Tuesday, April 29, 2014

TJS

TJS
There have been a number of Tommy John Surgeries this season to MLB pitchers. Many outstanding medical people have weighed in with a tremendous amount of thought, reasoning, and data. I am not and will not ever be qualified to speak to the medical reasons for this recent rash of TJ surgeries. Even the eminently qualified medical people do not have an agreed upon reason or solution for the problem.
There is a group that believes, and rightly so, that all the pitching these kids are doing at an early age is a probable cause that shows up later in life. Whether it is throwing to many curve balls, elite travel teams, showcases, or pitch counts, kids today are throwing year round more than ever. There are some that believe the pitchers are throwing harder than ever and this is causing stress on the elbows. Others believe that it is “in” to have TJ surgery as quickly as possible when pain occurs because of the success rate.
What we have done at Frozen Shorts, when I was coaching little league, all the way up to U19 travel baseball, was concentrate on the mental aspect. I even asked my pitcher, when I went out to visit him on the mound with, all the infielders standing around, with the bases loaded in championship game, what he liked on his pizza. I told him I liked everything but anchovies. He looked at me, smiled and relaxed, struck out the last batter to win the game.
 All the way back to when my father was President of the Rochester Red Wings, then the Triple A  minor league franchise for the Baltimore Orioles, I noticed how much better athletes performed when they were relaxed and having fun. They were still very competitive, but the fun seemed to enhance their abilities, not deter them.
I garnered all this information, while continuing to learn and observe while I was a head coach in college hockey for 21 years. Athletes, when they had experienced peace of mind, still had the ability to get excited and perform at a high level. I evoked humor in high pressure situations, even telling a joke in the locker room in a tight playoff game, and asking my players if they were having any fun playing tight. I gave my players every Sunday and Monday off and we never practiced hockey the day after a game.
Now I am not saying that there is a comparison to MLB and all the pressure they have on them each and every game to win, to what I do. But there is a parallel. I believe that each team should have a masseuse on staff. They should also have a yoga instructor on staff and do yoga every day. Players should be given a break during the season. Do something different for a day. The day to day grind adds negative stress.
Now stress, whether it be the good stress, or the bad stress has a cost. Athletes today are bigger stronger and faster than they were even 30 years ago. But in the history of the world, 30 years is a micro second of a nano second in time, so the athletes achieved this superior talent through technology, and technology has a cost.

We are seeing both mental and physical stress and injuries to our young children that mirror what professional athletes are enduring. That should not be. We should embrace the fact that they are children and still growing and learning. We should allow them to have fun in a safe and nurturing environment, not one filled with pretend life lessons of winning and losing, toughness, and fake character building, that will never apply to them later in life.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Our Journey for your journey

  I have been interviewing Doctors, certified athletic trainers, professional athletes, amateur players, coaches, athletic directors, a professional sports agent, and ex players. You can see all our interviews so far, and there are many more to come, at frozenshorts.com. We would like to teach people about the journey through youth sports, high school, and college, and its long term ramifications on both children and adults in its current form.
            Through my research in the areas of science, psychology and the collection of data, I have found a disturbing trend toward one sport year-round participation. Injuries, both physical and mental, are appearing at an alarming rate to the children playing  both one and multiple youth sports year round without proper structured rest. More than 3.5 million children under the age of 14 went to hospitals in 2012 with sports related injuries.
             Proper and adequate rest is essential for long term health.  Of all ten-year old children playing youth sports, 70% quit by the age of thirteen.  Diabetes and obesity are on the rise, and I believe they are connected to youth sports and the mantra of winning. 
             I'm a huge believer in choice, but to make a good choice you have to have as many facts as possible.      
            We believe strongly that children should be able to play youth sports for fun. They need balance in their lives not specialization. They are not mini adults or micro professional athletes. They are children and let’s embrace that natural organic fact and nourish, with a holistic approach, for the children’s long term best interest.

The Frozen Shorts Training method encompasses and embraces human nature and the fundamental ,life skills needed for the children to become healthy, contributing members of society when they reach adulthood. The basic needs of safety, mental and physical health, a sense of community and responsibility, as well as the balance needed to face adversity and feel comfortable taking risks, is an essential part of our training methodology.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

S.H.E.L.S.

Frozen Shorts would like to introduce to the general public our new mantra for youth and High School sports. It is called S.H.E.L.S.
 We believe for 99% of the children playing youth and high school sports this  should be the fundamental base of what children and adults should be looking for when they participate in youth and high school sports. Our paradigm can be summed up in this way.
S.H.E.L.S. stands for safety, health, education, and life skills.
Safety should be and will always be to me the #1 concern for children playing sports. Last year alone, $1.25 BILLION was spent on youth and high school sports overuse injuries with Doctor and hospital visits.40% of those injuries happened to children under the age of 14. 60% of those injuries happened to kids at practice. Alarming is just one word that comes to mind.
Health is very simple. Dr. James Andrews, who is one of the top Sports Orthopeadic Surgeons in the country, says that health is the leading indicator for an athlete’s future success form an early age. Let’s be clear here. It isn’t size, strength, speed, weight or what team you play on.
Education. There are 77 times more non athletic scholarships that there are athletic ones. Children need to come out of college with some experience and lack of debt. Now you can argue that the athletic scholarship is a way to go, but I counter with this. The total amount of money you spend on your child’s athletic journey will, for the most part, outweigh any athletic scholarship. Keep them engaged in learning, get good grades, join clubs and stay active. These things will help children the most for  later life.
I believe strongly that we have gotten away from teaching the proper life skills to children. When is the last time you had to run laps at work when you made a mistake?
When is the last time you had to do pushups at work? If sports are a microcosm of life the life skills we teach our children in youth and high school sports have too radically change. Cooperation and sharing should be the norm. Toughness and character development should take the form of honesty and integrity, not winning and exclusion.
Toughness should be when you befriend and embrace a kid in school who is not very important or is being bullied. Character should be about admitting a mistake, without fear of retribution.  Mistakes should not be classified as failure. They should be teaching lessons for the kids.
More and more I hear parents talking about their children “Falling behind” in youth sports. I understand completely their angst and paranoia. They are constantly being bombarded with the mantra that more is better. Bigger is better. The “keep up with the Joneses” mentality is pervasive in youth sports and society.
Parents are trying to keep up in a race that doesn’t exist.
People are looking for something that, for the most part, does not exist. Whether it be the “full ride” Division 1 athletic scholarship, or the dream of the professional contract people are constantly being pushed, prodded and cajoled into believing that the “Holy Grail” is out there for their kid if they just spend enough money, get the right coaching, specialize, and most importantly, partner with their child in their pursuit of the PARENTS dream, not the children’s!
These kids change their minds all the time. They don’t know what they want long term, and they are not supposed to. They are kids, and the balance they need in their lives to be able to cope and learn in this increasingly fast paced and ever changing world is paramount to their long term success.


Monday, April 7, 2014

Appreciation Day for my good fortune

My book is dedicated to all my friends who have been with me over the last ten to twenty years. They allowed me to pick their brains and arrange access where needed, and encouraged me on this journey.
 It is also dedicated to the friends, families, children, and colleagues who I will never meet, but can certainly empathize with my cause, and who are looking for a better more satisfying way to enhance their lives through the youth sports journey.
THANK YOU: To everyone involved in this project. I would like to say thank you and give my heartfelt appreciation for all you have contributed to this endeavor. To mention all the people associated with this project would take up an entire new chapter in the book. I hope you know how much you contributed and how appreciative and thankful I am that you found time from your busy lives to help me and the children bring this to fruition.
There are three people who I would like to name. Kathleen Stanley has read and helped edit this book four times. My most important accomplishments in my life are directly related to her loyalty and trustworthiness. I feel way more strongly about her than this project. Words on a page do not seem enough to tell her I love her more now than the day I married her. She makes me a better person.
She gave me a wonderful son, Clayton, who has been instrumental in the writing of this book with suggestions and stories of his journey through youth sports.
She also gave me my daughter Molly. She is like having technical support 24/7 speaking in a language I understand, and fixing problem after problem with unbelievable patience for her father. Molly has edited the book, re-read it eight times, and then, when all seemed lost to me, right near the end, when I could not figure out how to upload this manuscript, she once again came through in the clutch. I really am blessed to be so fortunate to have a daughter who is gifted, thoughtful, and patient. I look at her with such pride and appreciation as to her journey in life, and I want to share with the world what she means to me. Thank you Molly
Their journey through youth sports was a key inspiration for writing this book and the video interviews I have done.
Thank you all. Peace. VJ



Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Survival of the Fittest

I was recently at a consulting job after my workshop was over a dad came up to me and said that he did not believe in equal play. He said that I was teaching kids that they did not have to work for something to have them given something for free. He said that was entitlement.

I responded quietly that I only believed in equal play for kids under the age of 13 or puberty. My reasoning was since only about 10% of the kids who were the best at 10 were still the best at 18 it seemed much more logical to have them concentrate on playing together as a group, and have the group get better as a whole. Wouldn’t that help each individual get better also?

He responded with, "Haven’t you heard of survival of the fittest?” Well, yes I have. The term survival of the fittest does not mean what you think it means. The first part, survival, means, in its original form and definition, survival of the species, not an individual of the species. The second part means  that the previous mentioned species, survives, but adapts to their ever changing environment, and therefore is the fittest.
He was not happy. He had his daughter next to him and said to me, “she wants to play one sport year round and that will make her more skilled, bigger, stronger and faster.


I looked at this young girl who was trying so hard not to be part of her father’s world and conversation, and smiled at her. I then asked her if she would like to try something different with her friends. She got a big grin and lit up like a Christmas tree. Then she looked at her father, and her whole being changed, body language and everything.  He looked at her, grabbed her hand and walked away.