Why Am I Doing This?

I ’m going to take a quick break this week from writing about the American Development Model, parents overspending for their children’s youth sports activities, lack of coaching training, the explosion of travel and elite teams, etc. to answer a question that I’ve been asked a few times over the last few weeks. Why am I writing about youth sports? People have asked me what I’m trying to accomplish by doing this and why am I encouraging changes to the current youth sporting model?

Before starting, I gave a lot of thought to why I was going to be writing this blog. I asked myself the same question that was asked of me, “what was I trying to accomplish” and “could I really actuate any positive change in the way we, as a society, conduct youth sports?” I had conservations with friends who I played youth sports with many years ago and who had coached their children and I asked them if they thought this was something that was doable or was I tilting at windmills? After the dust settled, I had many more positive than negative reactions to what I was looking to accomplish so I decided to go for it and start a youth sports blog that I’m looking to grow into a youth sports consulting business.

After my discussions with the various people mentioned above I thought back to when I first volunteered to coach my daughter’s recreation soccer team over 25 years ago. After they assigned me her team I was given an equipment bag and uniforms and told “have fun”. Now I had played soccer from the time I was eight years old through high school and intramurals in college, but I never coach the game and more importantly, I have never coached/dealt with 12 four and five-year-old at one time in one place. Now I realize that “coaching” four and five-year-old is a bit of a misnomer (despite what I’ve read and been writing about regarding, four- and five-year-old travel teams being nationally ranked in various sports); however, some guidance from the league would have been appreciated. For example:

· Knowing what the goals/philosophy of the league was would have helped me to determine what I needed to do while coaching these children; and,

· Knowing what the league wanted the children to learn as four and five-year-old so that when they moved up to the next level they had a basic skill set would have also been helpful.

I recall asking a Board Member if they could give me any guidance regarding what I was about to get into; however, none was forthcoming. I also recall speaking with friends from high school and at work who were also venturing into coaching their children for the first time about their experiences and they pretty much told me the same thing, they got an equipment bag and uniforms with no guidance as to what they were supposed to do with the children they were going to be coaching. Even 25 years ago I thought this was crazy and at that time recreational sports were the predominant form of youth sports as travel and elite teams were still in their infancy and “specialization” was pretty much unheard of.

As the years went on I noticed that things were getting crazier and crazier. More and more elite and travel teams were being formed for children at younger and younger ages, coaches were telling parents that their children needed to “specialize” at earlier and earlier ages or they would be left behind. Parents were falling for this and having their children specialize even though all the research, even at that time, showed that children should be playing multiple sports until at least the age of 12 or 13 years old. A few years ago, a friend of mine, who had young children, told me that their child’s coach told them to go to a particular private “hitting” instructor for lessons. This was this families first experience into travel sports and they were looking for some advice so my first question was “what are this hitting coach’s qualifications?” The parent had no answer for me so I asked the parent “if your child’s teacher says that they need a tutor for math, wouldn’t you want to know the teacher’s qualifications before sending your child to that particular tutor?” And then asked her “would you send your child to an unqualified tutor for educational help?” To which she responded “no”. So, I then asked her “why are you going to spend your hard-earned money and not know what you are getting for your investment.” A few weeks later I ran into that parent and she told me that she asked the questions that I suggested that she ask and no one could give her any information regarding the coach’s qualifications so, on their own, they found a qualified coach and sent their child to that coach.

It was what I was seeing happening with these travel/elite teams (again please note that I am not against travel or elite teams; however, I feel that they need to be started at an appropriate age and in my opinion 5, 6 and 7 years old is too young for travel ball in any sport) that made me think that there had to be another way when it came to youth sports. The straw that really broke the camel’s back for me was a few years ago when I was coaching a six and seven-year-old recreational soccer team. I had a youngster on the team who was a very good player; however, his father encouraged him to score all the goals and in order to do this he had to become a ball hog. Well after a few games I had a long talk with the player and his mother to explain the ”team” concept and that a “good player” scores goals but a “great player” makes his team and teammates better. Well, I finally had this youngster playing a team concept when during our last game of the season his travel coach shows up at our game starts coaching this player from the other side of the field and encouraging him to score more goals. At half time I walked across the field and told the coach (who I knew and was a fellow board member with me) and told him what he was doing was very disrespectful to me and my team. He somewhat apologized and left the field. I later attended one of his travel games just to see how he coached and sure enough the player from my team was a ball hog who dribbled all over the field and scored all the goals while the other seven players just stood around. Needless to say, I was less than impressed with his coaching skills and realized that something needed to be done. However, at that time I was still working and did not have the time to work on this and I really did not know what I could do to change the philosophy of youth sports.

As I neared retirement and started to think more and more about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had some ideas on different businesses that I thought about starting; however, I always came back to my love of youth sports and seeing the joy on a youngster’s face when they scored their first goal, got their first hit, or were just able to do something on the field for the very first time. Additionally, I was running into former players, who now had children of their own (yes, I am getting older…LOL), and they were telling me that they were going to start coaching their child and they were asking me for advice on what they should do as a coach. It was these questions that made me think, what better way to share my experiences, and some of the research that I had been doing regarding youth sports than to write about it; however, that was easier said than done as I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted my blog to cover. While discussing my possible blog venture with a friend of mine Mike Stanlaw, the owner of the gym that I attend, he told me about a TED talk given by internationally recognized author, speaker and business consultant Simon Sinek on finding your “why”. After watching this talk I knew my “why” was working towards changing the way youth sports are viewed in this country, looking at different models both nationally and internationally for ways that we can have children play youth sports, enjoy youth sports, learn different skill sets that they will be able to use later in life once their sporting career is over, without making them little professionals and pushing out the late bloomers. And that my friends, is my answer as to why I’m writing this blog.