WOC #66 How to Grow and Improve Your Sport with US Lacrosse Technical Director for Athlete Development TJ Buchanan

The majority of youth sports are suffering from catastrophic attrition rates and we are scrambling to keep kids in the game. US Lacrosse is growing. What is their secret? Listen to the full podcast to hear about how they do it.   Enjoy the show!   Show Notes 7:45 The “Pracademic” of youth sports 12:15
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WOC #64 “I’m just a kid playing a game”: Overcoming adversity, managing disappointment, and building an athlete warrior ethos with USA Volleyball Player Cassidy Lichtman

Imagine playing your entire career with unimaginable pain or working your hardest for four years to fall one spot short of making a lifelong dream come true. Now imagine the kind of warrior ethos required to say “my pain will not control my life and my disappointments will not define me”. This is the amazing
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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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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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#58 What Are the Most Important Leadership Traits to Teach Young Athletes and Other FAQs with Coach Reed Maltbie and John O’Sullivan

Did you ever just want to quit doing what you are doing? How do you handle someone who sabotages your work? How do you help athletes learn without lecturing all the time? What are your thoughts on coaching licenses? Coach Reed and John tackle these Frequently Asked Questions and more in our most recent podcast.
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#57 How to Become a Transformational Coach with Jean Cote, World-Renowned Expert in Youth Sports and Coach Development

If we coached robots, we could simply drill skills until the robots performed them to perfection, but we coach human beings. Way more goes into coaching people than simple drills and skills. Jean Cote shares what it means to be a Transformational Coach in our latest episode. Enjoy the show! Subscribe to the Show  
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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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Can Youth Sports be Both Fun and Competitive?

I got an email from a distraught parent the other day. She described a scene where the coach was screaming at the girls after a loss. She was beside herself at how the coach treated the girls. He was demeaning, he was loud and scary, and he had lost perspective on the age he was
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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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#52 How Belgium went from #66 to #1 in The World Rankings with Belgian FA Director of Coach Education, Kris Van Der Haegen

Has Belgium discovered the secret to International Football success? In 2009, Belgium was #66 on the FIFA World Rankings. They made a few changes and rocketed to #1 in six short years. What did they change? What is their secret? Belgian FA Director of Coach Education, Kris Van der Haegen, shares their secret on our
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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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#50 It’s Time for Coaching Educators to Start Teaching Coaching and Stop Teaching Sport Science with Olympic Coaching Educator Wayne Goldsmith

Ask dentists what are the 5 most important things they should be learning, and you will find those being taught in dental school. Dentists are given the most important skills to succeed in that role. Ask coaches what are the 5 most important things they should be learning and then audit a coaching education course. Are
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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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#46 How to Run Better Practices with Best Selling Author Doug Lemov

Bio Doug Lemov is the author of the international bestseller Teach Like a Champion, and Teach Like a Champion 2..0. He is the coauthor with TLAC team colleagues of Practice Perfect, Reading Reconsidered: A Practical Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction, and Teach Like a Champion Field Guide 2.0. In addition to his work studying teachers he is the front man in the nation’s
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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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#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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#43 Life’s 2 Short 4 Just 1 Sport with Steve Boyle, Founder of 2-4-1 Sports and Chairman of the National Association of Physical Literacy

Your child gets that all important phone call offering a spot on the good select sports team in town. You want your child to sample multiple sports, so you ask about managing a two-sport schedule. The coach says, “we are no longer interested”. What would you do? Listen in to find out what Steve Boyle
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#42 Best of 2017: Our Favorite Interviews on Coaching from our First Year Pt 1  

We asked you all to share with us your favorite podcasts from 2017, and we had so many responses that we have decided to divide it up into multiple episodes. In this episode, we share your favorite podcasts from select coaches: UNC National Champion Lacrosse Coach Jenny Levy, USA Volleyball’s John Kessel, World Cup and
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#41 Continuing the Legacy of Johan Cruyff with TOVO Academy and Cruyff Institute Founder, Todd Beane

What would it be like to spend 14 years working alongside and learning from one of the greatest coaches of all time – Johan Cruyff? We asked Todd Beane that question and more in our most recent podcast. Download it now. Bio Todd graduated from Dartmouth College in 1986 with a B.A. in English Literature.
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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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WOC #37 Wrestle Like a Girl with Sally Roberts, 3x U.S. National Champ

How powerful is sport for creating an excellent life beyond the game? For Sally Roberts wrestling transported her from the detention cell of juvenile hall to the floor of the United Nations. Now she is on a mission to give the same opportunities to young girls the world over. Join us as we hear Sally’s
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WOC #36 Former Professional Golfer, John Haime, on How Sports Skills Transfer from the Locker Room to the Board Room

A mere 1 percent of all youth athletes end up playing pro. What is the goal of youth sports for those other 99 percent? In this episode, John Haime discusses the real skills that kids can learn in the locker room and transfer to the board room. Bio John is a world-class Coach in the area
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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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WOC #33 Best Selling Authors Wade Gilbert and Jerry Lynch Discuss What Quality Coaching Really Looks Like

How do you define a quality coach? Is it number of wins? Are we expert coaches because of the amount of time we have coached the game? Wade Gilbert and Jerry Lynch have a candid conversation with John about what it really means to be a quality coach and the definition is not what we
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WOC #32 Emmy Winning ESPN Reporter Tom Farrey on Creating Sport For All and Play for Life

Did you know only 1 in 5 youth coaches are properly trained in motivational techniques and only 1 and 3 are properly trained in skills and tactics? The big reason for this fact is the myth that volunteers can’t or don’t want to be trained. In this episode, Tom Farrey, of The Aspen Institute’s Project
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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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WOC #30 What Makes Sports Fun for Athletes of All Ages with Amanda Visek, PhD.

Fun. It is the biggest reason kids play sports and it is also the biggest reason they quit. That is widely known. What is not widely known is the fact kids define fun differently than us adults. In fact, they define fun 81 different ways. You’d be surprised at what they consider fun…   Subscribe
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WOC #29 Retired NBA Player, Bob Bigelow, Just Let the Kids Play

“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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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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Google it! What Youth Sports Can Learn from the Tech Giant About Building Great Teams

110-2. 24-0. Headed into the 2004 Olympic Games, the Men’s USA Basketball team was 110-2 all-time. They were 24-0 since the introduction of the 1992 “Dream Team”(NBA-era). The team consisted of current and future NBA stars. The best of the best. The greatest players from the greatest league in the world. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade,
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