I just started reading a book by Tom Farrey titled “Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children” and in it he talks about the drive to start kids earlier and earlier and specialize more but contrasts it with numerous examples of top performers in their respective sports who got a late start relative to today’s standards and/or give credit to the playing of multiple sports in their development. It got me thinking there are a couple of great questions any and all of us who are involved with youth athletics should be asking ourselves?
- What are we doing to keep kids involved?
- Is what we are currently doing contributing to the increasing number of kids dropping out of sports and at an earlier age than ever before?
- Why do we want kids playing sport and does our program align with these reasons.
I would recommend that before or while answering those questions you take a look at some books such as Tom Farrey’s and maybe visit some websites such as the Postive Coaching Alliance (www.positivecoach.org) to help in this evaluation.
Life to the Full
10:10 Sport 