GUEST BLOG WAYNE WILSON

After captaining the Bowling Green Falcons to the NCAA Division I championship in 1984, I decided to forego a professional hockey career so I could begin coaching. And that’s what I’ve done ever since – serving as an assistant at my alma mater for nine years while earning my master’s degree, before becoming head coach at Rochester Institute of Technology a dozen years ago.

                Along the way, I’ve had the privilege of coaching and teaching a lot of hard-working student athletes, not only about hockey, but about life. We attempt to recruit high-character kids who are good teammates and dedicated students. That’s contributed greatly to the success RIT has had while making the transition from Division III to Division I. Two years ago, we wound up stunning the college hockey world by reaching the Frozen Four. That was sweet, but I was just as proud – if not more so – of our team’s 3.2 grade point average, pretty impressive when you consider that RIT is a very demanding academic school.

                About five years ago, I had the privilege of meeting V.J. Stanley, when he began broadcasting our hockey games. The thing I liked right away about him was that he took a different approach to the coverage of our team. It wasn’t just about hockey with him. It also was about academics and life-skill development. He was very thorough in doing his homework about our program and I and my staff enjoyed being interviewed by him as a result. It got to the point where we even invited V.J. to one of our video review sessions.

                V.J. wound up developing, writing and narrating a documentary about our program that included interviews with everyone, including the Zamboni driver. (I wasn’t kidding when I said he was thorough.)

                I believe one of the reasons I hit it off with him was that V.J. had been a successful hockey coach in his own right at the University of Rochester for 21 years. He not only knew the game, but also emphasized academics and balanced excellence. When asked about his coaching record, he didn’t recite how many victories or league championships he had won, but rather how many doctors, lawyers and engineers his team had graduated. I liked that.

                So, when he asked to interview me for this book and other projects involving youth sports, I was more than happy to contribute whatever I could. We both realize that youth sports is broken and needs to be fixed.

                Like me, V.J. believes that the primary goal of youth sports should be kids having fun. The fact that nearly 70 percent of kids quit organized sports by age 13 is alarming to me, a true crisis. Or, as V.J. has eloquently and accurately put it, a tsunami that needs to be stopped.

                We have to get back to the play-for-fun approach. Children, twelve and under, should receive equal playing time so they can develop and enjoy the best that sport has to offer. They can’t develop if they are in constant fear of being benched.

                Somewhere along the way, specialization took over youth sports, and now we have too many kids at a young age being forced to play one sport, year-round. This, too, needs to stop. Growing up in Canada, my parents encouraged me to play several different sports. I believe that this balanced-excellence approach, in which you take breaks from your primary sport, is absolutely necessary and actually aids in a young athlete’s physical, mental and emotional development on and off the rink, field and court. I didn’t focus solely on hockey until I was 16, and even then, there were months at a time, where you took a break and weren’t on the ice.

                During my two decades of coaching and recruiting, I’ve noticed a proliferation in so-called “elite” programs, travel teams and show-case tournaments, while the number of Division I scholarships has pretty much remained stagnant. As V.J. has noted, the carrot of DI scholarships and, even worst, this long-shot dream of playing professionally has created unrealistic expectations and is sucking the joy out of youth sports.

                V.J.’s book and video tapes take a look at this youth sports tsunami from many different angles and shows how this new paradigm simply isn’t working. He has talked to scores of experts in the field – doctors, coaches, athletes and administrators – and offers common-sense solutions to how we can fix these problems, which have reached epidemic proportions.

                He reminds us that we need to get back to the simple mantra that youth sports should be fun, not seen as a path to a Division I scholarship or a pro career. And he reminds us that young people, in particular, need to seek balanced excellence in their lives in order to become well-rounded, fully developed people.

                I think this book is a great starting point and a great how-to-guide. It can help us stop the tsunami in youth sports and make children the focal point of youth sports once more.

                I hope you enjoy the book and learn from it. It definitely will be worth your while.

                Sincerely,

                Wayne Wilson

                2010 N.C.A.A. Division I Hockey Coach of the Year

                2001 N.C.A.A. Division III Hockey Coach of the Year

    

GUEST BLOG Frank Forencich

How Good Can I Be?

I had the good fortune to meet a young lady and her family during my journey through this project.  I had met her brother first and he was quite pleased with his younger sister’s athletic accomplishments.  He really caught my attention when he started talking about scholarships.  It seems his sister had been approached about playing DI tennis by a college coach.  Now let me make this clear:  a student must graduate from their junior year and pass the NCAA clearing house before they can be offered or accept a legitimate DI athletic scholarship. A student or family can say the intend to go to a DI college but the NCAA has very specific rules regarding athletic scholarships.

                I was invited by the parents to come to their house.  We had a very good conversation about athletics, coaches, tournaments, and showcases.  In my consulting business, I call it Mental Health Consulting; I frequently talk to parents, coaches, and athletes in youth sports.  What struck me about this family was the closeness they had sitting around the kitchen table.  You could feel the honest caring for their daughter’s health and well being.

                This spring she is going to play tennis against the boys.  Here is how I know she will be successful.  I watched her play one match.  Even before the match started I could tell by the way she carried herself walking on to the court she had class.  I turned to her mom during warm-ups and said, “She’s going to win.”  Even after she lost the first game, the outcome was obvious.  But then she did something quite memorable.  She bounced the ball on the side edge of the racket not to show off but to help her concentration.  You can see DI athletics pretty clearly pretty quickly.  She had a steel-eyed determination that was a joy to watch.  There wasn’t any show boating or any flare-ups of behavior.  When she missed a shot, the mom and the grandparents sat and watched and cheered nicely.

                 You see, you can’t buy DI talent.  You either have it or you don’t. True athletic talent is evident very quickly after puberty. There are however, many late bloomers out there who need time, encouragement, and repeated opportunities to compete in games to achieve their level of excellence.

                 The parents did not send her to Florida to live and play at an academy.  I am sure there were overtures for her to attend such a place. These academies are prevalent in all sports.  Do players and families have all the facts needed to make a decision on where and what kind of atmosphere is best for their child’s long term health and development?

                They remained grounded and so did this young athlete.

                As she plays against the boys this spring, she is accepting a challenge based on competition, not gender or what is popular.  Instead of fearing competition, or trying to stack the deck to win, she embracing the challenge of finding out how good she really is in this arena. Notice I did not say who is the best.  The truly great athletes play against their sport.  The opponent is merely an obstacle or a measuring stick as to how well they can play and compete.  She has the look and pace of a class human being, and I am sure she will be successful in whatever endeavor she chooses to accept in her journey through life. Not just because of talent. It is way more important for her future success to have an excellent work ethic, a grounded base of integrity and humility, and a passion for life and fun.
                                              Now isn't that what is really important?

THE HIGH COST OF PLAYING AND COACHING TO WIN

                A coach told a freshman player that he would be in his high school team’s top “20” as a freshman soccer player. He even told the player’s father that his son was going to make the team.  The player had a great camp, but was cut. Let me make this clear. If a varsity coach is going to keep a freshman or a sophomore on his team, they must play at least 50% of the time, and should be in the starting lineup every other game. When the father questioned the coach about keeping his word, the coach blamed “administrative reasons” for cutting the player. Asked by the coach if the player was still playing baseball, even though the father was told it was not a problem, the father was stunned. The coach asked where the player had been. Why wasn’t he at the pre-season pay-for-play training camp?

                The player was the best player on the junior varsity team, according to both junior varsity coaches. (Not the most talented) The next year, the boy got sick during tryouts. The excuse given for the player not making the team was that he was three weeks behind. It was only one week. The next excuse was that they hadn’t seen him play a certain position in three years. This was not true, either. The junior varsity coach had seen him that summer in a game at the club team’s state championship. They also said he had not been seen at the position they needed. Also, not true. The junior varsity coach had seen this boy “stuff” the leading scorer on another team in a couple of games. The same scorer crushed the varsity team with three in a scrimmage for three goals.

                This is happening more than you realize. Attitudes developed from ego and self-worth are being enhanced for the coach instead of the player’s development. In the sectional championship game, another player on the varsity team was in that same position this young man played. He gave up another bad goal. Meanwhile, the wronged player led his junior varsity team with three goals and fifteen assists, and was the captain of the undefeated junior varsity team.

                No championships were won that year or in the following four years. Coaches need to realize that the children want to play. Some players follow the “party line” and say they play to win, but after their careers are over most of the ones I talk to regret not getting to play. We polled about a hundred kids from the age of fourteen to eighteen. I was shocked at the amount of kids who said the reason they played sports was to win. I was even more shocked when I was told most would rather sit on the bench and win a championship, than to play on a losing team. This bothered me for quite a while.

                 And then a strange thing happened. I started running into some of the players who I had polled. ALL wanted to change their answer after their season had finished and they did not win a championship. They all said they now realize it would have been more fun to play. In one case we studied, a player who had rarely played refused to go into the game in the final minutes of a blow out in the last game of his high school career. This scenario plays out year after year, season after season, sport after sport.

                Playing ALL the kids on your roster during the season is a HUGE benefit to your team, not a hindrance. Inter team competition helps the WHOLE team get better. It may not seem like playing your most talented players is entitlement, but it is. They have to earn extended playing time, and keep earning it. If not they learn subconsciously that they don’t have to play their best and try their hardest to get playing time.

                Over and over in multiple sports we see coaches keeping their “best” players in games and losing without seeing the long term negative effect it has on their program. Players who do not get playing time start to lose interest and don’t play hard in practice. This falsely justifies the coaches’ thoughts that the player does not deserve playing time. The coach created this scenario by not allowing kids repeated chances to play and get better during games with real playing time, not just a few minutes at the end of a blowout. I have also seen kids get playing time at the end of a blowout and play really well. Then, during the next game, they are back on the bench. Most coaches do not realize the long term harmful effect this has on their program. The kids do not want to be on a team were they are stereo typed as a bench player or substitute. We followed a basketball team from freshmen to senior year. Only three kids who played on the freshmen team were on the varsity squad their senior year.

                 Post puberty it should be play by performance. That means when a player is not playing his best they are replaced by a player who may not be able to contribute as much as the more talented player in the short term. Both kinds of players should get repeated chances during games to play. The more talented player learns that they have to perform at a high level to keep their position and status, it is not a given.  They learn the benefits of getting better and being a good teammate. The benefit to the team, the coach, and the player are long lasting and beneficial, not harmful. The substitutes are rewarded for their efforts and try harder making themselves and all around them better. They also show anyone watching, that they have a chance to succeed.

                Now is the time to stop the tsunami.