Steve Weatherford From the New York Jets Endorses “Becoming a True Champion”

I was happy to receive an enthusiastic endorsement from Steve Weatherford, current punter for the New York Jets. Here is what Steve had to say after reading Becoming a True Champion:

Team Sports and Consistent Performance

Often I hear team sport athletes talk about how difficult it is to perform their skill set in competition on a consistent basis. I have frequently witnessed many of them (team sport athletes, and even entire teams) ride a wave of inconsistency playing well one night and completely opposite the next.

It is during this up and down performance rollercoaster that I find myself asking questions like, What if?, How come?, Why is that so? and Is there a better way? As a former athlete, coach, and teacher, it is simply part of my nature to ask such questions.

So what is it that seems to make it difficult for many team sport athletes to achieve the consistency that eludes them? In order to try and answer that question it might be best to take a look at sports where consistency is king.

Title Change For BATC

After much deliberation my coauthor and I have decided to make a change in the title of our book. The purpose of this change is to bring more focus and direct more attention to the larger market for which Becoming a True Champion was written. Now the title speaks loudly about its purpose just as the book itself speaks directly to whom it will benefit. Our new title:

Becoming a True Champion: Achieving Athletic Excellence From the Inside Out

NEW “BECOMING A TRUE CHAMPION” LIVE CHAT

WHAT: Live Chat
WHO: Kirk Mango
WHEN: Sunday Afternoons: 4:00 – 5:00 pm central time
Tuesday Evenings: 7:00 – 8:00 pm central time
Randomly: Evenings throughout the week & afternoons on weekends
WHERE: Right here at The Athlete's Sports Experience: Making a Difference

I have been working on an interactive way to make immediate and direct contact with those interested in my new forthcoming book Becoming a True Champion, published articles on my blog, sports and youth sports issues, high school and college sports experiences, coaching, and /or anything else pertaining to issues within any of these environments. My search led me to a website called Chatroll. This site gives individuals an option to embed a live chat window within a blog, something I have just updated my blog with and will use to discuss various topics sports and youth sports enthusiasts might be interested in.

So as to keep discussions centered and focused, I would like to present a list of topics that I have practical knowledge of and experience with, and that will help with direction.

Topics of Discussion

Organized Functional Training: A Format for Success

If you are an athlete wanting to become better, more successful, maybe even of state or national caliber, you will likely find a multitude of things, or pieces of the puzzle, that need to be addressed in order to reach the level of attainment you are seeking. It can become overwhelming if you do not create for yourself an organized and functional way of handling all that must be done. I know for myself, I kept moving forward by following a specifically organized schedule of training created from a thought process that focused on organization and functionality. This training schedule, and thought process, was something I added to and adapted as I moved up the learning curve toward objectives and goals I had set. And it was something I followed with religious vigor. My purpose was to make sure I “covered all bases.” I just was not willing to leave anything up to chance.

Part II: Consistent High Levels of Performance: How It’s Done

As discussed in Part I: Consistent High Levels of Performance: How It’s Done, many athletes set long-term goals that encompass what they want to accomplish by the end of a season, in high school, college, and/or even beyond, but how many set daily training goals that they vehemently and relentlessly pursue? And how many, once they can consistently and easily accomplish those, challenge themselves further by increasing their expectation of how well these daily training goals are performed? Maybe even combining two or three skills into a group of skills relative to how they will be used when competing, thus, demonstrating a true commitment toward mastery and reaching one’s potential. From what I have gleaned through my experiences as an athlete, coach, teacher, and parent of two club/high school/collegiate athletes, there are not many athletes who have these types of expectations.

Part I: Consistent High Levels of Performance: How It’s Done

In my blog Four Attributes That Lead To Athletic Greatness I discussed, in detail, attributes that athletes need in order to achieve greatness. It was in that article I alluded to the idea of being able to achieve elevated levels of performance on a consistent basis as one way athletic greatness is demonstrated. I am certain that many athletes, no matter what level, can remember a time, or times, where they felt they had competed at peak levels. In the “zone” you might say. However, how many can remember doing it regularly or most of the time? How many can truly consider themselves one of those rare individuals their teammates count on to give their best and perform at their best, consistently? Easy to assume you can, much tougher to actually go out and do both.

Club or High School Sports: Why do I have to choose?

It has only been recently, within the last decade or so, that some high school athletes are choosing to play their favorite sport exclusively for their club team, forgoing the experience of high school competition altogether. The purpose behind this centers on the idea that the training offered through a club atmosphere is needed in order to reach higher competitive levels, and the scholarship that some seek. Whether this is true or not (something I won’t debate here), either choice will bring positives to the table for the high school age athlete. Nevertheless, as it is with most choices one makes, there is almost always something one loses along with the objectives that one gains. This holds especially true in the case of an absolute such as playing solely for one program to the exclusion of the other.

Four Attributes That Lead To Athletic Greatness

Have you ever gone to a sporting event and noticed that the better players, the ones who stand out head and shoulders above the rest, all seem to have something in common with each other? That they, for some reason, tend to play harder, show more emotion, demonstrate a high level of skill, can consistently perform at an elevated level and seem to be the players, or player, that a team rallies around and looks to for their success. You know who I am speaking of, the ones that make a difference.

Part II: It’s All In Your Point of View – An athlete’s perspective can make all the difference

In part I of It’s All In Your Point of View, I detailed a discussion my friend Jim and I had on the way home from a tennis match recently. This discussion centered its focus on the differences between our perspectives on our collegiate sports experiences compared to many of today’s youths, and their parents’, perspective. My purpose was to help answer the question, Why are their perspectives so different? Below is a list of several intrinsic-type components that, in my mind, help an athlete develop a better more positive perspective and, in the end, bring more enjoyment and fulfillment back to them. At least if they stay much more focused in these areas as their reasoning behind why they play.

Part I: It’s All In Your Point of View – An athlete’s perspective can make all the difference

I was on my way home from a tennis match with a friend of mine (we both play for our club team here in Naperville Illinois), and we struck up a conversation regarding our own personal experiences and perspectives on college athletic participation. We were both college athletes, he was a ball player at SIU and I a gymnast at NIU. What I found most interesting about our conversation was that both of us had the same viewpoint on how we saw our collegiate athletic experience. Basically, neither of us could even imagine going through college without sports; that we truly enjoyed the experience, felt we gained a tremendous amount from it, and would most certainly do it all over again if given the opportunity. Two athletes, two different times, two different sports, but with the exact same perspective. Interesting, especially since I hear so much of the opposite from other parents who have kids playing sports at that level. This is in addition to the good number of athletes themselves who are currently involved (or were involved) in college athletics and who echo these same opposing sentiments. I, as did my friend Jim, find this to be a little sad and a little disconcerting to say the least.

Justified Behavior, Unsportsmanlike Behavior or Assault: You Decide

Below is a link to a videotaped recent incident of a coach pushing an 11-year-old out of a handshake line after a youth football game. It is obvious that the coach was very aggressive toward the youth; however, it does not show anything that might have caused such an inappropriate response. Take a look:

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.

More on Youth Sport Specialization

It is common practice for me to routinely surf the internet for articles regarding youth sports issues. The title of this blog certainly supports that activity and diligence in this endeavor provides much food for thought as I contemplate what next to post. This week I came across two articles on two different websites that discuss their viewpoint on sports specialization, a topic I most assuredly have an interest in. The first, Should my child specialize? by Juliet Cassell, discusses several of the same concerns and/or risks I listed in my previous 3-part article on the same subject, Specialization in Youth Sports Good or Bad?. Ms. Cassell’s article has good references and support for the points listed and is most definitely worth the read.

Part 2: Preventing Youth Sport Injuries

Here again are the four areas of conditioning/training for injury prevention that I feel are often neglected by many youth sports programs.

Functional Sports-Specific Training

This type of training focuses on developing an athlete’s strength, endurance, speed, quickness, etc. in the specific muscle groups needed for the best performance in the sport participated in. Most importantly, it forces concentration on the actual functioning of the muscles and joints used, making sure that muscles on both (all) sides of a joint are equally trained and that joint movement is well executed. What this does is create a good balance between all muscle groups involved, thereby helping to protect the joint from injury in addition to enabling greater efficiency and effectiveness of movement.

Part 1: Preventing Youth Sport Injuries

In my article The Rise in Youth Sports Injuries, I discussed how prevalent youth sports injuries have become and listed several articles as reference. In this post, I would like to offer some basic principles of injury prevention by directing you toward articles that detail important pieces of this information. Additionally, in Part 2, I will take this a step further by encouraging conditioning/training in four other areas that are often neglected. The time spent will be well worth the effort.

The Rise in Youth Sports Injuries

In my last article, Specializing in Youth Sports, Good or Bad, I touched on the current increase in injuries to young competitors playing sports. Just the fact that the sheer number of young athletes participating has gone up over the last several decades, would automatically cause an upswing in the number of young sports enthusiasts having to seek medical attention. There is just an inherent physical risk in competitive sports that cannot be denied.

Part 3: Specialization in Youth Sports, Good or Bad?

Getting back to our focus on specialization, another factor that athletes (and their parents) need to keep in mind is that different sports can and do bring different circumstances into the mix. There are some sports that tend to have a genuine overlap between them, more so than do others, and because of this overlap they do not require as much specialization. It is almost as if the sports truly complement each other. Take football and wrestling as one example. I am sure you can find many good football players who are also very good wrestlers, especially in the middle and upper weight classes. In fact, I personally know of two who were solid football players and became state champions in wrestling. There are other sports that also tend to have similar overlapping characteristics. If size, speed, agility, jumping ability, coordination (hand/eye), etc. are high priorities in a sport, then usually these attributes easily carry over to another sport that has the same high priority for these athletic skills.

Part 2: Specialization in Youth Sports, Good or Bad?

I suppose the best answer to this question of specialization in sports (and I know I might get some grief for this) is that there really is no best or right answer, at least no right answer for everyone and every situation. There are just too many variables in order for one answer to truly be beneficial for all. In fact, doing so would not only be inappropriate but completely unfair to the athlete and/or situation they might be faced with. So, even though it might seem vague at first, let’s start with some general guidelines (and I do mean general; some will even come up with scenarios that would simply not fit these general guidelines either).