A Deeper Meaning Behind Youth Sports Participation

Principles of Greatness: A Visual Demonstration by Profiles International

To aspire to be something more, whether in sports, music, art, school, the workplace, or life in general, is a goal that few could argue with. The difficulty comes when contemplating the depth and breadth of what this actually means.

I like to think of that “something more” from the standpoint of what we have, or are able to develop, on the inside. Those positive intrinsic attributes which set a person apart from the group, that create the ability to achieve what others only think of, that govern our life choices and aid in building strong character.

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.

From The Athlete’s Perspective

Much of what I discuss in my blog and in my forthcoming book Becoming a True Champion, centers on the teenage athlete (up to any age) and the perspective they should take in order to gain what they could out of their athletic experiences. Through my years as high school teacher and coach, I have come to the conclusion that the more responsibility an athlete takes for the things they would like to achieve, the more control they have over the possibility of accomplishing what they want. It is this type of attitude that makes the seemingly impossible become possible.

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.

Striving for athletic perfection, Good or Bad?

There is some debate on whether perfection is a concept that athletes should strive for. If you Google striving for sports perfection, you will certainly find a variety of information detailing both sides of this issue. Much of this information centers on whether the attitude toward perfection is of the maladaptive or adaptive variety, the latter being preferred. After reading through several of these articles, and relating it to my own personal experience with this concept, I find that a person’s own belief system and how they themselves view the idea of striving for athletic perfection makes all the difference.

What We Truly Want to Teach and, in the End, Really Want “Them” to Learn

If you have visited my website Becoming a True Champion and/or this blog, and taken some time to read the information/material available, you have probably noticed my definite and deliberate focus on the value of the intrinsic rewards that can be gained through participation in competitive sports if the athlete holds the right attitudes and perspectives and puts forth his or her highest efforts. It is certainly a major focal point in my book Becoming a True Champion and a concept I refer to time and time again.

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.

Video Demonstration of a "True Champion"

My coauthor, Daveda Lamont, recently sent me the link to this youtube video depicting what she felt exemplifies many of the principles discussed in Becoming a True Champion. I wholeheartedly agree! Dustin Carter truly demonstrates an awe inspiring commitment to becoming the best he can be. The path he has chosen and, most importantly, the process he will go through to travel this path will be of tremendous intrinsic reward and value to him no matter what happens.

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).

Great Article on the Pervasiveness of Steroid Use in Sports

I apologize to readers for not posting the 2nd installment to my Specialization in Youth Sports, Good or Bad article (something I will do late next week), but I came across a piece that references true experts, like Dr. Yesalis, in a discussion regarding steroid use that I thought was good and important to direct attention to. The title of the blog article is PSU Prof Yesalis and "Game of Shadows" authors Williams and Fainaru-Wada on steroid panel at Penn State; Yesalis says 95% of NFL players use HGH and it is from an online blog journal called Steroid Nation.

Part 1: Specialization in Youth Sports, Good or Bad?

I have been debating for a while now on writing an article that focused on the growing trend for athletes to specialize in only one sport. It certainly is a hot topic in high school athletics, especially between coaches, parents, athletic directors, etc., and it definitely can create heated discussions between these parties due, in part, to strong opinions on the subject. I will be writing this article over the next two weeks and dividing it into 3 parts in order to break up its length. Below is part 1.

I would estimate that over the last two or three decades, there has been a definite decrease of the number of young athletes who participate in a variety of sports (usually referred to as the multi-sport athlete), especially at the high school level, and a definite increase in the number of athletes who focus their attention on only one sport. This begs to ask the question, as the title of this article indicates, whether this trend is a good thing or bad.

Competition and Motivation

If you are (or were) an athlete, then you know exactly what the title of this post is all about. For many a competitive athlete just the idea of being able to compete is one of the motivating factors behind why they play sports; they just love the exhilaration of the competitive arena. It is not winning that necessarily drives them, even though competitive athletes hate to lose, but the enjoyment they get out of the challenge competition brings to them. Knowing this simple fact about the competitive athlete can bring great motivational rewards in training when applying this concept to practice sessions. This is true whether it is done by the coach or the athlete themselves.

CNN.com article on “Youth sports drawing more than ever” by Laura Hilgers

In my last blog post The “FUN” in Sports Participation, I make reference to the large number of youngsters involved in sports using figures reported by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS) in their 2000 census. I state in the blog that these numbers, 32 million, are not likely to decrease in the future.

The “FUN” in Sports Participation

Youth sports participation today has become more popular than ever. It is estimated that approximately 10 million high school age students participate in extracurricular athletic programs in the United States. If you take into account all sports participants from age 6 to 18 years of age, the number more than triples to approximately 32 million as reported by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS) in their 2000 census. And based on current trends, it is more than likely that these numbers will not be decreasing anytime soon.

Steroids in Professional Sports and Youth Sports, WHY?

It is in the wake of the Mitchell Report, which sheds light on the pervasive use of performance-enhancing substances (Steroids, HGH, etc.) in professional baseball, that I direct this blog's attention to an article in the Sports Parenting e-magazine titled Denial, Apathy, and Win-at-All-Costs Sports Culture Fuels Steroid Abuse by Bruce Svare, Ph.D, http://www.parentsforgoodsports.org/iPages.tpl?pg=articles/steroidAbuse.

In his article, Dr. Svare provides good insight into the “why” behind steroid use in sports today and suggests an approach that will decrease and deter the risk of their use by young athletes.