kid, my parents taught me to avoid those bad four letter words we all have heard. You know the ones I mean, the ones that you would first hear in school and then think it was OK to use them at home, until you saw that look on dad’s face! My
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