A Coach's Diary

When teaching, coaching and developing a youth athlete, it's important to build both skill-set and mindset.  You can't have a complete athlete without intentionally developing both.  You also need to focus on building a complete athlete who's athleticism can cross all sports and will lead to an active and healthy lifestyle for later in life. Athleticism They have to have the strength and coordination to be able to perform all the movements that it takes to have success in their sport. Skill-set They have to have skills needed to have success in their sport. Mindset They have to have the mindset needed to commit and have the grit to work to build up their athleticism and skill-set, and the grit to overcome the many setbacks that they will encounter. It is a Marathon - Not A Sprint It takes years - really a lifetime - to fully grow and develop our skill-set and mindset completely, so be patient, consistent and diligent. Use others as a healthy gauge on progres...

Youth sports is about fun, creating an active life-style, and teaching lessons through games. It is important to teach competition and to teach early on that there is a winner and a loser, but its important to do that within context.  Teach winning and losing in terms of strengths and weaknesses, in terms of work ethic and commitment, and in terms of how to humbly deal with success and how to appropriately bounce back from defeat. As long as a kid keeps playing, as long as a kid keeps improving, and most importantly, as long as a kid keeps having fun, then good things will happen.

In coaching and in education, we hear so much about 'these kids these days' and how they lack respect, work ethic, motivation, etc.  We here about how 'back in our day,' kids worked hard, were respectful, did what they were expected to do, etc. Instead of dwelling on the problem, how can we be part of the solution? The work of philosopher Socrates, who was born in 469 BC, shows us that maybe the youth hasn't changed as much as we would like to think.  He lamented even during his days that the future generations would be in shambles because kids do not respect elders and that they were not motivated.  He was concerned for their love of luxury and their lack of manners.  He said that they showed little respect for the law, and that they had decaying morals.  He saw no hope for the future because of the recklessness, lack of respect, and lack of restraint and discretion by the youth of the times. Are our kids perfect?  No, but they are kids, a...