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.