Articles
Mastering Motivation
When I run into people from my youth-sports days, they tell me what a great coach my dad was and how they still remember some of the ways he motivated them to work harder and be better.
Safety Coach
My memories of being a volunteer coach of my kids’ teams rarely involve anything to do with the sport I was coaching. Sure, I remember some of the conversations with players after a particularly fun game, certain kids making great plays, and those times when one of my lesser-skilled players rose to the occasion and did something in a game that he had struggled with throughout the season.
Cultivating Passionate Participants
When I was younger, I couldn’t wait for the next season to start, and it didn’t matter for what sport. Baseball was my first choice, but basketball, football, soccer, and wrestling were all big in my house.
Sidelining Spectators
On a recent drive to work, I decided to write a column about the importance of coaches and administrators knowing about heat illness and how to help prevent it in youth sports. Living in South Florida, I always found the subject intriguing.
A Baffling Bill
This headline recently appeared in North Carolina: “NC senators propose eliminating participation trophies for youth sports.”
Hold coaches to the same standards for safety and uniformity
There is a feature on the National Alliance for Youth Sports website (www.nays.org) available for parents to report a coach who is behaving badly. The feature is called, you guessed it, “Report a Coach.”
Attacking Adversity
One of the great exercises that the National Alliance for Youth Sports offers in its Academy for Youth Sports Administrators is to make a list of all the reasons that sports are great for kids. We’ve done this with groups hundreds of times through the years, and the lists are nearly identical.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Fewer than 48 hours into the New Year, fans watching the final Monday Night Football game of the season between Cincinnati and Buffalo saw a chilling scene when the Bills’ Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field and medical personnel rushed to tend to him.
Part Of The Team
One of my most vivid memories of being a volunteer coach came on the last day of coaching my daughter’s 5- and 6-year-old soccer team years ago. I had never played soccer, but the team needed coaches, and I was really interested in applying some of the things I had learned in working almost 10 years for an organization dedicated to improving the volunteer youth-sports coaching experience.
Banish Black-And-White Stripes?
Since the inception of organized youth sports, there has been a need for officials to oversee the games on fields and courts. And today, there is a serious problem—nobody wants to do it anymore!
Savor Setbacks
One of my most memorable youth-sports coaching experiences was the first season I coached my son in T-ball. Having played baseball my entire life, I couldn’t wait to coach the sport I loved so much.
More Than Words On Paper
This past fall, the National Alliance for Youth Sports had the opportunity to present an educational session at several industry conferences. The title of the session was “Compliance in Youth Sports—Setting Standards and Enforcing Requirements.” For those unable to attend, here’s a snapshot.
Time To Update
The biggest challenge for an organization that offers online education or training almost certainly is making sure the information and curriculum are up-to-date. Even for a subject that may seem simple, like youth sports, the amount of change can be overwhelming.
Banish Bullying
About 10 years ago, the National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS) received a call from one of its largest member organizations: “What does NAYS have for us on bullying prevention?” I immediately recognized this was a subject missing from our training. NAYS contacted organization officials to discover the extent of the problem.
Opportunity, Motivation, And Access
The National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS) has always championed the idea that active kids are likely not only to be more physically fit but to be mentally healthy as well. This is especially important during the recent and present situations involving the pandemic.
The Quest For Fun
Of all the programs initiated by the National Alliance for Youth Sports, my favorite one is the Start Smart Sports Development Program. It began, in part, because of the shocking statistic that many kids quit sports by the time they turn 13 years old.
Break Body-Image Barriers
Lately, I have been lucky enough to view some of the interviews the National Alliance for Youth Sports is collecting from top experts for a free, new training that will be offered to coaches, parents, and youth leaders, which deals with understanding good mental-health habits. One of the areas of discussion is how boys deal with body image in sports, and the staggering figures on how many are encountering difficulties, just as many girls have for so long.
Matters Of The Mind
These days, there seems to be much talk about mental-health challenges in the world of sports. Watching Simone Biles in the Summer Games struggle with her confidence, and then watching almost the same thing happen to Mikaela Shiffrin in the Winter Games—two of our countries’ most-celebrated athletes at the Olympics—was a real eye opener.
Duty Of Care
As spring sports begin, it’s important to examine the policies and processes in recruiting and signing up volunteers. The National Alliance for Youth Sports’ professional-administrator training course advocates “building a shield” to protect organizations from allegations, and participants from harm.
