Category: sport-based youth development
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Sports are not magic
Why did you put your kids into sports? Was it because you wanted them to learn a life skill? Maybe you thought about how you grew as a person from your athletic days, how you got good at time management, became healthier, and gained more overall confidence. You only want the same for your kid.…
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Trust is built
When you think about it, saying that trust is built over time is an incredibly accurate way to put it. You have to continuously add interactions to your history with someone to get to a place of trust. Each positive interaction is like a brick. Each negative interaction, like a sledgehammer. When it comes to…
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Time to reflect
Get the equipment out. Check attendance. Run the practice. Clean up. Take yourself home. Repeat. There is never enough time to be still. With your busy schedule and all the demands on you, you probably haven’t even considered pausing to reflect, but your improvement depends on it. So how can you build the time in?…
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You are not solar powered
Back in elementary school, I had one of those cheap and simple calculators. It had solar panels on it to for power. After you turned it on, there was not really an off button and just stayed on. But if you placed you hand over the panels, it finally turned off, until you moved your…
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All of it was futile.
One of the things you have to know if you choose to go down the sport-based youth development path is that it can take a toll on you. You can pour your entire heart in to the work, stack all of the hours, and spend all of your gas money working with and supporting your…
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Are you doing too much?
You finally have seen the light when it comes to sports-based youth development. You wanted to start incorporating all of the tenets in your practices, but now you are exhausted and questioning whether or not you should even try this. I mean you were struggling to even fit in stretching before and now you are…
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My thoughts on that viral Little League hug
Perhaps you have seen the video already, that moment that has gone viral. A batter is struck in the head by an errant pitch and falls to the ground. The pitcher is brought to tears. The batter gets up and goes to give the pitcher a hug. The video of that moment is shared again…
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The 8 essential elements for positive youth development settings
In my previous posts, I did a quick run through of what sport-based youth development means. Even quicker: It is basically using sport to promote positive youth development. Now, that means that you need to make sure the environment is set up to maximize positive development. The writers, Eccles and Gootman, identified eight essential features…
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Breaking down sport-based youth development: Supportive environments
As you build out a youth sport program, you definitely need to secure facilities, resources, and players of course. One extra you need to give thought to is the environment. More specifically, how can you craft a supportive environment that is the best for your athletes? A supportive environment is one that is “warm” and…
The Sideline Fix 