3 in 1

  3 in 1

I recently interviewed a high school varsity coach. The sport does not matter for this discussion. Hopefully by now you know my mantra that if it is really true, than it applies to all sports, and life. I did not tape record this interview because quite frankly, I did not think it was going to be anything special. I was interested in getting some more background information on the “elite” club team mentality. Specifically, how it applied to the younger children.

The beginning of the interview went very well. The coach was quite open about what he thought an “elite” player was and how his club tried to get all the younger players pretty much equal time during the games and to stress fun.

 I explained to him that was very commendable because only 1% of the kids going to college play at the DI level and only half of them play for free. I also told him that human beings don’t physically develop until their early twenties so it was good to get kids as much playing time and fun as possible.

What he didn’t understand or see is that I was trying to plant an idea with him about how he could adapt this fun philosophy to his high school team.

I was struck by his belief in the development of players over winning and that how he understood very few of them would ever get a D I scholarship.

So, I went and watched his team practice and play in two different games. Stunned doesn’t even begin to reveal how different his approach was with his high school team. He rarely substituted. Even far ahead or behind he did not use a lot of extra players unless it was a complete blowout. I went back to see him for another interview.

I started by asking him about his substitution policy as it pertained to his team. He said that the reason he rarely substituted was that his starting players needed to continue to play together so that they could form a more cohesive unit. When I explained to him that his starters rarely completed more than four passes in a row. These players were all mostly “elite” club players and I wondered how they could be so weak in this department if they played on the same club team all year.

Again, I was stunned at the answer. He said that kids have to play on “elite” club teams if they want to get the exposure by major colleges to get a DI scholarship. When I asked how many kids he has sent to a DI college on a full athletic scholarship he could not answer. When I checked around, I found the answer to be ZERO.

I then asked him why his substitute players, (a term I dislike immensely) should practice hard for him if they knew they would not be afforded a chance to play in a game. He stated evenly that they were role players and knew their position on the team was to help the starters (I dislike that term also) get better and to push the starters in practice so that they could play better.

When I told him I went to two of his games and saw the disgruntled players sitting on the bench ignoring what was going on during the game he did not believe me. He said that the substitute players weren’t good enough to play very much and that they had not developed during the year to even suggest to him that they deserved playing time.

When I asked him maybe the reason they had not developed was because they felt helpless and knew no matter what they did they would not get to play. He got upset and asked me what the purpose of the interview really was? He suggested that I did not know enough about his team to question him about playing time. He had won a championship coaching in high school and played at a very high level and knew what he was doing.

Now I could have let it go right there but I figured since I had gone this far I might as well ask one more question. Did he think playing more players and creating inter team competition would help his team, keep his better players rested and fresh, and foster a greater team chemistry? No he said. The weaker players would not get better and would just bring his good layers “down” when they were playing instead of them or with them and that would wreck any team chemistry. The he added the kicker. Besides, his players wanted him to play to win and they were content to sit on the bench.

If you think this is an isolated incident or interview, it is not. You want to know why? This is actually a combination of three different interviews I did with three different coaches in three different sports. I melded their answers into one.

Follow VJ on Twitter @VJJStanley on face book Frozenshorts, his website frozenshorts.com, his email vj@frozenshorts.com or call him 585-743-1020

Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise:

            This story is about a high school hockey team. They were playing a game against an inferior opponent, and they beat their opponent easily, 7-0. There were two plays that happened during this game that caught my eye. Both plays were a direct result of a lack of knowledge about how important humility and teamwork are to a successful program.

            The coach of this team is not a yeller. He has been coaching for a long time and truly understands the journey and how important it is to keep things in perspective. His teams do consistently well both on and off the ice.

            The first play I want to discuss was actually a culmination of a series of plays that resulted in a key player getting injured and removed from the game After scoring 5 goals in this game, the player scoring , was celebrating and playing to his friends in the crowd. The other team twice tried to hit him before they caught him with his head down and delivered a clean check that resulted in an injury.

            After the fourth goal I turned to the friend I was sitting next to and said this is how kids get hurt during a blowout and no one understands why. They point a finger at the opposing team and its players for dirty play without being held accountable for their role in the injury. And most of the time the kid that gets injured is not the player who scored the goals, but sometimes, as in this case, it is the guy who scored the goal.

            There is an expression is sports that says when you score a goal, a touchdown, or some other event that you act like you have done it before. We used to say act like you expect to do it again, and that you appreciate the many players that helped you make it happen.

            I had the good fortune to talk to this young man  a couple of days later. about what had happened during the game. I explained to him what really happened and why it happened. He is a very good kid band comes from a family that understands the journey.

            The second play happened a little later in the game and was connected to the winning team’s reaction to one of the star players getting hurt. One of their best players took the puck from behind his net and skated all the way down the ice, cutting in front of the other teams net trying to force the puck through the other team’s goalie. Now what really happened there was that player could have got hurt also.

             Or, he could have passed the puck to one of the players on the ice that hadn’t seen a lot of playing time, thus having that player become more involved in the team’s success. He would practice harder and feel better because one of the best players had included him in the play during the game.

            People fail to realize what happens after a game is over, and the long term consequences of what happened during then game to mental well being of the players on both teams.

             Kids talk, will text, face book, or something. Players that don’t play feel excluded. I know some people argue that they have to earn playing time and know their roles on a team. WRONG. Human beings do not fully develop until they are into their twenties. Saying an athlete’s level of skill and future ability is already established by the age of sixteen is not supported by scientific facts.

            The more kids you play the better the whole team will be. Inter team competition and team development still is and always will be the most part of a team’s  long term success. Players develop at different times in their lives and at different speeds. The more chances you give them the better chance you have of finding out who can play. The less chances you give them the less they develop. The less they develop the more they feel disenfranchised. They don’t work as hard and as often as they should because they figure what is the use.

            Most of all of this behavior, and its cause and effect principles have been lost on today’s reincarnation of youth sports. It is now important to win and win big. You have heard the expression blowouts don’t help either team. Hopefully in this blog you have learned that they actually hurt teams, both teams. The winning team had a good player get hurt and the losing team stopped playing together and decided to seek revenge for what they felt was poor sportsmanship by the other team. Ironic, the very behavior they were upset with, was the very behavior they used (poor sportsmanship) to even up the “score.”

V.J. has written a book on youth sports called Stop the Tsunami in Youth Sports.You can follow him on twitter @VJJStanley, face book( Frozen Shorts) website: frozenshorts.com, call the office 585-743-1020, or email him at vj@frozenshorts.com

Competition versus Entitlement

            Once you get past puberty and by that I mean the varsity level of high school sports it should always be play by performance. In hockey we have the saying: “you are only as good as your last shift.” No player should think that he or she is entitled to playing time just because they have talent or are the coach’s kid.

            That actually hurts the development of the player and the team’s chances of winning. Let me explain. Players need to know they will be rewarded for their efforts. We are a goal orientated society and we get rewards in real life (a paycheck) after our week of work. So to should children see the benefits of their efforts? “You always run faster when you are being chased.” Is one of my favorite expressions.

            Let us say you are having a bad game. Why not take a breather and let someone else take a crack at it. If that player should do well we should embrace that as a positive as that will make the team and ultimately all players better.

             Now let’s look at the flip side. What happens when the better player is left in a game when they are not playing well? They start to develop bad habits. They are not accountable for their performance. Other players see this as favoritism from the coach and subs consciously start to resent either the player or coach, OR BOTH.

            Slowly but surely the team chemistry starts to erode and the team dynamics associated with that chemistry start to implode. You want to see an underachieving making it very difficult for the team to get better and play with consistency unhappy team, go watch a team where the coaches’ kid plays all the time and certain kids sit way more than is even remotely necessary.

            You see, most human bodies, that’s right MOST not the 1% of the 1% who are genetic freaks, take time to develop. They do not fully develop until they are into their early 20’s so no one should be sitting on the bench a whole game if they are on a team in youth and high school sports. All that is happening in that scenario is that certain kids are getting a head start and will of course play better than the kids who don’t play…for a while. These kids actually are being hindered and not helped in their desire and effort to win. Then, when they don’t win, well, that’s when the you know what hits the fan.

            Then, the dreaded “it’s not my fault” starts creeping into the picture and finger pointing and sulking start to appear. The coach gets upset and says "the heck with it, I can’t please everybody,” so he stays with his starters. His thinking, maybe winning will satisfy them, or me! The coach has any sub that plays on a short leash and benches that player when they don’t do well all the while letting the more talented  player stay in the game even though mistakes are being made.

VJ’s new book Stop the Tsunami in Youth Sports is now available through his website in paperback. You can follow him on twitter @VJJStanley, on face book at Frozenshorts, email him at vj@frozenshorts.com or call him at 585-743-1020

Coaching and Playing to Win leads to Negativity and Stress not Victory

Coaching and playing to win leads to negative stress and mistakes not victory

            In recent conversations and presentations I have been presented with scenario of how much different is to play to win versus playing for fun. It has been presented to me in different forms and variations that it is the kids decide that they want to play to win. (A concept that is so abstract that even professional athletes cannot define and execute winning continually. )It has also been stated on numerous occasions, and I understand completely how this thinking evolves, that the kids “want the coach to coach to win.”

            Let’s analyze this and break it down to its basic components. Many many coaches, players, and parents see this style of coaching going on every game, or so they think they do. They see what appears to be this paradigm playing out where a coach just plays his top players. If the game is close the bench is “shortened.” And he still doesn’t win!

            They see it play out constantly in youth sports, high school, college, and the professional ranks. What they do not see in the upper levels is how play by performance comes into play. But that is a conversation for another essay.

            In a recent conversation with a long time high school coach I was struck by the fact he didn’t see how playing for fun ultimately had his whole team playing better, and that , if done correctly and consistently, gave his team a better chance of winning on a consistent basis as did playing to win.

            He recounted a story about how his team was going to face the best team in their league, and since his team was clearly outmanned he didn’t tell his players the clichés of “working hard, you can win, because unless something extraordinary happened, and isn’t that what we want, they were not going to win.       

            He said instead he got the team together for pizza at lunch and then before the game told his players to go out and play hard but have fun. He told them to try new things on the court and to pass the ball around a lot and not worry about the score. Whatever happened he was going to take the team out for pizza after the game.

            The next thing he said to me stays with me to this day.”AND YOU KNOW WHAT THEY PLAYED BETTER!” He had a smile on his face as he described how well his team played and how they put a scare into this top rated team. He was genuinely proud of his kids for their effort and persistence. The fact that he got ALL the kids into the game was a source of pride. When I asked him if any of the “subs” played exceptionally well, He exclaimed, YES they did!

            He then said to me that he wasn’t comfortable putting in his “subs” when his team was up 15 points. He was nervous the other team would come back and score. When I told him that interteam competition was something he could embrace by scrimmaging two equal teams in practice and just let them play he smiled. But I knew he was thinking about it. I had planted the seed. It was up to him to see what was going on with his team and apply what we talked about to his own circumstances. Growth had to come from within not without.

            The next thing he said showed why coaches need to stop coaching and just let the kids play for fun. He said, “VJ, you know I couldn’t do that before, during, or after a game we knew we should win. The players wouldn’t stand for it. They want to win.”

            So I then asked him to tell me how he was going to win the next game his team played. He said" he couldn’t do it, no coach could. There were too many variables involved both on his team and the other team so that there was no way he could predict the outcome." I agreed. I told him that many professional team owners, coaches and general managers would love to have a formula for winning. But in the all the time I have been around sports I haven’t heard of anyone who did.

            I don’t know who said this as I heard it late one night on TV. (I only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night and I can tell you there is some really bad TV on late.)

            “All great coaches have great players, the rest of us are eventually unemployed. Take the Auburn football coach. Two years ago with Cam Newton at quarterback he won a National Championship, now after finishing last in the SEC this year he was fired.

            However coaches who coach to get all the kids in and for EVERYONE on the team to get better and have fun as the season progresses, they are the coaches I want to learn from. They are the coaches I want coaching our kids for they are going to teach life lessons of community, chemistry and teamwork.

            Youth sports are about inclusivity not exclusivity

Bowling

Bowling

            Even though it is early in the 2012-2013 varsity bowling season an important date is looming in the Mcquaid keglers’ future. January 3, 2013. On this date Steve Pogal long time Varsity bowling coach and three time defending City Catholic champions has decided he wants the record.

            Now at this juncture let me point out that the Mcquaid bowling team is about to set another record. Most players on their team EVER! Is it the popularity of bowling? Is there a huge growth sport?

             Not really, it is the coaches’ mantra of PLAY FOR FUN and that is exactly what this team does. In the ever escalating world of High School and youth sports athletics and the damaging mantra of playing to win, more is better, and the status of being the couch and  his “club” team connections, Mcquaid bowling is saying there is another way to approach high school athletics and it is working. Their slogan of “three holes and a dream is typical of their approach. Loose, fun, and different.

            From having his players discuss certain current  events during the matches to relax his players, or  bowling against a girls all star team to raise thousands of dollars for charity, to using 6 lb. balls for an exercise in FUN and camaraderie, the McQuaid bowling team is the antithesis of what youth sports and high school varsity sports have become. They are different. It’s all about having fun and being a good teammate. OUTSATNDING! And it’s working. More and more players are flocking to his team and the word around school is spreading and in the Rochester New York bowling community.

            The President of the school has shown up for numerous matches. The Principal was there. The athletic director has attended and had his picture taken with team. A student was brought in to sing the national anthem. The schools cheerleading section called the “Samba Society” has attended a match.

            Let’s be clear here. There is real coaching going on at many different levels on this team. The coach has had requests by parents to have his players play year round. He has explained why it wasn’t a good idea. He has been stringent about academics. He cares about the kids outside of bowling.

             His resume as an outstanding bowler and holder of seven three hundred games is impressive. He does teach bowling. But what he teaches that is more important than just the technique of bowling. He teaches fundamentals of life and how much fun you can have playing a sport and have it be an integral part of the athlete getting better. Instead of chastising and benching a player for trying out for the schools’ PLAY he asks for tickets and wants to bring the whole team to the performance.

            You really want to know what youth and high school sports should be about, go watch the Mcquaid Bowling team in action!

            The coach routinely asks players who have never bowled before, or have been under tremendous pressure to play a sport year round to come out for bowling and have some fun. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk.

             New bowlers are quickly put into the starting lineup and instructed to have fun. Why does he do it this way? Well, because it works. His bowlers continually reach heights of excellence and top scores with this approach.

             What is the response from those watching from other so called bowling experts as they observe this wonderful team I n action? One comment was, “the Mcquaid bowling team is having too much fun!” Another response was a complaint to the bowling alley where the Mcquaid team practices and plays their matches. “They are disrespecting bowling.”

             In actuality he is simply proving a point to people. Let the kids have fun, encourage them to have fun, and watch the results. This brings me back to the point of this essay. On January 3 2013 at 3:45P.M. in the afternoon Mcquaid will take on its rival Aquinas in a bowling match of little consequence in the big picture of the season. What the coach would like and I believe he has earned the right to ask for, is to have 100 students attend the match and cheer for the team. That would be the record he most wants to have. How great is that? He wants the cheering to be LOUD but positive and classy. And to show his class in terms of the big picture he wants his fans to cheer for Mercy High School’s bowlers, Mcquaids all girls sister school who will be on the lane next to his teams.

            What a tremendous message to send to all who watch and participate in youth and high school sports. What a wonderful idea and thought for Mcquaid bowling team, a team made up  of the most diverse athletes and nontraditional play for pay athletes to send to all of Monroe County and Section V athletics. Well done.
Vj's weekly blogs are an ongoing series in support of youth and high school sports. you can follow Vj on twitter @VJJStanley email him at vj@frozenshorts.com go to his website frozenshorts.com and purchase his book Stop The Tsunami In Youth Sports. PLAY FOR FUN!

Thankfullness

 THANKFULNESS

                Hi. Most of my blogs have to do with a problem in youth sports, the reason for the problem, and frozenshorts solution to the problem.

                What I would like to talk about today is thankfulness. In the hectic world that we live in and with the tragedy of Hurricane Sandy upon those on the east coast, I think for most of us it is time to give thanks for what we have, and what is really important.

                I wanted to bring a thought home to you for you to mull around in your mind.  The children we care so very much for are our future in this world. I would like you to think of how we model the behavior we would like them to have and then to teach their children a beneficial behavior for future generations.

                I would ask you to look across the field, rink, and court, as you go to your sporting or family event this holiday season, and try to see the other person’s life for a minute. Are they really that much different than you? Are they going through a struggle in life, whether it is financial, work related, or in their personal life that affects the way they see the world and then react to it.

                Whatever the reason most everyone you see is fighting some kind of battle. It could be the family who put all their hope in the athletic future of their child without understanding the undue pressure it put on their children and the residual resentment it fostered toward them.

                It may be someone cutting you off in traffic and you overreacting because of the day to day [pressure you feel. Maybe what you don’t see is that they have out of state plates and are lost. It could be they are just rude and obnoxious and you feel the need to lash out at them and teach them a lesson.

What I ask of you during this holiday season, is if you can see it in your heart and mind to look at a stressful situation and try, I know it is very difficult, and smile. Think of how much we have to be thankful for. Think of how many people have it worse than we do during this season. And yes I know you have heard this request before and you really don’t give it much thought.

                But what is different is I am asking you to take a look at your child, and simply ask them what they would like for a present from you. Tell them no matter what they say to you will not be upset, and mean it. Make sure that you are not so offended and put it in your rolodex of things that you resent and bring it back up to them on a later date. When you hear their request, take it to heart. They are children and we can learn so much from them, really.

You have heard me talk about the three things children need the most: safety, love, and fun. Let’s try and see the world through our children’s eyes, mind, and heart. Let’s try and look at people who annoy us and think of their troubled journey and not the disruption of yours. If possible, try and find some humor in what is happening not angst. It is not easy, but look at how the easy way is working for people who are upset all the time and carry one. Let’s be thankful their life is not yours.

Let’s try and feel good about ourselves and our children. Not excited or really happy, just simply content as to where they are in their journey. It is a process and if when they tell you what they would like and they smile, please smile too.

I am truly thankful for my wife and children. My wife makes me a better person and I lover more now than the day I married her 20 years ago. My son is doing fine in college and has shown great growth and maturity, my daughter has just decided as a senior in high school that she no longer wants to be a veterinarian and that is fine. I see her more relaxed and open to learning for the joy of learnings sake. We just finished dinner and as I looked around the dining room table at the three of them I realized how very fortunate I am and how blessed we all are.

Thank you..Peace

Why Kids are Faking Injuries

Faking injuries.

                It has come to my attention, whether it be discussing this new trend with athletic trainers, coaches, or just watching the multiple youth sports games and practices that I attend on a weekly basis, that injuries are on the rise. But what has struck me hard was the fact that some of these reported injuries were not actually real traumatic injuries that required extended time off to heal for a physical problem. What is creeping into youth and high school sports is mental injuries and exhaustion. An injury became an excuse to get out of playing for a certain team that they belonged to. Fear of what the coach might say, fear of retribution from an organization, or even the saddest excuse of all, fear of parents and the pressure they put on these kids to keep playing because of the time and money they invested in their “careers” (Their word not mine).

                This fear of parents’ reaction to the child’s play has children faking an injury so that they can get needed rest. They know if they don’t play they can’t get yelled on the field or in the car on the way home. Youth sports are no longer fun for them and they know there is no DI scholarship out there for them. Even more so, they know that it is not fun to play their sport anymore and they fear the stigma attached to them if they quit. How very sad.

                But what struck me about this was that some players were coming back into the game soon after they were injured. In one high school football game alone seven players required treatment on the field for what seemed to be cramp related issues. This caught my attention. I started to watch more carefully as players from the fall sports, primarily football and soccer went to the trainers for taping or other ailments. I started to see player not wanting to continue to practice. They did not seem interested in the games they were playing.

                So the next thing I did was start to question coaches, trainers, and players. Stunned was the first word that popped into my head. I started to hear stories of players faking injuries because they were tired. Other players faking injuries to avoid the pressure being put on them to perform. Still other players exaggerating injuries so that they could get attention from their trainers and sympathy from their friends and family.

                I even heard of a player using a so called injury to explain why he did not make a certain team. He had been telling people he was off to college to play DI only to find out he wasn’t going to play and lo and behold he developed an injury that was his excuse for not making the team. Was that really it? Or did he get to college and find out that there was no way he was going to make the team he was trying out for?

                 Another player said she heard of a girl who simply started to cry when told she was going to have to continue to play on a varsity soccer team even though she was so tired and beat up from playing soccer year round that she just wanted to quit. So we are not serving the children and their needs

             Let’s talk children’s development. Three things I know from being a dad, a coach, and a player about kids. They want to be SAFE, They want to be loved, and they want to have fun. They are not mini adults or micro professional athletes. They are not remote controlled robots or personal joy sticks for adults. The hangover at the end of their youth sports experience is fraught with obesity, type II diabetes, psychiatric care, lack of motivation to get on with their lives and a dramatic lack of coping skills. 70% quit by the age of 13. If your business lost 70% of your customers you’d change in a hurry. Youth sports should too! These kids are rebelling in the only way they know how to remain as safe as possible, still be loved and not thought of as a failure. (Remember, they can’t fail if they don’t try)

 Kids want to have FUN. THEY PLAY FOR FUN! There are many cases on many teams where youth sports travel teams have turned into a life support system for just a few players, coaches’ ego, and organizations status and profit. Many pay very expensive fees, up to $10,000 a year, and more. When did it become ok to teach to the few at the expense of the many? Only 1% of all kids that go to a 4 year college play DI intercollegiate athletics and only half of that 1% play for free. Frozenshorts, with help from many others, is out to change that paradigm, and we are.

 

 Faking injuries is just another attempt by the children to reach out for help. There are also many children getting legitimately injured, over 3.5 million last year alone who may have had overuse injuries avoided if we would have listened to them.

 

V.J.’s website is frozenshorts.com he is on twitter @VJJStanley. You can reach him at vj@frozenshorts.com or his office 585-743-1020. His new book Stop the tsunami In Youth Sports is available in paperback from his website.The ebook version is available through  a link on the front page of the website frozenshorts.com

 Please like him on facebook at frozenshorts

Taking a Knee

Taking a knee:

                I have been working with some youth football coaches over the past couple of years and this question keeps coming up When, why, and if you should take a knee at the end of the game with a lopsided score?

                My answers are always the same and always straight forward. No one gains anything by running up the score. That answers all three questions if you have an open mind. Take a knee.

                I was asked by a coach after a game if he thought I thought he was running up the score. He had stopped throwing the football and was trying to keep the score down. With a minute to go he was on the other team’s 5 yard line. He had put in his second string players and wanted to know why they shouldn’t be rewarded with a score at the end of their drive. I explained very carefully that the children would learn a much bigger life lesson if they did not score than if they did.

                Let’s analyze EXACTLY what was going to take place and the fall out in the aftermath of a decision to go for it and score. Let’s say he went ahead and called a play that resulted in a touchdown. Here is the scenario that will unfold as I see it.

                First, what was really accomplished? His team was up by 30 points and it was quite obvious that the other team could not stop them from scoring. So by scoring, the message is being sent to his team that you do not have to care for the other teams well being.

                Go ahead and score. Don’t worry about payback. Remember though, when some team does it to you, can’t complain. If you do, then you have embraced the new youth sports mantra that the rules apply to everyone but me. No real true compassion is needed. It’s a game play till the end. My needs and wants to vent frustration take the place of long term development.

                 But that begs the question of sportsmanship and fair play. Two things I believe have been devalued in youth sports and are reflected in society at large. True competition happens ONLY when the score is close, that’s when ALL sports are the most FUN! And remember, it Is always about having fun!

                Whether it be corporate decisions to overcharge consumers by putting less product in a package, but still selling it at the same price, or politicians making statements they know are not true, just trying to win, or simply the total lack of manners in a social interaction. Driving decisions, including the non use of turn signals as an example of how we are starting to value singular selfish benefits at the expense of others in our community.

                Now back to the story about the game at hand. I told the coach what a tremendous opportunity he had after the game to address his team. Wouldn’t it be much easier and much more beneficial if you talked about what it is that you did at the end of the game and how you would like to be treated?                  Instead of having to explain what you did, making excuses which your players are probably going to model in their everyday lives, after they have left the team. You will probably incur the wrath of the other team and parents.

                Simply taking a knee shows you respect the integrity of the game. It demonstrates to the kids on the team and the parents in the stands that one more score is not going to prove anything except that you are better by 36 points that day instead of thirty. Modeling that kind of behavior sends so many positive messages to children that it can never be underrated.

                 I told him you also have the chance, after the game is over, and your talk is finished with the kids, to pass along a subtle message to all the parents and fans in attendance that day. It’s just a game. We are all part of a community, and taking advantage of another person’s weakness only gives you a false sense of worth and accomplishment.

                If you do not think the refs notice this and file it away in their memory banks, you haven’t talked too many of them as I have. Watch the calls. Watch the refs’ body language. They get it.

                 I am sure you have seen coaches talk to their teams after a game your child has played. Some of these talks last twenty minutes and during these talks the children can be seen looking around and wondering how much longer they must endure this. Multiple coaches speak, thus confusing the situation, or just going over old ground presented in a different way.

                I asked the coaches if you they at work, and after their eight hour day was over, would they want the boss to come lecture them about the day? Would they want sit at their desk and be reminded if what mistakes they made that day? Oh, and now that you have been told what you did wrong that day, go home and think about it.

Take a knee

            V.J. Stanley has a website Frozenshorts.com. You can follow him on twitter @VJJStanley, or on facebook at frozenshorts. His email address is vj@frozenshorts.com He is available for speaking engagements, coaching clinics and workshops, and one on one consultations.

The Introduction to my book Stop The tsunami in youth sports

INTRODUCTION:

“What happened?”

What if I told you that . . .?

*balanced excellence, not specialization, is the key to athletic success and life?

*athletes only get better playing in games, not sitting on the bench?

*nothing a child does before puberty is a solid indicator of future athletic success?

*health is the leading indicator of future success for an athlete?  (that includes structured rest)

*playing for fun can help teams win way more than playing a sport just to win?

*just because you specialize in one sport, doesn’t mean your talent is special?

Let the journey through this book, just like your journey through youth sports and life, reveal to you the extrinsic message that will trigger the internal, intrinsic change in your own journey through youth sports and life.

Are you frustrated and tired of paying fees and footing the bill for your child’s participation in youth sports? Is the time you spend year-round going to practices and attending games wearing you down? Does your son or daughter find playing youth sports to be a chore, a job? Does it seem that the farther the player goes “up the ladder” in competition, the more problems arise and the less fun the player has?  Are the bulk of your financial contributions to your child’s participation in youth sports being used to support the development of one or two “star” players (not your child) on the team?  Do you and your family feel left out, alone? Do you feel the need to look at other options, but can’t figure out what they are and how to find them?

Are you thinking of volunteering to coach a team, but are unsure of what you’re getting into? Are you presently a coach who finds things just aren’t going the way you thought they would? Are you finding it difficult to get objective advice from people, worried they may have a hidden agenda?

Whether a parent or a coach, would you like some pointers and tips that will give a better feeling about what you’re doing? Are you just plain confused about the whole “youth sports” thing and would like to know what happened to the “fun” you experienced when you were young and part of a team?

Families and players are leaving youth sports en masse because of adverse treatment by coaches, players, and parents. Fun has been replaced by angst, bewilderment, and sometimes anger.

Why is all this happening? What are the short- and long-term consequences of people feeling this way?

One of my goals in writing this book is for people to understand how important balance is in achieving happiness and contentment in youth sports and life.  I’m really trying to help calm the angst and tense atmosphere so prevalent in today’s youth sports world.

***

Youth sports are supposed to be fun. The number one goal is for the young athletes to enjoy playing their chosen sport or sports. But, how can they do this given the current state of things?

There is a way. It’s called “balanced excellence.”  Balanced excellence is a mindset that allows everyone, including but not exclusively players, coaches, and parents, to benefit from the desire to excel in all areas of life in a balanced manner. We should strive for the qualities of excellence pertaining to and including humility, sportsmanship, and accountability. There is no ulterior motive or long-term financial goal. It’s all about fun. Enjoyment and learning life skills are the only real goals of the experience of playing youth sports. Everything else, winning, getting better, scholarships, will take care of itself, but only when this essential base is established.

Children want to be able to trust that the people and the teams they are with will include them in play. Trust is a huge part of youth sports and life that has been somewhat devalued. In life, how does trust, or the lack thereof, affect us on a daily basis at work, in school, and in relationships?  Children should benefit from this trust placed in coaches, parents, and teammates. Life lessons ought to be positive in nature. Children want to be happy. So, what happened to playing youth sports for fun?

Why has a primary goal of youth sports become a vehicle for Division I athletic scholarships? What are the consequences of this transformation? Why is the journey through a child’s playing youth sports now mostly for the reward, the glory? Athletes, coaches, and parents think that the more you win the better you are, and that is not necessarily the case.

College coaches want to see athletes in team sports working hard and playing well with others, not just winning. Why are youth sports so “goal-orientated?” Youth sports have morphed into a Tsunami, a wave of epic proportions, crashing over children and their families, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake. The allure of athletes playing for Division I schools and, possibly professionally, has become so enticing that for reasons we will explain in this book, we can’t see how unrealistic a goal that allure is to most children’s dreams. How did this happen? When did this wave begin to take over our lives, creating an undertow pulling our children, us, coaches, schools and businesses in its wake?

Will adults pass on to their families, and those generations to come, the stress-related environment created by the time and money spent on their children’s participation in youth sports? Will parents rationalize the manipulation of rules to justify their behavior? Will they fall into the undertow of “the rules apply to everyone but their children?” In turn, will the children then embrace that same attitude in their lives and the lives of their children? What consequences will, though unintentional but inevitable, come from this?  Will young players’ reputations carry through and adversely affect them and other players’ ability to improve?  What will be the fallout?

When looked at cumulatively, “pay for play” can run into the thousands of dollars per year. Does the cost of participation on a higher level of a sport give people the excuse to use the rationalization as a way to bend the rules in the name of entitlement? Could this phenomenon affect the judgment and decisions of most everyone involved now and in the future?

The answer is, “Yes!” That is, until we collectively agree to stop it.

***

The erosion of youth sports can be linked directly to the decision to have our children play one sport year-round and to the increased monetary commitment to the “pay-for-play” concept.  When did it become acceptable to have personal coaches, surgery before an injury, and rehabilitation as a way to get back on the playing field instead of just getting healthy?  The atmosphere surrounding youth sports programs has changed dramatically and negatively over the years since this concept was created. Good kids, good athletes, are telling their parents that they do not want to play anymore. The truth is that they are not having fun. Seventy percent of all youth sports participants at the age of ten stop playing by age thirteen. There are those children who love playing their sports so much they want to play year-round.

My daughter loves chocolate, but I don’t let her have it all the time. It would make her sick!

It used to be a normal occurrence for children to play multiple sports. They played one sport for a season, putting away the equipment until the next season. They then went on to the next sport. Kids enjoyed going to practice and playing in games with their teammates. The enjoyment and improvement in skills were enhanced by having balance and diversity. This approach helped to develop the mind and body, together, through years of playing youth sports.  “Specialization” referred to the particular ice-cream or snack the player preferred to eat after each contest.

It used to be that children had fun playing sports just for the enjoyment of playing with friends.  Between sports, they could have active rest by playing pickup games in different sports or some other unrelated activity.  They could do school work or community service. These all helped to achieve “balanced excellence.”

Now, children are told by organizations, parents, and coaches to pick a sport and stay with it year-round.  Few people want to talk about where this is leading, as well as what the long-term consequences are if playing year-round doesn’t work out as planned.   There is too much ego and money involved for those close to youth sports to think clearly for the good of the children. No one wants to talk about the children, families, and coaches who have been consumed by this recent phenomenon of specialization. Many have ended up breaking down mentally, physically and emotionally by the journey and results.  They are quietly being pushed aside and their discontent is silenced as a new generation of hopefuls takes their place.  How did this transformation evolve?  Is there something going on in society that helps fuel this change?

We live in a time of “instant” gratification, information, contact, reward, and success.  Long-term goals are being overrun by short-term gratification, leading to the justification of selfish behavior.  Youth sports have enveloped good people, families, coaches, and school districts like a Tsunami, repeatedly knocking them down until they are too tired to resist.  They just “go with the flow.”  Some fear retribution; others feel they will fall behind or be ostracized by the athletic community in which they socialize and participate.

Why isn’t the idea of children having fun playing sports good enough anymore?  Why are playing multiple sports discouraged?  What happened to the enjoyment and the importance of the journey?  The value of the process itself has been, at the very least, diminished through year-round playing.  Youth sports have taken on a life of their own in importance and status in our culture.  When did having quality family time, or taking a family vacation become an interruption to the participation in year-round youth sports?  Time away from youth sports should not need an excuse and justification for an absence.  We must get back to the fundamentals of playing for fun, learning life skills, and “balanced excellence.”

Recently, questions have begun surfacing regarding what is really going on in youth sports.  The long-term ramifications of playing year-round are beginning to emerge.  The idea that children enjoy sports and learn from the experience, taking the journey, has been replaced with short-term gratification and the hope of long-term financial rewards.  Most spend more than they will ever get back.

Glory, false rewards, and debilitating spending have overwhelmed youth sports. Parents and coaches are led to believe that the way to get to the “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” can only come from playing one sport year-round. The short term reward of course, is winning. The long term reward is either a scholarship or professional contract.

This simply is not true.

My book is available from my website, frozenshorts.com in e book form now for $9.95 and the book will be out in paperback by the end of November 2012 for $15. You can follow me on twitter @VJJStanley, on Facebook at frozenshorts.com, you can reach me by email vj@frozenshorts.com

Food For Thought; Tomaotoes and youth sports

Tomatoes and Youth Sports

                It is impossible to know which tomato is going to be the best tomato when you buy a pack of tomato seeds at the store. There are so many choices and many experts who will want to tell you which tomatoes are going to be the best. Most will recommend their seeds.

                 They will tell you where to buy your tomatoes and seeds and will tell you the proper way to grow them. Some will even tell you that hanging them upside down is the best way to grow great tomatoes. People will even say that buying the more expensive seeds and putting them in one specific area, with what is perceived to be the best growing environment, will be the only way to grow great tomatoes.

                 The so called “experts” will say that you have to do it their way if you want to get great tomatoes, but they really can’t prove it. They will tell you that over the years they have grown some of the best tomatoes around, but what they don’t tell you and they don’t want you to know is how many failures they have had with this recipe of theirs.

                 What they also don’t want to tell you is how mass production leaches valuable nutrients out of the soil. They espouse growing the same tomatoes year round every year.

                 There is an alternative to their way. You need to grow a different kind of crop for a season to balance out the soil for future generations of tomatoes. So by not planting tomatoes for one season you will actually get a better tomato the season after.

                 They also don’t tell you that for the most part they work in an environment that gets them the best possible equipment, the best possible resources, and still doesn’t necessarily mean they will have the best tomatoes.

                They have produced a lot of tomatoes over time and are pretty proud of the exceptional ones they have produced and will relish in that paradigm all the while denying the real truth. Their way is not necessarily the best way to grow tomatoes. They are just defending their turf and want to be considered great tomato growers, but they really aren’t. They just have produced the most tomatoes and probably the most consistent ones .

                 Even a farm that specializes in growing tomatoes may or may not produce a great tomato.          Specialized fertilizer, specialized ridged standards, specialized packing and shipping instructions will produce, over the long haul, a very consistent tomato that most people will buy. They will throw out the weaker tomatoes and not think a thing of it. They are of no use to the mass production of specialized tomatoes for this farm or organization.

                Surely the farm with all its extras like specialized growers whose only job is to research and grow great tomatoes based on a specialized formula must know that continuing to do the same thing season after season will get boring. They will not be able to produce the highest quality of tomatoes because they won’t be as sharp mentally and physically.

                What fun is that?

                And how much are these tomatoes costing each and every year to try and get the best tomato?

               

                 So, do we really know which way is going to provide the best tomato? Could it be, and isn’t it possible, that the most unlikely seed, grown by a little old lady in her small garden, will produce just as good a tomato as anyone else. She has a secret little way, gleaned over years of caring for her garden , and experimenting with new ways, being a little creative, and adjusting to the crop that she has, that when added with love and positive reinforcement, will produce a truly great tomato.

                 But if you ask her, she will tell you that she loves her garden and the vegetables she grows and treats them all the same and loves them all the same. She will say everyone wants to be loved, needed, and appreciated, so why should her garden be any different?

                She will spend a lot more time caring for the tomatoes in a nurturing way than she will never scold the tomatoes or those helping her grow the tomatoes for not being ripe on time or not being the best tomato. She will rarely take credit and brag about her tomatoes. She knows the tomatoes are the real story, she was just the nurturer. She stays humble, trustworthy and loved.

                 Her joy is in watching others eat the tomatoes and feel good about doing something for others. She cares for ALL the tomatoes equally knowing full well that her efforts in this area may or may not produce a great tomato. She will look on with pride at her tomato garden and be pleased with the effort she put in as much as, if not more than, the results.

                 You must nurture them ALL over a long period of time to help them grow and in the end when they are fully grown you will find out which tomato is the best. Even then it is not the fact that you have one great tomato. It is more that you have grown a lot of tomatoes that when put together make a great sauce, salad,  juice, or even just a snack to be enjoyed and thankful for. However, even when you may think you have a great tomato growing, and you see the potential for that tomato to be the best, another tomato may turn out to be better than that one.

                 If you eat the tomato before it is ripe because you can’t wait any longer, the tomato won’t taste as good as it will if you let it ripen more, will it? It may be the best tomato at the time, but by picking it, and saying it is the best tomato, you have given the tomato a status that it has not truly earned because it really isn’t better than all the other tomatoes, it just got a head start and is better now than the others.

                 Even if you do have the best tomato, you still must grow other tomatoes if you want to keep having good tomatoes to eat.

                A smaller tomato may turn out over the long haul to be a better tasting tomato than the one big one.

                 Even if you are in a tomato growing contest you can’t judge who has the best tomatoes from the seeds. You have to wait a long time to find out. But even then, don’t you have to have other tomatoes to judge who has the best?

                Now let’s talk about the tomato contest. Let’s say your town is competing against other towns in a tomato growing contest. Could it be that even your third best tomato is better than the other towns best tomato? Or are all of their tomatoes better than yours? Does it really matter? Isn’t it fun just to compete? Even if we don’t win the contest wasn’t it fun just to try our best and enjoy the journey. Does winning or losing the contest really determine how good the tomato is and how much we enjoy it? Can anyone but you determine how much you like the tomato and how good it tastes?

                What may taste good to you may not taste as good for the other person. After all, they are just tomatoes and this is about enjoying the tomatoes, not your ability or ego in growing them, isn’t it?

                 Wouldn’t it be fun after the contest was over to exchange recipes and talk about growing tomatoes with the other contestants? Wouldn’t it be fun to get together with them at their garden or yours and just talk about how much fun it is to grow tomatoes?

                Could it be that you need a whole lot of tomatoes, and need to keep experimenting with the growing technique to find out how to grow the best tomato? Does it really matter if you grow the best tomato? Haven’t we learned how subjective that can be? Even then what may work for growing one tomato may not work for others. However, there is a base of growth for all tomatoes.

                What is it? You need to nourish them. They need watering and plant food. Sunlight and proper temperatures are essential for long term growth and well being. You can’t water them too much, or give them too much sun or too little sun without consequences. You need balance. But most of all isn’t it better for you and the tomatoes if you just enjoy the journey and process of growing tomatoes?

                It’s why I wrote my book, Stop the Tsunami in Youth Sports, and have a website frozenshorts.com and tweet @VJJStanley and speak to groups and train coaches and organizations

Violence in Youth Sports On and Off the the Field

            Have you ever purchased something and been unhappy or dissatisfied with the product? Your frustration grows until it becomes anger. You need to lash out at something or somebody.     If you are going to be screwed over someone is going to have to pay. It doesn’t have to be the person or company that you think screwed you. It could be something or someone totally unrelated to what got you upset in the first place.

             It could’ve even been something small, which over time continued to grow and fester until it became a big problem to you all the while staying under the surface of your day to day existence.

             No matter what you do you just can’t seem to catch a break. Things keep piling up and you are continually faced with making decisions under stress. Most of the time you are not even aware of something bothering you until someone close to you asks if everything is alright. Your usual response is; “Everything’s fine.” And I can tell you from experience, after being married to my wonderful wife for 20 years, when she says “everything’s fine” the you-know-what is about to hit the fan.

            Think how quickly you get upset when someone cuts you off in traffic, or how a seemingly simple malfunction such as not being able to find your keys causes you to stress out more so than you normally would.

You don’t think about it much as events continue to happen and the stress inside you builds up and finally explodes. After, you wonder how it happened, or you try to justify what you did.

            Last night at a high school sports event I watched a parent pace the sideline. Even with strict rules in place about staying on you your own team’s cheering section, this guy went up and down the sidelines, yelling instructions to his son and harassing the referees. After the game, as he was leaving, he told one of the other parents that “He did not know how much more of this he could take.” One of the parents responded with “I know exactly how you feel.” Really?

            During the game, while I was talking with another person, someone who, like myself did not have a child playing on either team, one of the players on the field made a very reckless play that injured both him and his opponent. Now some may say he was being competitive. No, he was not. It was a cheap play. Here is what is happening. The players on the field think that there is a chance for them to get an athletic scholarship so they are bound and determined to get ahead of the next player. Pushed on by parents and coaches who do not stress the importance of community, sportsmanship, and humility, they model the very behavior the parents and coaches are seen doing during a sporting event.

            The reaction in the stands was telling. A couple of parents cheered the play as it almost scored a goal. Another parent admonished the most vocal parent, and then turned to me and said “I guess that’s how fights start in the stands.”

            The parent who was yelling at the referees was admonished by the Supervisor at the game. So what was his response after the supervisor left? He started to cheer exponentially louder for his son’s team. His daughter who could not have been more than 10 years old put her hand on his shoulder and asked him to sit down and to calm down.

            Parents are paying thousands of dollars to have their children belong to a particular team or organization in youth sports. They want to get a return on their investment. The angst meter is already ramped up by the very fact that their child is playing in the “pay for play” sports arena. Inherently people want to belong to something. As the family unit dynamics have changed over the years people still have the need to belong to a group or organization to help with their identity. In prison they use solitary confinement as a way to take away that feeling of belonging. It is one of the most severe punishments.

Youth sports used to be the place where you could put your everyday worries and troubles behind you and just enjoy watching your children play and have fun. Sure there was always one whackadoodle in the stands but everyone avoided him and he was really left out to be by himself. What people don’t understand is that by watching the person yell and make a fool out of themselves, and I know the children certainly don’t want their parents behaving that way, they begin to subconsciously identify with  the yelling parent, or by not saying anything to them, endorse that behavior. Now I am not saying that you should go and confront that person. You do not want to get in to a fight over a youth sports game, but what I do want you to be aware of is the effect it has on you and those around you. Ever been in a room where it starts out with a group of people talking. Then as time continues, the room grows louder and louder and no one really seems to notice. They just keep raising their own voice so they can be heard. Go to a school cafeteria at lunch time and you will see exactly what I mean.

Now there is a thing called tacit community in which people will knowingly say or do the wrong thing when influenced by others with status. My generation called it mob mentality. It also seems that how educated the person is has no effect on how he or she will react to these situations.

             Let us take this classroom study done by Soloman Asch at Swathmore College and transfer it onto to the youth sport playing field. Heck, let’s transfer this paradigm to everyday life while we are at it. People have been sucked in by the belief that college scholarships are out there and are attainable by following this “pay for play” model. I recently had a young man tell me about John Wall and how he was discovered at a Reebok summer camp that cost $1000 to attend.  Two things from that statement. One, do you really think that John Wall would not have played DI basketball and be in the NBA if he not gone to that camp? Second, he proves the rule. Thousands of kids have gone to these camps and what became of them. Kids, coaches, organizations, and parents, use the exception to try and disprove our paradigm. They say he did it, why not my kid. Because the facts say the odds are incredibly small that your child will play in the NBA. 1 out of 100,000 kids between the ages of 19-23 make it to the NBA.

That’s why I wrote my book, Stop the Tsunami in Youth sports, available soon on my website in paperback form.