Personal Ownership and Responsibility for Creating Athletic Success: Part 2

In an effort to further demonstrate this idea of Personal Ownership and Responsibility in Creating Athletic Success let me also relay to you a true event that occurred while watching my own kid play soccer on their high school team. It is customary for me to sit fairly quietly during games and just watch, giving only positive support when good shots, passes, or plays take place.

Personal Ownership and Responsibility for Creating Athletic Success: Part 1

In order to best explain what I mean by the individual athlete taking personal ownership and responsibility for creating athletic success, let me develop an analogy that might help demonstrate this concept and the choices/options that go along with it.

Let’s say that a female athlete wants to become a very good volleyball player. She loves playing the game and has a real passion for the sport, along with some good athletic talent. However, the coach and program at her high school is not on par with the level of play this athlete wants to achieve. In fact, very little time is spent at practice on drills and situational play that focus on improving the base fundamentals and individual skills of the game (something all athletes at all levels need to continually and consistently work and improve on). The majority of practice is spent scrimmaging and playing various team games. Fun, yes, important, yes (at times), but without the right balance of fundamental skill work throughout the season, not very developmental.

Good Sportsmanship through Character – A MUST SEE!!!

Every once in a while I come across an excellent visual representation of what it means to express, without reservation, the true essence of doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do or, in other words, Good Character. Inspirational in nature, it is most assuredly at the heart of many intrinsic components - one of which is Good Sportsmanship. Both demonstrate completely the idea above of “doing the right thing.” They are certainly two intrinsic components that we all hope young athletes either develop or reveal (or both) through their sports experiences, and are two aspects seemingly absent (or at least that is what the media leads us to believe) from our youth, high school, college, and elite level sports venues.