Friday thoughts

If you think your Childs athletic performance is the key to your financial future, you should play the lottery. Same odds. Go to http://frozenshorts.com  and download free our weekend youth sport cost calculator. Go to media, scroll down to bottom. And plug in #s. See what it costs per hour for your child to play travel youth sports. Children learn from internal realization. Not external force. So stop yelling at them while the play. It just another form of entitlement. Kids should be allowed and encouraged to stay in the moment and have fun. Let them dream later with their friends with no adult pressure.

Only 1% of all kids going to college will play at the DI level. So don’t talk to them like they are. That is your dream not there’s.Telling kids to play one sport is like telling them they have to eat Broccoli when they dont want to. There are other sports. On the way home from the game do not critique their performance. You are not a TV analyst and they are not pro athletes. Watch your kids playing youth sports this weekend? Look like fun to you? If not, time for a change. Recess, when kids should have free play. As important as any subject in the classroom. It helps them learn better

Others

Playing and coaching with someone who has less ability has as much to do with you and the team getting better as it does them improving. At some point you won’t be the best player on a team. How do you reconcile your exclusion of others when you start to get excluded? What if a coach purposefully showed up late for practice just to learn what the kids would want to do without the coach? One period or one quarter for one game we ask for no yelling instructions at the kids by coaches and parents. Tell us what happens! You can still be competitive and relaxed. You can still be pumped up and calm and you get to slow down the game in your brain. Spoke at a yearend sports banquet. Asked kids in the audience how many felt pressured to play injured? How many had played pickup games? More kids felt pressured to play than had played pickup games. Shouldn’t that statistic be reversed? What if we asked the kids what they wanted to do, without them having to fear retribution? You lead by example and modeling class behavior. That means you don’t always have to be at the front of the line. You say swag I say humility. You show me an athlete who has overcome struggles in sports and in life, and I’ll show you a person I can trust to be a team player. You say winning I say competition. You don’t know how to win, no one does. But I do know how to compete.

Sectional Avoidance

Sectional Avoidance

Over the last decade I have heard this expression repeated by coaches, players, parents, and administrators. “If things work out we can avoid playing “X” in the Sectionals until we or they get to the finals. This is modeling behavior that is simply another form of entitlement that puts winning at all cots above  the journey.

Now I freely admit that I am old school. I’d rather play the best team we could play 10 times in a season, than the worse team once. You don’t learn anything beating up on teams and you certainly don’t get pressure, stressed filled situations to learn from.

 I believe in life skills, humility, sacrifice, and teamwork as in integral part of a team, and a player’s journey through youth and high school sports. As a coach and a player I always tried to make sure that everyone on my team was included in everything that we did. I played wherever the coach needed me and I offered to play with anyone on our team.

I was very fortunate to receive the very first sportsmanship award at my high school.  I volunteered to play defense the year after I won the league scoring title. We only had two returning defensemen, and our team was in a bind. I ended up playing the whole game, every game, while the other 2 defensemen rotated.

 My late great father and wonderful mother had instilled in me the philosophy of caring for others, sacrifice, leadership, and sharing. They also encouraged me to play with older children and better competition. Those older children in our neighborhood mentored me, pushed me, but not once ever excluded me form the countless pickup games we played in multiple sports. I never forgot those lessons learned.

 V.J. Sr. said to me on many occasions: “If you want to be the best, you have to play the best.”

Now, with winning, no matter what level, what time of year, and always with background noise of “I’m a winner”, so I must play and coach to win, no matter what the cost” reverberates throughout youth and high school sports. Schools will drop down a division, avoid certain teams, play a lighter schedule all the while never understanding the incredibly poor modeling example they are presenting to our children. Then they are surprised when the kids act up. I say I’m surprised that you’re surprised.

It’s ironic to me when I hear adults talk about DI athletic scholarships and teaching kids how to win and lose. (Something they don’t know how to do) But in college, for the most part, we try to play the very best competition we can find. Oh sure there are some games played at the very elite DI level for $$, but most college coaches want the best competition they can play. It’s how you find out who can play, and it’s also the best way for your team to improve.

So when I hear coaches, parents, players, and administrators talking about missing a team in sectionals, I just can’t figure out how they can justify setting that example to the children. Winning over competition without understanding the long term ramifications is so foreign to me it sure sounds a lot like another form of entitlement to me.

8 easy Steps for youth sports coaching

 8 Easy Steps to youth sports coaching

Nobody comes to a youth or high school sports game to watch a coach coach.  If an adult wants to become great youth coach pre puberty for the kids best long term interests? Here are 8 easy steps for all youth sports coaches’ pre puberty! 1. Equal play.2 Let the kids play multiple positions, 3. 9 out of 10 things said to kids is cheering positive with minimum instructions. (Do you really think they will get it done all correctly?) 4. No yelling at kids on the field, court, or rink while they play, 6. No post game talk, 7 SNACK 8. FUN for all. They are just kids. They are not mini adults or micro professional athletes. They are not remote controlled robots attached to adults’ personal status and joy sticks. 1% will play at the DI level .99.9% will never play pro so why would anyone coach them that way? Play for fun! Only 10% of the kids who are best at 12 are best at 18. Let them develop instead of the coach managing the game. No one knows how to win.70% will quit by the time they are 13.Why? 1. The kids are not having fun. 2. Too much pressure from adults.3.Lack of playing time. Puberty changes everything. A coach has only a 10% influence on the outcome of a game so they should be heard, ALONG with the PARENTS, 10% of the time while the kids are playing. Adults call it coaching, kids call it interfering or in comedy terms, heckling... Play for fun the kids only know the score because you tell them. Its adulting kids. Ten minutes after the game adults are the only ones who care. It’s why kids hate the ride home after sports. They will play ALL day by themselves without a scoreboard. It’s the adults’ egos that remind the kids. Do you really think that there won’t be a game if the coach isn’t there? We use Science instead of tradition, Psychology instead of hunches, and data instead of theory for these steps. Try them for on game. The kids will love it!

Let them be kids

Just got off the phone with a coach who told me that FUN doesn’t have to play a part in his teams’ agenda. You should not be coaching children. Last night I watched a father who thinks he knows sports, but never played high school varsity or college level, tell his son after a game his team won how badly his son played. He blasted his son for not playing well. The kid was almost in tears. What a ride home that had to be for the young boy. Amused by parents who say its common sense to teach kids how to win and lose and then when their kid doesn’t play and team wins they are mad. We are sending group of children into adulthood from youth and Sports that see entitlement/manipulation as acceptable parts of a persona.

Prom night Part III

The Prom Part III

Just when I thought I had heard all the feedback that I was going to get on this subject, I got a call this morning that I had to write about. Now understand I am getting this third hand, but even if only part of this is true, it speaks volumes as to why I feel so passionate about what we do at Frozen Shorts, and how much it needs to be successful for our future generation of children.

I was told this morning that a parent had actually blamed a loss for his team on the Prom. That’s right; kids going to the Prom had cost their team a win. Now think for a minute: A parent, a successful and a fully functioning member of society, who was so into this team that he was blaming a loss on children who did not play. It seems to me he just wanted to make sure he had the coaches back and that every parent, and sadly his son, knew that. He was the guy who had the keen insight to be able to make these calls for the team. He also maybe is trying to insure that his kid has a starting spot on the team for next year, and may or may not realize it.

Whether it is bad calls by the umpire that he captures on video, and shows all that will listen, or some outside distraction affecting his sons ability to perform in a crucial moment, that he pontificates to the other parents  because this could happen to their kid, he has the definitive say on what’s going on during the game. The illogic he used in this case was because the children who weren’t there could have played, the coach was “forced” to play one of his better players in a major blowout! Seriously, how much kool aid do you have to drink to come up with that one? Did this guy even play High School or college sports?

 I have spoken with many ex pro athletes and not one agrees this current path is the right ones for their kids, or any kids. One did talk to me about completion for little ones around the age of 8-10 but when I explained the science, Psychology, and data as to why equal play would actually help the competition, she readily agreed.

Let’s break this down logically. I know, I’m using logic, experience, and cause and effect principles, to come up with solutions to an illogical thought process. ALL kids should be encouraged to go to the Prom if they want to. Most of these kids do not play unless the game is a blowout anyway. Even with them not there were other kids, not just the starters, were still left to play. I don’t think you think what you think you think is correct on this sir.

Now here comes the part that my brain is trying to analyze and figure out. Did the kids, as a group, decide, since they knew they weren’t going to play anyway based on this seasons past experience, say collectively, let’s go to the Prom and show everyone our feelings. Did they think that they would be “punished” for missing the game by being “benched?” Going to the Prom en masse was a form of teenage rebellion or defiance? Or did they just want to go to the Prom?

Did the coach reschedule this game knowing about the Prom, and thus insuring that he did not have to worry for three games, about playing kids that were on the bench? Did he tell the other coach, after the game, that he was in a “pickle” because these kids went to the Prom and he was “forced” to use one of his best players more that he wanted to?  Was he saying and modeling one behavior to the kids and then a completely opposite thought process and behavior for adults so as to ensure that anything bad that happened wasn’t his fault?

But mostly, what about the kids? Are they now being modeled a behavior by adults that allows them to rationalize poor behavior? Are they seeing themselves as pawns as they wait their “turn” to play next year? “You must sit now so you can play later.” Is everyone so accepting of this because there are so few spots and so many kids playing that fear of falling behind, or not keeping up with the Jones dictates a slow and steady decline of real inter team completion and fun?

We are then sending a group of children into adulthood from youth and high school sports that see entitlement and manipulation as acceptable parts of a persona.

Equal play and fun

There is no medical, psychological data that says equal play impedes child’s athletic development U10. Just the adults’ egos are bruised. We have done pilot programs up to U13 with complete success and others have sent me data that they have done it all the way up to U18 with great success. If you leave kids alone, they will play for hours on end. It’s called free play. The score doesn’t change the way they play if left alone, just the way adults think. I was told by an adult after a talk that the kids want to and know what the score is. Yes, some do, BUT most know because adults pound it into them.  They want to play for fun. The true test of a child’s involvement in sports is that they want to keep playing after a game is over and the TEAM leaves the field happy. Another parent told me they have to learn to win and lose. How are you qualified to teach that? Remember, no one knows how to win. Survival of the fittest, in its original definition was about the WHOLE community surviving not one individual

In high school and college you take multiple subjects yet we force children to specialize at an early age and then are shocked by rebellion. Kids on the playground don’t need adults telling them what to do. They can figure out the rules and roles for themselves, and they want to! Ever heard your child "I can do it myself" I did. My daughter was 2. Children want and need the desire to learn. Teach them the "yearn to learn”. It's all about the journey. When you go on a trip and have a guide, the guide leads but do not dominate. They let you experience life now you know what the kids want. When is the last time you made a mistake at work and the boss had you stay after and run laps? Does the boss stand over you constantly? PLAY FOR FUN!