September 9, 2024 • 46 mins
Jason Sacks joined the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) 18 years ago, around the same time I began my youth sports journey with my oldest child as he entered kindergarten and joined AYSO, the American Youth Soccer Organization.
When done right, youth sports provide countless character-building opportunities in each practice, game, and activity. To quote NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, these character traits include teamwork, overcoming challenges, working toward a bigger goal, resilience, risk-taking, success, failure, self-confidence, mental toughness, self-control, respect for others, and more.
Unfortunately, when done wrong, youth sports not only miss the opportunity to help kids grow but can also be negative and detrimental, with long-term harmful impacts.
The Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) is dedicated to getting it "done right" by improving the youth sports experience for kids, families, and organizations across the U.S. With a wealth of resources, actionable lessons, and tools, PCA equips coaches, parents, leagues, and schools with strategies they can immediately use to help deliver a better experience for kids.
Please join me in welcoming Jason Sacks to ‘Turn the Lens’.
Jason Sacks: Youth Sports, Culture, Character | Turn the Lens podcast with Jeff Frick, Episode 36
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https://www.turnthelenspodcast.com/episode/jason-sacks-youth-sports-culture-character-turn-the-lens-ep36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzvyybqfUvs&list=PLZURvMqWbYjk4hbmcR46tNDdXQlrVZgEn
#Kids #Youth #Sports #Coaching #Development #Character #Culture #PositiveCoaching #YouthSports #SportsDevelopment #CharacterBuilding #ParentalExpectations #PositiveCoachingAlliance #MultiSportAthletes #CoachingTips #YouthDevelopment #Tools #Teach #Development #HealthyCompetition #Sportsmanship #InclusiveSports #SportsLeadership #HonorTheGame #YouthMentorship #ParticipationTrophies #SportsPsychology #CommunityBuilding #GrowthMindset #SportsCulture #PCA #Interview #Podcast #TurnTheLens
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
And you're good on time.
Yeah, yeah.
So I will count us downand we will go.
In three, two, one.
Hey welcomeback everybody.
Jeff Frick here coming to youfrom the home studio
for another episode of‘Turn the Lens’
And I'm pretty excitedabout this.
You know, before I was,quite the heavy broadcaster,
I spent a whole lot of time
(00:22):
in youth sports with my threekids who were very active
in a lot of differentactivities sports, dance.
The whole gamut.
And, you know, the parentsplay a big role in that.
And there's a lot of volunteer organizations.
And, and one of the big national organizations
has been trying to
really change the culture of youth sports
and really bring backmore of the positive.
Is the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA)[https://positivecoach.org/]
(00:43):
I was fortunateto take their training.
I looked it up, was back in like 2000,
I think a couple of yearsafter it was started.
But we've got the current president
joining us from Chicago today.
So, let's welcome inJason Sacks.
Like I said, he's the President of Positive Coaching Alliance
and has been there for 18 years, which is amazing.
Jason, great to see you.
Thanks so much for having me, Jeff
(01:05):
Absolutely.
So we had a chanceto get together.
You had an event out herein the Bay area?
Which was pretty cool.
Had a couple, of the local professional soccer players there,
Emily Menges and Jamie Shepherd.[https://bayfc.com/all-players/]
And you talked about kind of some of the latest things
going on at PositiveCoaching Alliance.
Why don't you give peoplewho aren't familiar
with your organization
kind of the 101and what you guys are up to?
(01:27):
Yeah. No.Thank you for the opportunity.
So, Positive Coaching Alliance,
we're a national nonprofit organization.
We were founded outof Stanford in the Bay area.
The overall mission is to change the culture of youth sports so that
every child, regardless of socialor economic circumstance,
has access to a positiveyouth sports experience.
(01:47):
We really want to make sure that
kids and youth sports in our country
are positive, they're accessible,they're equitable,
for regardless of what community you're living.
I think most people don't understand.
They know how big youth sports is,
but they don'treally recognize that
35 million kids are playingyouth sports each year.
(02:07):
It's a $30 billionindustry, right?
You know, if you
if you drive around on theweekends or the weeknights
throughoutdifferent communities,
that's where people are, rightthere at the sports fields, they’re
They’re practicing there are games.
But we want to make surethat it's still seen as
a youth development platform
and not just somethingthat's all about
(02:28):
competition, wins and losses,trying to get that college scholarship,
because we know that
with all those kidsthat are playing youth sports,
if we don't focus on
all the other life skillsthat can come out of it,
and we're only focusingon the wins and losses, then
it's a really big lost opportunity.
Because outside of schools,
youth sports is the largest placewhere kids gather,
(02:48):
so it's an unbelievableopportunity
to equip them with thingsthat are going to
stay with them long aftertheir playing days are over.
So much.That's a great summary.
We're going to break downa lot of those,
different areas and dig in.
So let's let's startwith the positive.
And you talked about it.
I didn't know it’sthe largest thing
that the kids do outsideof school, 35 million kids.
(03:09):
That U.S.I assume.
Yeah. Yep.
So, you know, it's aboutcharacter building, right?
And it's about experience.
And you've got a great videoon your website,
I think with Steve Youngtalking about it
I'm just going to readsome of them because he,
he hits them really well,you know,
teamwork, overcoming challenges,working towards a bigger goal
resilience, risk taking
experiencing success, failure,self-confidence,
(03:32):
mental toughness, self-control,respect for others,
being part of somethingthat’s bigger than just you.
I mean, those are a lot ofextremely valuable character, traits.
And the one that really jumps outto me the most is resilience
in this challenging world.
And we see a lot of peoplestruggle with resilience.
And from a parenting,
I call it theparenting paradox.
(03:53):
Like you'retrying to teach your to
your kid to ride a bicycle,you know, when do you let go?
When do youlet go to seat?
And do you let them fall overand scratch their knees?
And sometimes falling overand scratching their knees
is the only way to learn to ride
And sports gives us
multiple opportunitiesover many, many,
activities and days and weeksand years to
to get little versions andtastes to start to do this.
(04:16):
So I wonder if you can,you know, share
this is a really importantpiece that I think, you know,
does it get forgemen?Does it not get forgotten?
Does it need more highlight?
Talk about thecharacter building
attributes of youth sports.
Yeah, it's a great point.
I mean, we like to say that
sports can be a really safe place to fail.
Right? It can be,you know, like,
and oftentimespeople will talk about,
(04:39):
you'll hearthe quote
‘Sports Develops Character’
Right.
That's what's, that's what makes it so, so great.
I agree with that.
But there's a couple words that are missing
‘Sports Done RightDevelops Character’
Sports left to its own device
is actuallyand can actually be
a breeding groundfor a lot of negativity.
A lot of, you know, types of abuse
(05:00):
physical, mental, psychological.
So we need to be deliberate that
if we want to get
everything out of the youth and high school sports experience
that you just talked about,
all those life skills,
they're not going to happenon their own.
So we need allthe stakeholders
that are involved in the youth sports experience.
And that's organizational leaders,
(05:20):
that's coaches, that's parents, that's the athletes themselves.
Everybody needs to be aligned
that this is really that
that youth sports andhigh school sports can be
this development zone
like opportunity
to teach theselife skills.
So what we really try to do in our work is
when we partner with schoolsand youth sports organizations
(05:40):
at the grassroots level and
national governing bodies, professional sports leagues,
we are trying to equip them
with tangible tools and resources
so that if you're
you're a dad, you're a mom,you're a volunteer coach,
and you are out there.
How are you making sure that
you are taking advantageof this opportunity
to teach thoselife skills?
(06:01):
And you're not just,you know, teaching the sport,
focusing on the winning,but you're actually, you know.
How do how does a child
bounce backfrom a mistake, right.
One of our most popular toolscoming out of our workshop
is a mistake ritual.
Right.
Like, how do weteach those kids that
if something goes wrong,
you know, they're often.
(06:21):
Kids will, they make a mistakethey look three places.
They look down at the groundbecause they're,
you know, down on themselves.
They lookto their coach
to see what the reaction is going to be
And then they look inthe stands of their parents.
Right.
Can everybody be aligned with,
‘Hey, that's okay, move on to the next play,’ right.
And how do we move on, like
you'll hear pro athletes, pro coaches,
(06:42):
coaches talk about
What's the most importantplay in a game?
It's the next play right.
So how do we react.
How do we be able to bounce back?
How do we flush that mistakeout of our system and move on?
Those are little tangiblethings that we try to,
you know, teach and give thosetools to coaches and parents
so that they can start utilizing them
in their everyday life.
(07:03):
And I think what a lot ofpeople recognize is that,
hey, outside of sports,this actually works
in a lot of differentaspects of life as well.
Right.
When did it go wrong?
I mean, this is kind of thisdouble edged sword,
like everything in life with,
with kind of the
over organization and maybejust too many damn adults,
parents and notthey get involved.
And, you know,you kind of compare
like your classic sandlot
(07:25):
baseball game with the kids,grab a mitt, making up rules.
You know, there'sno umps to decide
what's rightor wrong
versus suddenly you've got these beautiful little league fields.
Little League World Seriesis coming up.
It's on ESPN.
Yeah, I don't know if that'sa good thing or a bad thing.
You know, the pressure
of being on a national audience
and making it look likethe major leagues,
when in fact these are
(07:45):
not major league kids.
These are kids.
And there's some great booksabout, you know, the whole,
Little League World Series experience
out there that you can read.
But, you know, the
I guess thegood news is, though,
now you're trying to usethat organizational structure
to actually come backand provide
those benefits back through those
organizational structuresto get back to
some of the core, benefitsand, and get away from,
(08:08):
you know, making it look likeit's a World Series game.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it's definitely
there's been this commercialization of youth sports
I think, you know, it's
youth sports is very unorganized in the US.
You know, you brought up Little League.
Little League is actually probablyone of the most
organized organizationswhen it comes to,
you know, sort of like how they're structured,
(08:29):
where their leagues are, how, you know,
everything that they do is, is actually really,
really organized.
And there's a goodinfrastructure there.
But there's a lot of sports thatthey don't have that.
And there's nothing
at the federal levelin this country either.
Like we don't havea ministry of sport
that is dictating all this.
So it becomes very fragmented.
There's a lot of different people
(08:49):
that have controlin different areas.
And I think whathappened is
people started seeing,you know
all this opportunity, like
the lure of a collegescholarship, right?
Or, you know, the moneythat is being dumped into sports
or this opportunityfor exposure and success.
And, you know,if it's not good enough,
(09:10):
if we we're not feel likewe're getting the best competition here,
we can go elsewhere.
We're going to start our own league.
I mean, a lot of itcame down to money, right?
Like that's how it startedmoving and moving faster.
I think at PCA, we don't believe that we're going to go
back to the way things were, you know
Right
Just
That, but what we're trying to dois also make sure that, you know
(09:31):
barriers are broken down
for people that don't haveaccess to to youth sports.
Right?
Even in those super competitive,
you know, different types of competition
and organizations that arecompeting in youth sports,
how do we make sure that PCA
and some of our valuesand our,
you know,tools and resources are
(09:53):
integrated into what is happening?
So, you know,
we work with Little LeagueInternational
and we were justworking with them on,
hey, what are some resources around
mental healthand mental wellness
so that we can providethose tools to the kids
that are competingin these games, or
provide tipsto the parents
on what your role as a parent should be.
You know, as your child
(10:13):
is going through youth sports and
and obviously training coaches is a big part of what we do as well.
So I think it's,
you know, the horseis out of the barn.
We're not going back to the,to the way it was.
So how do we try to make surewhat is happening now.
Like there are a lotmore resources
being put towardsyouth sports.
How do we make sure that they're being used in the right way?
(10:35):
Right.
So many places that we can go.
So let's talkabout the specific
resources that you do provide.
And I thought it wasinteresting
at the eventthat we were at the other day,
one of the board members,I think, talked about,
you know, their introductionto youth sports
when theiroldest usually
it's usually your oldest.
It's kindergarten.
You do your first AYSO volunteer
(10:55):
stint and try to learnwhat offsides is
and put the yellow shirt on.
But you know, he talked about,
coaching positively isn'tnecessarily innate.
It's not necessarily something that you just know how to do
So let's, you know,share with with the audience.
What are some of the resourcesthat you guys have?
How do you approach things like training
both for coaches and parents, and
(11:16):
what are some of the resources
that you guys have developed over the 18
or no, 20 someodd years here?
Yeah, yeah.
So, we really focus on,
how do we createan environment
where the well-being of the student,
the child that's playing sports
is at the center.
And in order for,
you know, the research shows
(11:36):
that in order for a child to feel
like safe in that environment,they need to,
you know, feel like they'rethey're welcome, that they are
they have a connection,
that they're being valued,
that they're being seenand they're being heard.
So we want to give
coaches the toolsto create that environment.
Right.
And so,
a lot of what we talk aboutin our workshops,
(11:57):
you know, is how do you do that?
How do you create thatenvironment?
And that can beeverything from
how do you talk about winning?
How do you talk about competition?
How do you define success?
We want to go from
people thinking about winningwhere it is,
you know, the results on the scoreboard,
comparing yourself to others.
You know,mistakes are a bad thing.
We want to shiftto a more mastery environment
(12:19):
where you're focusingon effort,
you're focusing on learning,
and you're focusing on
how do you bounce back from mistakes and that resilience.
And you know,
you know, learning from adversity,those types of things.
And then we're goingto equip the coaches with
how they can actually do thatin a practice or a game.
The other thingswe talked about
in our workshopcould be around,
you know, what we call‘Filling the Emotional Tank’
And that is reallycommunication
(12:40):
between a coach and a child,
a coach and a parent,the parent of the child.
Because we know that we allhave emotional tanks, right?
You and me right now
Depending on what's happenedin our day today
or how we're feeling,
we could have a full tank.
We could have,you know, an empty tank.
And just like agas tank in a car,
like if your tank is empty,
you're not going to govery far. Right?
So in order to make surethat we are, you know
(13:04):
filling up kidswhen they are at our practices,
at our games, right?
We need to talk abouthow we're giving them feedback
how we're coaching them.
You know,what are tools like
what are nonverbals,
what are the impactthat they have on our kids?
So I think it's it's those types of tools
that we're trying to
give to our coaches so that they can
(13:24):
they feel equippedand empowered
to have those typesof conversations
with kids that you know, and
develop the relationships with the parents and families
so that it is a good environmentwhere kids want to come back.
We also talk about things like ‘Honoring the Game’
which is really closely around sportsmanship,
you know,respecting the rules,
opponents, officials,teammates and yourself.
(13:46):
I mean, that's a
that's something you can teachto kindergartners
and you can teach that toprofessional athletes as well, right.
Those are things that go across,
you know,all levels of the game.
And we do this by partnering with,
you know, grassroots organizations,national organizations.
We have these workshopsthat are both
live, in-person,interactive.
(14:07):
We have them via Zoom, where it's still very interactive,
but it can be virtual.
And then we have self-paced courses as well, where
people can do that asynchronouslyand get certified through PCA.
But we don't just focuson the coaches because,
coaches is one piece of
this ecosystem within youth and high school sports.
We also have training for organizational leaders, parents
(14:29):
student athleteswhere we really focus
on character and leadership development
because weknow that
if you don't haveeverybody aligned,
it's really hardto change the culture.
So we need tomake sure that
everybody has a seatat the table and they can
they can figure outwhat their role is
and how they impactthe overall experience.
And then how do they engage with you?
They engage as a league?
Do they engageand is it a pay thing?
(14:51):
Is it a free thing?
Is it X number of training classes
for the organizationand so many coaches? Kind of.
What is an actual engagementfor a league,
that wants to do a better job here look like?
Yeah, all of the above. Right.
So we partner with
we partner with over a thousand school districts,
youth sports organizations.
(15:12):
That's where a lot of our work is happening.
Through that partnershipwith a league or a school.
Then we'll, they'll bring us in and say,
hey, we're going to haveall of our coaches
at our back to school,you know, coaches meeting
on Tuesday nightin the cafeteria.
We want yourtrainer there
to provide the training forfor those two hours.
We have some, you know,national governing bodies
(15:34):
where we're actually building courses with them
or they're using our online courses to train
you know, their coachesas part of their
mandated certificationprogram.
So we have a great partnership
with the US Soccer Federation,which is the governing body for soccer
Obviously, our U.S. Women's National Team just won a gold medal in Paris
which is awesome.
(15:54):
But the federation,
they are also focused on youth, youth soccer and growing the game.
And they have a ‘Safe Soccer Clearance’program where
PCA and U.S. Soccer Federationbuilt a course together,
around positive soccer environments.
And we have, you know,
hundreds of thousands of youth soccer coaches
are going to be going through that
(16:15):
that online courseover the next few years.
So it's a variety of waysthat people can access
not only our workshops,
it can happen through ourgrassroots partnerships.
It can happen through someof our national partnerships.
Someone could goto our website right now
and take one of our onlinecourses, for a small fee.
And so we are a nonprofit organization, so
in some communities,people are paying,
(16:37):
to receive, our,our partnerships.
That covers a portion of whatit costs us to put those on.
We're raising funds
to go into communitiesthat can't afford it.
We're raising funds
to offset the costof all of our programing.
So it's a combination.
But then we obviously rely
on philanthropic supportfrom individuals,
corporate partners,foundations, things like that.
(16:59):
And you mentioned a couplenumbers, but let's just
let's just get a bunch of numbers out.
So why don't you justtake a minute
and talk about the scalethat you guys have achieved
in, you know,
whether it's annually, or over whatever period of time
or kind of whatyour objectives are,
both in terms of kids,organizations and adults.
Yeah.
So this year,
(17:19):
this year,we'll probably
train around 80,000 coaches nationwide.
[Jeff] 80,000 coaches nationwide [Jason] 80,000 coaches nationwide
Yeah, nationwide.
And most of those are coaching kids, probably between whatever
Five and 18, yeah
[Jason] So[Jeff] That’s great
Exactly.
We partner with about a thousand or so
schools and youth sports organizations,
park and rec organizations,boys and girls clubs
(17:41):
across the country.
We will do around 3,000live workshops this year.
We are in the midstof our busiest time
we're recording this in August.
So you think about schools coming back
fall sports starting, you know,
last week alone
in one day, we had 30 workshops,
(18:02):
one day, 30 live workshopsaround the country.
So the scale is therewe're getting bigger.
What we want to be able to do is
regardless of what type of organization you are,
you could be a,
you know, big travelsoccer club,
or you could be a Boys and Girls Club,you know, in Oakland.
And we can work with you, right?
We can work with youby training your coaches
(18:24):
and working with your with your parents.
We can help yourecruit coaches
and place them within your organization.
Or we can look at thewhole community and say,
Why is my,why are the children here?
Why is their youth sports experience
not the same as,you know,
maybe a more affluent community?
What are the thingsthat we can help
provide that experienceand bring more resources
(18:47):
so that all kids have access to this type of
youth sports experience.
So, we're abouta $14 Million
you know, nonprofit organization a year.
And we're continuing to grow
and we have,
you know, over the next five years,
our goal is to
reach over 7 million young peopleparticipating in sports.
And that's going to meanthat we're going to have to
(19:07):
train, you know, 500,000 coaches.
We're going to have to goto communities and create
more opportunities for kidsto participate in sports,
because in some communitiesthey don't have access.
There isn't a teamfor them to play on.
So how do we workwith local leaders
to make surethat they're creating
those opportunities as well?
Wow. Huge impact.
(19:27):
And what are some of the softer things
that you measure, for success?
[Jason] Yeah, so I mean, pick another [Jeff] or just the numbers
Yeah, we look at there’s a lot of, you know
impact is important obviously forall nonprofit organizations.
And there's two wayswe can look at it.
You know, we can look at it through,
you know, outputs
with a lot of the thingsI just talked about,
like, number of partners,you know, we can talk about,
(19:50):
you know, howmany coaches we're training,
how many workshopswe're doing.
But from anoutcome based,
you know, mindset,there's a lot of things
that we're looking to measure.
One is that,you know,
the data and the evaluationthat we have that, you know,
as a result of PCA programs and initiatives,
youth exhibit teamwork, confidence,resilience, persistence,
(20:11):
all the things you talkedabout earlier.
If you have an organizationthat's going through PCA consistently,
these are the types of things
we're going to seein our youth.
We're going to see coacheshave that ability
to really focus on positive youth development
in their role.
They're not just going to be focused on the wins and losses,
they're actually goingto be able to focus on
some of those life skillsthat we talked about.
(20:33):
But it's going to beat the forefront for them,
and they're going tofeel equipped
to be ableto do that.
Youth sports organizations say that
their cultures are more positive.
They have less,
you know, conflicts betweencoaches and parents,
parents and officials,coaches and officials.
So it's actually makingthe sport more fun, right?
That's what we're all
that's what it should be, right?
And communities alsofeel this,
(20:56):
you know, increasethey see this increased quality
sports programs happeningin their community.
And parentsfeel more connected
to their child's school and their community
when PCAis in the mix
because it's creatingthat better culture.
Yeah, you got the ‘Joy’over your shoulder.
[Jeff] So you know, bring the Joy back[Jason] That’s right, I mean
That's a good reminder.
And it's interesting.
A lot of PCA’s content comes from, you know,
(21:18):
sports psychology research,social educational psychology,
but we also take from
best practices from professional and college coaches.
You know, one of the members
of our national advisory board is
is Steve Kerr, the Warriors coach, [NBA Golden State Warriors]
his coaching philosophy.
He talks about joy,
mindfulness, compassion and competition
(21:41):
and, you know,and he talks about it
like if they'rethey're struggling,
you know, at a stretch. He's saying like,
we just don't have the joyin the game.
Like even at that highest level,
you see coaches are focusing on
how do we make surethat those types of skills,
you know, we'rekeeping them at the forefront
because that's what's actually going to lead
to better performance, right.
You certainly see it in [Steph] Curry's face
(22:02):
when they'rein their flow.
[Jason] That's right, exactly, exactly.[Jeff] There’s no doubt about it.
All right. So I hate to wipethe big smile off your face,
but we got to talk aboutsome of these dark things that a
Because you've got yourfinger close to the pulse
I just want toget your take
And the first thingand I brought it up at our
at our event the other day was, multi-sport athletes.
And and I want to expand itnot only to multi-sport,
(22:22):
but kind of multi activityand unfortunately,
there's a pressure for kidsto specialize early
and to give up other things,
whether that'sother activities
like plays or whatever,and to do the one thing
and we knowthat's not a great thing.
And both Emily and Jamie,
professional soccer players,both said
that they played other sports in high school.
(22:44):
I think Jamie playedbasketball.
I can't remember what
I think Emily was lacrosse
I don’t know if you have any datato back it up or evidence.
But, you know,what do you tell people
in terms of really thinking moreholistically about a sports experience
versus just isolating on one particular
skill or sportand just over focusing?
Because the other thingthat often happens,
you might havea great athlete,
(23:04):
but you burn them outby the time they're 16
because they've been doing nothing but the single sport
for 3 or 4 seasons a year.
What's the best practicesaround that?
Yeah, I think if you were to talk to
any smart coach at the,you know, like
high school, college, professional level,
like all those coacheswould say,
we want players that are playing multiple sports
(23:26):
and they're not specializing at an early age.
They might say, like, okay,when they get to high school,
maybe that's when you startto hone in on one sport
becomes a little more difficult
if like the competitionlevel and, the, you know,
the time and the energy
that you're putting into one sport that might happen,
but at theyoungest level,
it needs to bemultiple sports.
And there's a lot of different reasons.
You talked about the burnout factor, right?
(23:48):
From a mental standpoint,there's going to be burnout.
I think from a physical standpoint,
there's risk of overuseinjuries that are happening.
Like you look at baseballand all the Tommy John,
if you look at the concussionissues in football, right.
Because so many hitsat the young younger age
where it's like
there's different ways
that you can navigate this now
(24:09):
there's a lot more options.
There's things that you can do.
But how do wehow do we educate parents.
Because it's very easy.
My wife and I,we have, you know,
soon to be nine year old twins boy girl twins
that are activein youth sports.
And I can feel it, right.
I've worked at PCAfor 18 years.
This is likemy world.
I can feel the pressure
(24:30):
if they're not playingmultiple sports or
hey, have they tried outfor a travel team yet?
Or, are they getting extra help?
And I'm like, no,because they're eight.
Right, that time is going to come.
If they want to do that,
Great, I'm going to go outin the backyard.
I'm going to spend more time
if they are showing,
hey, I really want to playmore soccer.
Like this is whatI want to do.
(24:51):
Okay, let's talk about that, right.
But I am not goingto try to chase
and keep upwith everybody else.
And I think that's really difficult.
And I don't fault parents for,
you know, it's easy to get caught up and
you want to provide all the opportunities possible for your child, so
but what I would say is,
you know, and only 1% of 1%people are going professional.
(25:12):
But if you look at,
you know,
who's getting draftedin all these different sports
and you look at whatthey've done,
they playedmultiple sports,
not only does it help with,
you know, developingdifferent muscles and,
you know,
the psychological breakand just getting new sports.
One of my favorite storiesfrom, Chris Collins,
the Northwestern men'sbasketball coach
(25:34):
coach who played a Dukecoached under Coach ‘K’
you know, been a part of the USA basketball gold medal winning teams,
he said his dad was you know, [Doug Collins]
coached Michael Jordan at the Bulls.[NBA Chicago Bulls]
So he was a greatbasketball player.
And he said, my parents made metake a break from basketball.
And he said,I played baseball.
He was like, I was always the best basketball player on the team
He said, in baseballI was mediocre.
(25:55):
And he said, you know whatthat taught me?
It taught me what it felt like
to be an okay playeron a team.
So that
and how did I want to betreated by the better players?
So that when I went back to basketball,
I knew what it
He was like I was the best player,but I knew what it meant to be
the number five or number six player on the team and
and how can I be a better teammate
(26:15):
to that, those players,
because I've been thatin that position in basketball.
So just the ability
to interact withdifferent groups of people,
you know, there'sso much that that can
that people can get outof playing multiple sports, so
I'm a proponent ofplaying multiple sports.
I think the issue now
is I think people are not specializing,
but now they're playing two and three sports in one season,
(26:38):
which I think that'swhere we start to run into
just over scheduling.
And, you know,too many sports at once.
And there's some studies
that have come out recently
that talked about like,you know,
not stacking multiplesports in one day or
you know, those types of things where
that's happening a lot.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I'm guilty as charged.
(26:58):
I did all the bad thingsyou could possibly do.
So let's, you talked aboutthe 1% of the 1%.
So let's talk about another,you know, kind of issue
is this chasing of the scholarship
or this chasing of thepotential, professional career.
Ironically,at our high school,
just a couple of yearsolder than my oldest kid,
we had two kidswho made the pros.
Joc Pederson, you know,
played for the Dodgersand the Giants.
(27:19):
I'm not sure where he isnow playing baseball.
And Davante Adams,you know, played
played on our fieldwho’s with the Raiders now.
So you know you can actually see real
real kids that that it happens.
That said you knowthe percentages are so low
and that if you put that asyour primary objective again
you just miss out on all these benefitsin this pursuit of something
(27:42):
which again, if the kid'sgoing to make it.
The coaches will find you.
Right
The scouts will find you, but it's just,
again
kind of, it’s just too much parents,
too much organization too much focusing on the wrong goal
when for the vast, vast,vast, vast majority,
it's reallyabout the experience
of what they're goingthrough, in the moment.
(28:02):
Yeah, and I thinkone thing,
one, another really goodresource that we have,
we call it the 100 point exerciseand we give it to parents
and it's basically,you know, forcing a parent.
It asks the parent,it says
‘What are your goals as a parentfor your child in sports?’ Right.
And it could be youth or high school sports.
(28:23):
And we ask them tofill that out
at the beginningof the season.
And it could.
And they need to divvy up
100 points through thesedifferent things.
It could be earn a college scholarship, have fun.
You know, meet new friends,
physical fitness,winning a championship.
They need to divvy up,like where they put their,
you know,their their 100 points.
And then we ask themtwo things.
(28:45):
We say, all right, look atwhere you put your points,
where you put your emphasis.
And a lot of themwill be like, oh,
I'm all about like thesportsmanship
I'm all about like,I don't care about winning.
And then we say
mimic those pointswhen you're in the stands
and what you're cheering for.
Are you only cheeringfor the results plays? Like
but you said you didn't care about those, right?
So it's like tryingto hold them accountable
(29:07):
to what'simportant to them.
But then we also ask them to take a blank version of that
and give itto their child
and ask their child,
What are your goals in this?
Right.
And see, like,
We've gotten so much feedback, of
[Jason] Wow, this, this opened up[Jeff] Oh my goodness
a conversation with my childthat we've never had before.
And I didn't knowthat they
(29:28):
really wanted to play at the next level.
And again,
if the child is driving that, great.
Let's have that conversation.Let's talk about it.
But if we, the parent, are
pushing them in a direction that they don't want to go,
then we'rewe're only doing harm, so
this tool helps themget on the same page with
what they both want to get out of
the youth sportsexperience and hopefully,
(29:50):
you know, we can't put 100 points in
getting a college scholarshipand going professional
because it's against the odds thatthat's going to happen.
And because we've talkedabout all these great things
that can happenin playing sports,
let's make surethat we're starting
to focus on some of those.
And we're a little bitmore deliberate.
Yeah, I would loveI would love.
Do you guys have a published roll up
(30:11):
from like a league or something that's obviously,
anonymized, but, you know,I can just imagine
joy, meeting new friends.
Yeah,
you know, blah, blah, blah on the kid's side
versus what's onthe parents side.
I bet the disparity,especially across
100 variables,must be giant.
I mean, even if you look at.
Right, and I think we've allbeen guilty of this, right?
(30:31):
I've coached,you know
basketball at the high school, college level.
And then we joke like
we are notanti-competition, right.
We are not everybodygets a trophy.
We want kids to be able to access
this positive youth sports experience.
We want them to thrivein those environments.
We want to create thesehealthy environments.
But you knowwhat's really fun too?
It's winning.
(30:52):
Right?
And I think what makessports this magical place
is the competition factorif it's done the right way.
And so I think all of this comes down to is that
you know,parents often you know,
are coaching little leagueor coaching youth soccer.
And the teamloses a game.
The parent might be stressingover that for,
(31:15):
you know, 2 or 3 days
that they lost, right.
Right.
You know how long the child’s stressing over it?
Like five minutes.
Right.
And on to the next thing, right.
So it's like
We need to as parents need to recalibrate
our expectations
like what
what we're lookingto get out of this and why
we're putting in the timeas a coach
and how we can developthese players.
(31:36):
And, so I think it's again,it's matching up
those expectations of all the different roles
within the youthsports experience.
Yeah. Well, I love thatone advice you gave earlier.
Just knowing that
as soon as somebodymakes a mistake,
they're going to belooking at you.
And what is the face thatyour going to reflect back to them?
Right.
Yeah, what are you doingas a parent. Right.
And you know, if
if your child makes a mistake
(31:57):
and you go like this
and they look at you,
you think that's going tohelp them or hurt them, right?
You know, so
you got to beit's got to be
‘Hey, that's okay.We're on to the next play.’
Right. Those types of things.
Right.
So anothertopic which is,
a tough one and it's kind of a,
an extension of the onewe just talked about
is kind of club versus,
Yeah.
(32:18):
You know, whatever your local.
And I want to distinguishbetween, like,
AYSO and,
you know, some of the,just the little organizations
that are just the organizations versus the highly competitive
travel teams, maybe that's abetter way to talk about them.
And invariably,you get this conflict
because of level ofcompetition, timing of seasons
or whatever.
And oftenI've seen, you know,
(32:40):
you take kids in high school situations
specifically out of the opportunity
to play for their high school,to wear the colors
of their high school,
to you know, participate at a high school level
regardless of the competition.
You know, the kids are inhigh school for four years.
And it just seems like,again, just a miss,
a miss-prioritization of,you know, what's important?
(33:02):
What are they goingto remember?
Where are the long term benefits?
You know,always giving aside
there might be, you know,the small small percentage
where, you know,they just
they just want to be a proand they're 100% committed.
But more often than not
it’s coming from the parents and the,
the side-junct to that is
You talked about itthe additional coaching.
Yeah.
And again guilty as charged.
You know, hiringprivate coaches
(33:23):
to work on skills
or you got one on oneswith kids and a coach
with a ten year old working ontheir ball dribbling skills.
It's like, really?
Or should theyjust be out,
you know, hanging out,being a kid?
So what do you thinkabout, travel,
some of these kind of highcompetition travel teams and,
and that conflict with high school.
It's really difficult.I mean,
(33:43):
high school sports is
is such a great institution,such a great experience.
So I hate when I see
when kids
can’t playhigh school sports
because of a clubcommitment or whatever.
So, I think those arethose are some of the extreme.
But it happensmore in some sports.
And it's just a shame.
Like it'sjust a,
(34:05):
it's a part of theit's the overall experience.
I think in the momentyou're like,
well where's thebetter competition?
What's going to make me better?
And again, we go back to like,well, what was the overall
reason and goalfor participating in this?
Right.
It's more about those experiences,
those relationships,those things
you're going to look back on
and you know,
you're not going to be ableto go back and do that
(34:26):
and you're goingto miss out on it.
So I think those are tough
when you think about the lower level, of kids,
when you start to get intothat, you know, and that’s
the thing that’s starting earlier and earlier, right.
Right, right.
Six, seven, eight years old.
Like you could be playing for a club
and it's, and you’re playing,you know, more times a week.
And I think that
again, it becomes this likekeeping up with the Joneses.
(34:49):
Like how do we make sure that
my child doesn'tget left behind.
And if they'renot playing
travel at a certain age,is that going to impact
their high schoolcareer?
Right.
And I’d say probably not,you know, like there's
there's a lot of early,you know, early bloomers and
and late bloomersand like
we don't know
you know, a lot of kids drop out of sports by 13
because you know, either opportunities are lost
(35:12):
and there's not enough, you know,
and not enough rec programsfor kids to continue on
that aren't playingat a competitive level.
Kids are getting burned out.
They start to specializeon a certain sport.
So I think, again,it comes back to
I don't havea problem with,
you know, if your child's going to play for a club team and is
and the child really wants to spend more time,
(35:33):
that's totally fine.
I think it's really importantfor clubs to be really clear
with the expectations of
and what familiesand children and coaches
are going to get out of being a part of that club,
because I thinkoftentimes
people might sign up,they spend a ton of money.
It becomesyear round,
(35:55):
and then maybe their child isn't playing as much as they thought
they should be.
And then that's wheresome conflict happens.
Or, you know,people feel like,
you know, like, ‘Hold on I was sold a’
you know, a bag of goodsthat wasn't true.
Like, how do weget past that?
So I think being upfront,being really clear with
what you're looking to get out of it,
what is this organization providing.
(36:17):
And I think it's totally fine.
kids are going to develop at different ages.
Like there are some eight year olds that
yeah, they probably could bedoing more. Right.
And there's some eight year olds that
probably aren't going toit's not going to click for them
for a couple of years,and that's okay.
And they might be levelby the time they get to 13.
Right. So we don't know.
(36:37):
But I think it's just keepinga realistic outlook as a parent
and not getting caught up
and really thinking aboutwhat is best for your child.
And how can we make sure thatthe child wants to do that, right.
Like if you see that your child
is going outsideevery day on their own
and kicking that soccer balland working on their footwork
and dribbling and all that,that's awesome. Right?
(36:59):
And then maybe it's like, hey, hey, I want more help.
Like, can I go and work more?
Like, that's great.
That's the idealsituation versus,
I’m the parent saying,
I think you need to do this.
Now we're dragging youto this extra help or,
multiple practices a weekor whatever it might be.
[Jason] So [Jeff] Yeah
And there's and unfortunately, there's a
(37:19):
there's a nastyunderbelly of people
[Jeff] that take advantage of, of parent's[Jason] Right
[Jeff] dreams and are selling,[Jason] Totally
a can of goods.
And it's like, you know,the kids just want to play
they don’t want to be onthe most competitive team
and ride pine,
and fly all over the countryto ride pine is.
I mean, you hear just horror stories.
Totally and itbecomes
And I thinkthe one of the things
that's really unfortunateis become
(37:40):
it be, it's become a status thing.
Right?
Of you know, almost like
my self worth as a parent
is driven by how goodmy child is at youth sports.
And I don't know,like when we got there.
But it's unfortunate
because you start to see that a lot where
it's like, ‘Oh, your child isn't playing travel soccer yet?’
Or, ‘Oh, they're just playing rec.?’
or, you know, whateverit might be. And it
(38:02):
again, everybody has different needshas different wants.
You know,it's like
they want to be in a playif they want to play an instrument
if they want to do stuff
like there's so many optionsfor kids right now,
it's totally fineif they don't play.
And you know,
we have friends whereit's like, oh, you know what?
You know, she's not going to play
soccer this year and she's nine.
And it's like,great, guess what?
(38:22):
She can always come backin two years and play
like she's not.
The kids aren't retiring
when they takea season off, right?
They can alwayscome back.
And I think parentsneed to keep that in mind,
that just because my childwants to take a break
doesn't necessarily mean that
they're not going to come backbecause they may.
[Jeff] Right[Jason] So
But they're all stuck on this perception of this
[Jeff] of this linear progression[Jason] Right
(38:43):
[Jeff] of activities[Jason] Exactly
to get to that college scholarship,
which is kind of silly.
Yeah
All right, so now I’ll ask you another topic,
which is alittle controversial,
but also I think we can havea little fun with it.
And that's trophies,
participation trophies
and just a coupleof backgrounds.
You know, on one hand,
there's a school of thoughtthat says, you know,
they're not good,they're not really rewarding,
winning behavior.
(39:04):
And then there's a wholenother school of thought.
Well, you know, for a lot of kids,
that might be the only trophythat they ever get.
And then there's an element toof potentially,
you know, being part of the team
that, you know, it's more of a team trophythan an individual trophy.
And then just, just to kind of close on the concept
because I think it's lessabout the trophy than what
it actually physically is.
As you know, back in the day,
(39:24):
they used to give the winnerof the Boston Marathon
a laurel wreath, right on his head or her head,
that's all you got.
And there's a whole kindof psychology around,
you know, if the,
extrinsic value of the reward is high,
this is where, like
you know, Super Bowl ring,
it actually diminishes
the intrinsic motivationin terms of
(39:46):
accomplishing a goal,
getting throughthe journey,
accomplishing the challenge.
So, trophies are a kind of tricky part.
And, you know,full disclosure,
I had no trophies as a kidand my cousins had a thousand.
I thought it was the coolestthing since sliced bread.
So, you know, it's not a it's not an easy topic.
Give us kind of your guys thoughts on trophies and awards.
I think there's a timeand place for all of them.
(40:07):
Right?
I think I'd like the youngest ages
when kids are first playinglike, that's awesome.
Like they love it.They get so excited, right?
They say, oh,look how many trophies I have.
Because it at that point,
the point ofthem playing
is to learnthe sport
and participateand get out on the field.
And those are
that is why they're getting rewarded for that.
So I think it all comes down to,
(40:29):
again, I keep on saying this wordlike the expectation and what
why are we giving them a trophy?
Like if the trophy is notfor the championship team?
It's like, right,
because they're six years oldand there is no champion.
They're all doinggreat things out there
and we want them to come back
like that should be the goalof all youth sports coaches,
how are kids coming back.
(40:50):
If a trophy helpsthat great.
I mean, I don't think
we need to be doing thatfor their entire life.
But to your whole thing around,
you know,the value of what it is.
You know, my daughter is playing flag football right now,
and the coach after every gameand every practice,
they have this big chainwith a dog on it.
You know the mascot
Right
It's like the dog of the daywho showed the best effort,
(41:13):
who was listening,who was a good teammate
and who workedthe hardest. Right.
And at the end of the day,
like the kids are competing for that.
That is.
And it's like a$10 necklace, right,
that they wearto the next practice.
And then somebodyelse gets it,
like those types of thingsto drive some of the behavior
that you're looking for.
And it becomes this fun thingthat everybody's vying for.
(41:33):
Those arethings that
I think work
and that are,
you know, really special for,
the kids that are participating.
I thinkjust getting a,
you know, as kids get older,
I think, you know, wants and needs changes.
And so, so I don't know.
So I think, you know, again,
Why are we giving outthe trophy?
What's theneed for it?
And I think that some aspects
(41:53):
and some organizations at certain ages,
I think it's a great idea.
And then at others,
I think there's other thingsyou can do to drive
some of the behaviorthat you're looking to see.
I love that framing
because you are tryingto drive participation
and you are rewardingparticipation,
not winningwhen they're 8 years old.
I think that's a reallythat's really great framing.
So we're gettingtowards the end of the time,
(42:14):
kind of the last kind of contrast
I want to get your take on is,
is kind of professionalcoaches versus parent coaches.
Yeah.
They both have pros and cons.
And the reality isfor most organizations,
the vast majority
of people in the organizationsare parent volunteers,
because that'swhen you're engaged
and you're participatingand you know,
all the money has to go for fieldsand uniforms and refs, etc..
(42:36):
So I wonder if you couldshare some
some thoughts around
the good news and bad news of,of professional coaches
and kind of the good news and bad news of parent coaches
and how, you know
maybe organizationsshould think about that.
I mean, I think the most important thing is that
you have a couple of things.
One, you're equipping coaches
with the tools that they needto be a good coach
(42:58):
Two, that you are givingthe coach a job description
of what is expected of them.
I don't think we do enough ofthat in youth sports
[Jason] it is[Jeff] Great tip
Hey, we need you to coachlike your a warm body.
Here's, here are the ballshere the uniforms
Go ahead!
and it's like,ummm
Okay, like I've never played this sport.
I watched it on TV. Great.
(43:19):
I'm just going to dowhat I see on TV.
Like, we don't want that.
So how are we
equipping and training coacheswhether they're paid or not paid?
Right. Just becausesomebody is a paid coach
doesn't mean they're a good coach, right?
So I think regardless ofwho is coaching,
how your organization,
it is training them, it's evaluating them,
(43:39):
and it's showing them the expectationsand holding them accountability
accountable to those expectations.
And I think those arethe things that,
you know, we need to focus on.
And I totally get it.Youth sports,
you know, to run a youthsports league, it's expensive.
There's a lot of differentthings you need to do, but
we kick off a lot of ourworkshops talking about like,
(44:01):
who was the most impactful coach or mentor
that you've had in your life.
And people remember that immediately.
And they say, it was my coach from 30 years ago
it was my coachfrom 40 years ago.
And then we say ‘why’and they start talking about it.
It's like,
because the lessonsthat they taught us
like the supportthat they gave us,
it’s never because we won this many games
(44:22):
because we had the best uniforms.
So it's really the experiencethat people remember
and oftentimeswe want to make sure
that that becomeswhat we also invest in
as an organization, as a school.
So how are we
where are the ways that
we can invest in our coaches, our experience
to make sure that that's what
(44:42):
kids are remembering down the road.
And it's not just about the wins and the losses.
That's great.
That's a great, a great close.
I think we'll leave it at that.
So how can peopleget involved?
How can peoplefind out more?
Give us a little bit of the,
of the detail how people cancontribute and get involved.
Yeah, we'd love to,have you check us out at
Positive Coach dot org[https://positivecoach.org/]
(45:02):
You know, you can check outour resources.
We have a whole resourcezone on our website.
You can learn about some of the different
workshopsand trainings.
If you're a parent, there's plenty of content resources for you
If you’re involved with a schoolor youth sports organization,
you can check out waysthat we can partner.
And obviously, as a nonprofit organization,
we always love people that donate
(45:23):
to support what we're doing across the country.
So Positive Coach dot org[https://positivecoach.org/]
Great. Well, thank you,Jason, for the time today.
Really, appreciate getting toknow you a little bit better.
And I can't be moresupportive of the cause.
I think it's such an important
part of our culture,youth sports and,
you know, the little trainingand some tools and guidance.
You know, anyone can be much,much better at the task.
(45:44):
You just need training.Like anything else.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks so much for having me, Jeff.
All right.
He's Jason,I'm Jeff,
you're watching‘Turn the Lens’ with Jeff Frick.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listeningon the podcast.
We'll see you next time. Take care.
Awesome.
That was great.
Thank you.
Yeah. No, that was great.
Appreciate the opportunityit was fun
Oh for sure. My pleasure.
And you're good on time.
Yeah, yeah.
So I will count us downand we will go.
In three, two, one.
Hey welcomeback everybody.
Jeff Frick here coming to youfrom the home studio
for another episode of‘Turn the Lens’
And I'm pretty excitedabout this.
You know, before I was,quite the heavy broadcaster,
I spent a whole lot of time
(00:22):
in youth sports with my threekids who were very active
in a lot of differentactivities sports, dance.
The whole gamut.
And, you know, the parentsplay a big role in that.
And there's a lot of volunteer organizations.
And, and one of the big national organizations
has been trying to
really change the culture of youth sports
and really bring backmore of the positive.
Is the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA)[https://positivecoach.org/]
(00:43):
I was fortunateto take their training.
I looked it up, was back in like 2000,
I think a couple of yearsafter it was started.
But we've got the current president
joining us from Chicago today.
So, let's welcome inJason Sacks.
Like I said, he's the President of Positive Coaching Alliance
and has been there for 18 years, which is amazing.
Jason, great to see you.
Thanks so much for having me, Jeff
(01:05):
Absolutely.
So we had a chanceto get together.
You had an event out herein the Bay area?
Which was pretty cool.
Had a couple, of the local professional soccer players there,
Emily Menges and Jamie Shepherd.[https://bayfc.com/all-players/]
And you talked about kind of some of the latest things
going on at PositiveCoaching Alliance.
Why don't you give peoplewho aren't familiar
with your organization
kind of the 101and what you guys are up to?
(01:27):
Yeah. No.Thank you for the opportunity.
So, Positive Coaching Alliance,
we're a national nonprofit organization.
We were founded outof Stanford in the Bay area.
The overall mission is to change the culture of youth sports so that
every child, regardless of socialor economic circumstance,
has access to a positiveyouth sports experience.
(01:47):
We really want to make sure that
kids and youth sports in our country
are positive, they're accessible,they're equitable,
for regardless of what community you're living.
I think most people don't understand.
They know how big youth sports is,
but they don'treally recognize that
35 million kids are playingyouth sports each year.
(02:07):
It's a $30 billionindustry, right?
You know, if you
if you drive around on theweekends or the weeknights
throughoutdifferent communities,
that's where people are, rightthere at the sports fields, they’re
They’re practicing there are games.
But we want to make surethat it's still seen as
a youth development platform
and not just somethingthat's all about
(02:28):
competition, wins and losses,trying to get that college scholarship,
because we know that
with all those kidsthat are playing youth sports,
if we don't focus on
all the other life skillsthat can come out of it,
and we're only focusingon the wins and losses, then
it's a really big lost opportunity.
Because outside of schools,
youth sports is the largest placewhere kids gather,
(02:48):
so it's an unbelievableopportunity
to equip them with thingsthat are going to
stay with them long aftertheir playing days are over.
So much.That's a great summary.
We're going to break downa lot of those,
different areas and dig in.
So let's let's startwith the positive.
And you talked about it.
I didn't know it’sthe largest thing
that the kids do outsideof school, 35 million kids.
(03:09):
That U.S.I assume.
Yeah. Yep.
So, you know, it's aboutcharacter building, right?
And it's about experience.
And you've got a great videoon your website,
I think with Steve Youngtalking about it
I'm just going to readsome of them because he,
he hits them really well,you know,
teamwork, overcoming challenges,working towards a bigger goal
resilience, risk taking
experiencing success, failure,self-confidence,
(03:32):
mental toughness, self-control,respect for others,
being part of somethingthat’s bigger than just you.
I mean, those are a lot ofextremely valuable character, traits.
And the one that really jumps outto me the most is resilience
in this challenging world.
And we see a lot of peoplestruggle with resilience.
And from a parenting,
I call it theparenting paradox.
(03:53):
Like you'retrying to teach your to
your kid to ride a bicycle,you know, when do you let go?
When do youlet go to seat?
And do you let them fall overand scratch their knees?
And sometimes falling overand scratching their knees
is the only way to learn to ride
And sports gives us
multiple opportunitiesover many, many,
activities and days and weeksand years to
to get little versions andtastes to start to do this.
(04:16):
So I wonder if you can,you know, share
this is a really importantpiece that I think, you know,
does it get forgemen?Does it not get forgotten?
Does it need more highlight?
Talk about thecharacter building
attributes of youth sports.
Yeah, it's a great point.
I mean, we like to say that
sports can be a really safe place to fail.
Right? It can be,you know, like,
and oftentimespeople will talk about,
(04:39):
you'll hearthe quote
‘Sports Develops Character’
Right.
That's what's, that's what makes it so, so great.
I agree with that.
But there's a couple words that are missing
‘Sports Done RightDevelops Character’
Sports left to its own device
is actuallyand can actually be
a breeding groundfor a lot of negativity.
A lot of, you know, types of abuse
(05:00):
physical, mental, psychological.
So we need to be deliberate that
if we want to get
everything out of the youth and high school sports experience
that you just talked about,
all those life skills,
they're not going to happenon their own.
So we need allthe stakeholders
that are involved in the youth sports experience.
And that's organizational leaders,
(05:20):
that's coaches, that's parents, that's the athletes themselves.
Everybody needs to be aligned
that this is really that
that youth sports andhigh school sports can be
this development zone
like opportunity
to teach theselife skills.
So what we really try to do in our work is
when we partner with schoolsand youth sports organizations
(05:40):
at the grassroots level and
national governing bodies, professional sports leagues,
we are trying to equip them
with tangible tools and resources
so that if you're
you're a dad, you're a mom,you're a volunteer coach,
and you are out there.
How are you making sure that
you are taking advantageof this opportunity
to teach thoselife skills?
(06:01):
And you're not just,you know, teaching the sport,
focusing on the winning,but you're actually, you know.
How do how does a child
bounce backfrom a mistake, right.
One of our most popular toolscoming out of our workshop
is a mistake ritual.
Right.
Like, how do weteach those kids that
if something goes wrong,
you know, they're often.
(06:21):
Kids will, they make a mistakethey look three places.
They look down at the groundbecause they're,
you know, down on themselves.
They lookto their coach
to see what the reaction is going to be
And then they look inthe stands of their parents.
Right.
Can everybody be aligned with,
‘Hey, that's okay, move on to the next play,’ right.
And how do we move on, like
you'll hear pro athletes, pro coaches,
(06:42):
coaches talk about
What's the most importantplay in a game?
It's the next play right.
So how do we react.
How do we be able to bounce back?
How do we flush that mistakeout of our system and move on?
Those are little tangiblethings that we try to,
you know, teach and give thosetools to coaches and parents
so that they can start utilizing them
in their everyday life.
(07:03):
And I think what a lot ofpeople recognize is that,
hey, outside of sports,this actually works
in a lot of differentaspects of life as well.
Right.
When did it go wrong?
I mean, this is kind of thisdouble edged sword,
like everything in life with,
with kind of the
over organization and maybejust too many damn adults,
parents and notthey get involved.
And, you know,you kind of compare
like your classic sandlot
(07:25):
baseball game with the kids,grab a mitt, making up rules.
You know, there'sno umps to decide
what's rightor wrong
versus suddenly you've got these beautiful little league fields.
Little League World Seriesis coming up.
It's on ESPN.
Yeah, I don't know if that'sa good thing or a bad thing.
You know, the pressure
of being on a national audience
and making it look likethe major leagues,
when in fact these are
(07:45):
not major league kids.
These are kids.
And there's some great booksabout, you know, the whole,
Little League World Series experience
out there that you can read.
But, you know, the
I guess thegood news is, though,
now you're trying to usethat organizational structure
to actually come backand provide
those benefits back through those
organizational structuresto get back to
some of the core, benefitsand, and get away from,
(08:08):
you know, making it look likeit's a World Series game.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it's definitely
there's been this commercialization of youth sports
I think, you know, it's
youth sports is very unorganized in the US.
You know, you brought up Little League.
Little League is actually probablyone of the most
organized organizationswhen it comes to,
you know, sort of like how they're structured,
(08:29):
where their leagues are, how, you know,
everything that they do is, is actually really,
really organized.
And there's a goodinfrastructure there.
But there's a lot of sports thatthey don't have that.
And there's nothing
at the federal levelin this country either.
Like we don't havea ministry of sport
that is dictating all this.
So it becomes very fragmented.
There's a lot of different people
(08:49):
that have controlin different areas.
And I think whathappened is
people started seeing,you know
all this opportunity, like
the lure of a collegescholarship, right?
Or, you know, the moneythat is being dumped into sports
or this opportunityfor exposure and success.
And, you know,if it's not good enough,
(09:10):
if we we're not feel likewe're getting the best competition here,
we can go elsewhere.
We're going to start our own league.
I mean, a lot of itcame down to money, right?
Like that's how it startedmoving and moving faster.
I think at PCA, we don't believe that we're going to go
back to the way things were, you know
Right
Just
That, but what we're trying to dois also make sure that, you know
(09:31):
barriers are broken down
for people that don't haveaccess to to youth sports.
Right?
Even in those super competitive,
you know, different types of competition
and organizations that arecompeting in youth sports,
how do we make sure that PCA
and some of our valuesand our,
you know,tools and resources are
(09:53):
integrated into what is happening?
So, you know,
we work with Little LeagueInternational
and we were justworking with them on,
hey, what are some resources around
mental healthand mental wellness
so that we can providethose tools to the kids
that are competingin these games, or
provide tipsto the parents
on what your role as a parent should be.
You know, as your child
(10:13):
is going through youth sports and
and obviously training coaches is a big part of what we do as well.
So I think it's,
you know, the horseis out of the barn.
We're not going back to the,to the way it was.
So how do we try to make surewhat is happening now.
Like there are a lotmore resources
being put towardsyouth sports.
How do we make sure that they're being used in the right way?
(10:35):
Right.
So many places that we can go.
So let's talkabout the specific
resources that you do provide.
And I thought it wasinteresting
at the eventthat we were at the other day,
one of the board members,I think, talked about,
you know, their introductionto youth sports
when theiroldest usually
it's usually your oldest.
It's kindergarten.
You do your first AYSO volunteer
(10:55):
stint and try to learnwhat offsides is
and put the yellow shirt on.
But you know, he talked about,
coaching positively isn'tnecessarily innate.
It's not necessarily something that you just know how to do
So let's, you know,share with with the audience.
What are some of the resourcesthat you guys have?
How do you approach things like training
both for coaches and parents, and
(11:16):
what are some of the resources
that you guys have developed over the 18
or no, 20 someodd years here?
Yeah, yeah.
So, we really focus on,
how do we createan environment
where the well-being of the student,
the child that's playing sports
is at the center.
And in order for,
you know, the research shows
(11:36):
that in order for a child to feel
like safe in that environment,they need to,
you know, feel like they'rethey're welcome, that they are
they have a connection,
that they're being valued,
that they're being seenand they're being heard.
So we want to give
coaches the toolsto create that environment.
Right.
And so,
a lot of what we talk aboutin our workshops,
(11:57):
you know, is how do you do that?
How do you create thatenvironment?
And that can beeverything from
how do you talk about winning?
How do you talk about competition?
How do you define success?
We want to go from
people thinking about winningwhere it is,
you know, the results on the scoreboard,
comparing yourself to others.
You know,mistakes are a bad thing.
We want to shiftto a more mastery environment
(12:19):
where you're focusingon effort,
you're focusing on learning,
and you're focusing on
how do you bounce back from mistakes and that resilience.
And you know,
you know, learning from adversity,those types of things.
And then we're goingto equip the coaches with
how they can actually do thatin a practice or a game.
The other thingswe talked about
in our workshopcould be around,
you know, what we call‘Filling the Emotional Tank’
And that is reallycommunication
(12:40):
between a coach and a child,
a coach and a parent,the parent of the child.
Because we know that we allhave emotional tanks, right?
You and me right now
Depending on what's happenedin our day today
or how we're feeling,
we could have a full tank.
We could have,you know, an empty tank.
And just like agas tank in a car,
like if your tank is empty,
you're not going to govery far. Right?
So in order to make surethat we are, you know
(13:04):
filling up kidswhen they are at our practices,
at our games, right?
We need to talk abouthow we're giving them feedback
how we're coaching them.
You know,what are tools like
what are nonverbals,
what are the impactthat they have on our kids?
So I think it's it's those types of tools
that we're trying to
give to our coaches so that they can
(13:24):
they feel equippedand empowered
to have those typesof conversations
with kids that you know, and
develop the relationships with the parents and families
so that it is a good environmentwhere kids want to come back.
We also talk about things like ‘Honoring the Game’
which is really closely around sportsmanship,
you know,respecting the rules,
opponents, officials,teammates and yourself.
(13:46):
I mean, that's a
that's something you can teachto kindergartners
and you can teach that toprofessional athletes as well, right.
Those are things that go across,
you know,all levels of the game.
And we do this by partnering with,
you know, grassroots organizations,national organizations.
We have these workshopsthat are both
live, in-person,interactive.
(14:07):
We have them via Zoom, where it's still very interactive,
but it can be virtual.
And then we have self-paced courses as well, where
people can do that asynchronouslyand get certified through PCA.
But we don't just focuson the coaches because,
coaches is one piece of
this ecosystem within youth and high school sports.
We also have training for organizational leaders, parents
(14:29):
student athleteswhere we really focus
on character and leadership development
because weknow that
if you don't haveeverybody aligned,
it's really hardto change the culture.
So we need tomake sure that
everybody has a seatat the table and they can
they can figure outwhat their role is
and how they impactthe overall experience.
And then how do they engage with you?
They engage as a league?
Do they engageand is it a pay thing?
(14:51):
Is it a free thing?
Is it X number of training classes
for the organizationand so many coaches? Kind of.
What is an actual engagementfor a league,
that wants to do a better job here look like?
Yeah, all of the above. Right.
So we partner with
we partner with over a thousand school districts,
youth sports organizations.
(15:12):
That's where a lot of our work is happening.
Through that partnershipwith a league or a school.
Then we'll, they'll bring us in and say,
hey, we're going to haveall of our coaches
at our back to school,you know, coaches meeting
on Tuesday nightin the cafeteria.
We want yourtrainer there
to provide the training forfor those two hours.
We have some, you know,national governing bodies
(15:34):
where we're actually building courses with them
or they're using our online courses to train
you know, their coachesas part of their
mandated certificationprogram.
So we have a great partnership
with the US Soccer Federation,which is the governing body for soccer
Obviously, our U.S. Women's National Team just won a gold medal in Paris
which is awesome.
(15:54):
But the federation,
they are also focused on youth, youth soccer and growing the game.
And they have a ‘Safe Soccer Clearance’program where
PCA and U.S. Soccer Federationbuilt a course together,
around positive soccer environments.
And we have, you know,
hundreds of thousands of youth soccer coaches
are going to be going through that
(16:15):
that online courseover the next few years.
So it's a variety of waysthat people can access
not only our workshops,
it can happen through ourgrassroots partnerships.
It can happen through someof our national partnerships.
Someone could goto our website right now
and take one of our onlinecourses, for a small fee.
And so we are a nonprofit organization, so
in some communities,people are paying,
(16:37):
to receive, our,our partnerships.
That covers a portion of whatit costs us to put those on.
We're raising funds
to go into communitiesthat can't afford it.
We're raising funds
to offset the costof all of our programing.
So it's a combination.
But then we obviously rely
on philanthropic supportfrom individuals,
corporate partners,foundations, things like that.
(16:59):
And you mentioned a couplenumbers, but let's just
let's just get a bunch of numbers out.
So why don't you justtake a minute
and talk about the scalethat you guys have achieved
in, you know,
whether it's annually, or over whatever period of time
or kind of whatyour objectives are,
both in terms of kids,organizations and adults.
Yeah.
So this year,
(17:19):
this year,we'll probably
train around 80,000 coaches nationwide.
[Jeff] 80,000 coaches nationwide [Jason] 80,000 coaches nationwide
Yeah, nationwide.
And most of those are coaching kids, probably between whatever
Five and 18, yeah
[Jason] So[Jeff] That’s great
Exactly.
We partner with about a thousand or so
schools and youth sports organizations,
park and rec organizations,boys and girls clubs
(17:41):
across the country.
We will do around 3,000live workshops this year.
We are in the midstof our busiest time
we're recording this in August.
So you think about schools coming back
fall sports starting, you know,
last week alone
in one day, we had 30 workshops,
(18:02):
one day, 30 live workshopsaround the country.
So the scale is therewe're getting bigger.
What we want to be able to do is
regardless of what type of organization you are,
you could be a,
you know, big travelsoccer club,
or you could be a Boys and Girls Club,you know, in Oakland.
And we can work with you, right?
We can work with youby training your coaches
(18:24):
and working with your with your parents.
We can help yourecruit coaches
and place them within your organization.
Or we can look at thewhole community and say,
Why is my,why are the children here?
Why is their youth sports experience
not the same as,you know,
maybe a more affluent community?
What are the thingsthat we can help
provide that experienceand bring more resources
(18:47):
so that all kids have access to this type of
youth sports experience.
So, we're abouta $14 Million
you know, nonprofit organization a year.
And we're continuing to grow
and we have,
you know, over the next five years,
our goal is to
reach over 7 million young peopleparticipating in sports.
And that's going to meanthat we're going to have to
(19:07):
train, you know, 500,000 coaches.
We're going to have to goto communities and create
more opportunities for kidsto participate in sports,
because in some communitiesthey don't have access.
There isn't a teamfor them to play on.
So how do we workwith local leaders
to make surethat they're creating
those opportunities as well?
Wow. Huge impact.
(19:27):
And what are some of the softer things
that you measure, for success?
[Jason] Yeah, so I mean, pick another [Jeff] or just the numbers
Yeah, we look at there’s a lot of, you know
impact is important obviously forall nonprofit organizations.
And there's two wayswe can look at it.
You know, we can look at it through,
you know, outputs
with a lot of the thingsI just talked about,
like, number of partners,you know, we can talk about,
(19:50):
you know, howmany coaches we're training,
how many workshopswe're doing.
But from anoutcome based,
you know, mindset,there's a lot of things
that we're looking to measure.
One is that,you know,
the data and the evaluationthat we have that, you know,
as a result of PCA programs and initiatives,
youth exhibit teamwork, confidence,resilience, persistence,
(20:11):
all the things you talkedabout earlier.
If you have an organizationthat's going through PCA consistently,
these are the types of things
we're going to seein our youth.
We're going to see coacheshave that ability
to really focus on positive youth development
in their role.
They're not just going to be focused on the wins and losses,
they're actually goingto be able to focus on
some of those life skillsthat we talked about.
(20:33):
But it's going to beat the forefront for them,
and they're going tofeel equipped
to be ableto do that.
Youth sports organizations say that
their cultures are more positive.
They have less,
you know, conflicts betweencoaches and parents,
parents and officials,coaches and officials.
So it's actually makingthe sport more fun, right?
That's what we're all
that's what it should be, right?
And communities alsofeel this,
(20:56):
you know, increasethey see this increased quality
sports programs happeningin their community.
And parentsfeel more connected
to their child's school and their community
when PCAis in the mix
because it's creatingthat better culture.
Yeah, you got the ‘Joy’over your shoulder.
[Jeff] So you know, bring the Joy back[Jason] That’s right, I mean
That's a good reminder.
And it's interesting.
A lot of PCA’s content comes from, you know,
(21:18):
sports psychology research,social educational psychology,
but we also take from
best practices from professional and college coaches.
You know, one of the members
of our national advisory board is
is Steve Kerr, the Warriors coach, [NBA Golden State Warriors]
his coaching philosophy.
He talks about joy,
mindfulness, compassion and competition
(21:41):
and, you know,and he talks about it
like if they'rethey're struggling,
you know, at a stretch. He's saying like,
we just don't have the joyin the game.
Like even at that highest level,
you see coaches are focusing on
how do we make surethat those types of skills,
you know, we'rekeeping them at the forefront
because that's what's actually going to lead
to better performance, right.
You certainly see it in [Steph] Curry's face
(22:02):
when they'rein their flow.
[Jason] That's right, exactly, exactly.[Jeff] There’s no doubt about it.
All right. So I hate to wipethe big smile off your face,
but we got to talk aboutsome of these dark things that a
Because you've got yourfinger close to the pulse
I just want toget your take
And the first thingand I brought it up at our
at our event the other day was, multi-sport athletes.
And and I want to expand itnot only to multi-sport,
(22:22):
but kind of multi activityand unfortunately,
there's a pressure for kidsto specialize early
and to give up other things,
whether that'sother activities
like plays or whatever,and to do the one thing
and we knowthat's not a great thing.
And both Emily and Jamie,
professional soccer players,both said
that they played other sports in high school.
(22:44):
I think Jamie playedbasketball.
I can't remember what
I think Emily was lacrosse
I don’t know if you have any datato back it up or evidence.
But, you know,what do you tell people
in terms of really thinking moreholistically about a sports experience
versus just isolating on one particular
skill or sportand just over focusing?
Because the other thingthat often happens,
you might havea great athlete,
(23:04):
but you burn them outby the time they're 16
because they've been doing nothing but the single sport
for 3 or 4 seasons a year.
What's the best practicesaround that?
Yeah, I think if you were to talk to
any smart coach at the,you know, like
high school, college, professional level,
like all those coacheswould say,
we want players that are playing multiple sports
(23:26):
and they're not specializing at an early age.
They might say, like, okay,when they get to high school,
maybe that's when you startto hone in on one sport
becomes a little more difficult
if like the competitionlevel and, the, you know,
the time and the energy
that you're putting into one sport that might happen,
but at theyoungest level,
it needs to bemultiple sports.
And there's a lot of different reasons.
You talked about the burnout factor, right?
(23:48):
From a mental standpoint,there's going to be burnout.
I think from a physical standpoint,
there's risk of overuseinjuries that are happening.
Like you look at baseballand all the Tommy John,
if you look at the concussionissues in football, right.
Because so many hitsat the young younger age
where it's like
there's different ways
that you can navigate this now
(24:09):
there's a lot more options.
There's things that you can do.
But how do wehow do we educate parents.
Because it's very easy.
My wife and I,we have, you know,
soon to be nine year old twins boy girl twins
that are activein youth sports.
And I can feel it, right.
I've worked at PCAfor 18 years.
This is likemy world.
I can feel the pressure
(24:30):
if they're not playingmultiple sports or
hey, have they tried outfor a travel team yet?
Or, are they getting extra help?
And I'm like, no,because they're eight.
Right, that time is going to come.
If they want to do that,
Great, I'm going to go outin the backyard.
I'm going to spend more time
if they are showing,
hey, I really want to playmore soccer.
Like this is whatI want to do.
(24:51):
Okay, let's talk about that, right.
But I am not goingto try to chase
and keep upwith everybody else.
And I think that's really difficult.
And I don't fault parents for,
you know, it's easy to get caught up and
you want to provide all the opportunities possible for your child, so
but what I would say is,
you know, and only 1% of 1%people are going professional.
(25:12):
But if you look at,
you know,
who's getting draftedin all these different sports
and you look at whatthey've done,
they playedmultiple sports,
not only does it help with,
you know, developingdifferent muscles and,
you know,
the psychological breakand just getting new sports.
One of my favorite storiesfrom, Chris Collins,
the Northwestern men'sbasketball coach
(25:34):
coach who played a Dukecoached under Coach ‘K’
you know, been a part of the USA basketball gold medal winning teams,
he said his dad was you know, [Doug Collins]
coached Michael Jordan at the Bulls.[NBA Chicago Bulls]
So he was a greatbasketball player.
And he said, my parents made metake a break from basketball.
And he said,I played baseball.
He was like, I was always the best basketball player on the team
He said, in baseballI was mediocre.
(25:55):
And he said, you know whatthat taught me?
It taught me what it felt like
to be an okay playeron a team.
So that
and how did I want to betreated by the better players?
So that when I went back to basketball,
I knew what it
He was like I was the best player,but I knew what it meant to be
the number five or number six player on the team and
and how can I be a better teammate
(26:15):
to that, those players,
because I've been thatin that position in basketball.
So just the ability
to interact withdifferent groups of people,
you know, there'sso much that that can
that people can get outof playing multiple sports, so
I'm a proponent ofplaying multiple sports.
I think the issue now
is I think people are not specializing,
but now they're playing two and three sports in one season,
(26:38):
which I think that'swhere we start to run into
just over scheduling.
And, you know,too many sports at once.
And there's some studies
that have come out recently
that talked about like,you know,
not stacking multiplesports in one day or
you know, those types of things where
that's happening a lot.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I'm guilty as charged.
(26:58):
I did all the bad thingsyou could possibly do.
So let's, you talked aboutthe 1% of the 1%.
So let's talk about another,you know, kind of issue
is this chasing of the scholarship
or this chasing of thepotential, professional career.
Ironically,at our high school,
just a couple of yearsolder than my oldest kid,
we had two kidswho made the pros.
Joc Pederson, you know,
played for the Dodgersand the Giants.
(27:19):
I'm not sure where he isnow playing baseball.
And Davante Adams,you know, played
played on our fieldwho’s with the Raiders now.
So you know you can actually see real
real kids that that it happens.
That said you knowthe percentages are so low
and that if you put that asyour primary objective again
you just miss out on all these benefitsin this pursuit of something
(27:42):
which again, if the kid'sgoing to make it.
The coaches will find you.
Right
The scouts will find you, but it's just,
again
kind of, it’s just too much parents,
too much organization too much focusing on the wrong goal
when for the vast, vast,vast, vast majority,
it's reallyabout the experience
of what they're goingthrough, in the moment.
(28:02):
Yeah, and I thinkone thing,
one, another really goodresource that we have,
we call it the 100 point exerciseand we give it to parents
and it's basically,you know, forcing a parent.
It asks the parent,it says
‘What are your goals as a parentfor your child in sports?’ Right.
And it could be youth or high school sports.
(28:23):
And we ask them tofill that out
at the beginningof the season.
And it could.
And they need to divvy up
100 points through thesedifferent things.
It could be earn a college scholarship, have fun.
You know, meet new friends,
physical fitness,winning a championship.
They need to divvy up,like where they put their,
you know,their their 100 points.
And then we ask themtwo things.
(28:45):
We say, all right, look atwhere you put your points,
where you put your emphasis.
And a lot of themwill be like, oh,
I'm all about like thesportsmanship
I'm all about like,I don't care about winning.
And then we say
mimic those pointswhen you're in the stands
and what you're cheering for.
Are you only cheeringfor the results plays? Like
but you said you didn't care about those, right?
So it's like tryingto hold them accountable
(29:07):
to what'simportant to them.
But then we also ask them to take a blank version of that
and give itto their child
and ask their child,
What are your goals in this?
Right.
And see, like,
We've gotten so much feedback, of
[Jason] Wow, this, this opened up[Jeff] Oh my goodness
a conversation with my childthat we've never had before.
And I didn't knowthat they
(29:28):
really wanted to play at the next level.
And again,
if the child is driving that, great.
Let's have that conversation.Let's talk about it.
But if we, the parent, are
pushing them in a direction that they don't want to go,
then we'rewe're only doing harm, so
this tool helps themget on the same page with
what they both want to get out of
the youth sportsexperience and hopefully,
(29:50):
you know, we can't put 100 points in
getting a college scholarshipand going professional
because it's against the odds thatthat's going to happen.
And because we've talkedabout all these great things
that can happenin playing sports,
let's make surethat we're starting
to focus on some of those.
And we're a little bitmore deliberate.
Yeah, I would loveI would love.
Do you guys have a published roll up
(30:11):
from like a league or something that's obviously,
anonymized, but, you know,I can just imagine
joy, meeting new friends.
Yeah,
you know, blah, blah, blah on the kid's side
versus what's onthe parents side.
I bet the disparity,especially across
100 variables,must be giant.
I mean, even if you look at.
Right, and I think we've allbeen guilty of this, right?
(30:31):
I've coached,you know
basketball at the high school, college level.
And then we joke like
we are notanti-competition, right.
We are not everybodygets a trophy.
We want kids to be able to access
this positive youth sports experience.
We want them to thrivein those environments.
We want to create thesehealthy environments.
But you knowwhat's really fun too?
It's winning.
(30:52):
Right?
And I think what makessports this magical place
is the competition factorif it's done the right way.
And so I think all of this comes down to is that
you know,parents often you know,
are coaching little leagueor coaching youth soccer.
And the teamloses a game.
The parent might be stressingover that for,
(31:15):
you know, 2 or 3 days
that they lost, right.
Right.
You know how long the child’s stressing over it?
Like five minutes.
Right.
And on to the next thing, right.
So it's like
We need to as parents need to recalibrate
our expectations
like what
what we're lookingto get out of this and why
we're putting in the timeas a coach
and how we can developthese players.
(31:36):
And, so I think it's again,it's matching up
those expectations of all the different roles
within the youthsports experience.
Yeah. Well, I love thatone advice you gave earlier.
Just knowing that
as soon as somebodymakes a mistake,
they're going to belooking at you.
And what is the face thatyour going to reflect back to them?
Right.
Yeah, what are you doingas a parent. Right.
And you know, if
if your child makes a mistake
(31:57):
and you go like this
and they look at you,
you think that's going tohelp them or hurt them, right?
You know, so
you got to beit's got to be
‘Hey, that's okay.We're on to the next play.’
Right. Those types of things.
Right.
So anothertopic which is,
a tough one and it's kind of a,
an extension of the onewe just talked about
is kind of club versus,
Yeah.
(32:18):
You know, whatever your local.
And I want to distinguishbetween, like,
AYSO and,
you know, some of the,just the little organizations
that are just the organizations versus the highly competitive
travel teams, maybe that's abetter way to talk about them.
And invariably,you get this conflict
because of level ofcompetition, timing of seasons
or whatever.
And oftenI've seen, you know,
(32:40):
you take kids in high school situations
specifically out of the opportunity
to play for their high school,to wear the colors
of their high school,
to you know, participate at a high school level
regardless of the competition.
You know, the kids are inhigh school for four years.
And it just seems like,again, just a miss,
a miss-prioritization of,you know, what's important?
(33:02):
What are they goingto remember?
Where are the long term benefits?
You know,always giving aside
there might be, you know,the small small percentage
where, you know,they just
they just want to be a proand they're 100% committed.
But more often than not
it’s coming from the parents and the,
the side-junct to that is
You talked about itthe additional coaching.
Yeah.
And again guilty as charged.
You know, hiringprivate coaches
(33:23):
to work on skills
or you got one on oneswith kids and a coach
with a ten year old working ontheir ball dribbling skills.
It's like, really?
Or should theyjust be out,
you know, hanging out,being a kid?
So what do you thinkabout, travel,
some of these kind of highcompetition travel teams and,
and that conflict with high school.
It's really difficult.I mean,
(33:43):
high school sports is
is such a great institution,such a great experience.
So I hate when I see
when kids
can’t playhigh school sports
because of a clubcommitment or whatever.
So, I think those arethose are some of the extreme.
But it happensmore in some sports.
And it's just a shame.
Like it'sjust a,
(34:05):
it's a part of theit's the overall experience.
I think in the momentyou're like,
well where's thebetter competition?
What's going to make me better?
And again, we go back to like,well, what was the overall
reason and goalfor participating in this?
Right.
It's more about those experiences,
those relationships,those things
you're going to look back on
and you know,
you're not going to be ableto go back and do that
(34:26):
and you're goingto miss out on it.
So I think those are tough
when you think about the lower level, of kids,
when you start to get intothat, you know, and that’s
the thing that’s starting earlier and earlier, right.
Right, right.
Six, seven, eight years old.
Like you could be playing for a club
and it's, and you’re playing,you know, more times a week.
And I think that
again, it becomes this likekeeping up with the Joneses.
(34:49):
Like how do we make sure that
my child doesn'tget left behind.
And if they'renot playing
travel at a certain age,is that going to impact
their high schoolcareer?
Right.
And I’d say probably not,you know, like there's
there's a lot of early,you know, early bloomers and
and late bloomersand like
we don't know
you know, a lot of kids drop out of sports by 13
because you know, either opportunities are lost
(35:12):
and there's not enough, you know,
and not enough rec programsfor kids to continue on
that aren't playingat a competitive level.
Kids are getting burned out.
They start to specializeon a certain sport.
So I think, again,it comes back to
I don't havea problem with,
you know, if your child's going to play for a club team and is
and the child really wants to spend more time,
(35:33):
that's totally fine.
I think it's really importantfor clubs to be really clear
with the expectations of
and what familiesand children and coaches
are going to get out of being a part of that club,
because I thinkoftentimes
people might sign up,they spend a ton of money.
It becomesyear round,
(35:55):
and then maybe their child isn't playing as much as they thought
they should be.
And then that's wheresome conflict happens.
Or, you know,people feel like,
you know, like, ‘Hold on I was sold a’
you know, a bag of goodsthat wasn't true.
Like, how do weget past that?
So I think being upfront,being really clear with
what you're looking to get out of it,
what is this organization providing.
(36:17):
And I think it's totally fine.
kids are going to develop at different ages.
Like there are some eight year olds that
yeah, they probably could bedoing more. Right.
And there's some eight year olds that
probably aren't going toit's not going to click for them
for a couple of years,and that's okay.
And they might be levelby the time they get to 13.
Right. So we don't know.
(36:37):
But I think it's just keepinga realistic outlook as a parent
and not getting caught up
and really thinking aboutwhat is best for your child.
And how can we make sure thatthe child wants to do that, right.
Like if you see that your child
is going outsideevery day on their own
and kicking that soccer balland working on their footwork
and dribbling and all that,that's awesome. Right?
(36:59):
And then maybe it's like, hey, hey, I want more help.
Like, can I go and work more?
Like, that's great.
That's the idealsituation versus,
I’m the parent saying,
I think you need to do this.
Now we're dragging youto this extra help or,
multiple practices a weekor whatever it might be.
[Jason] So [Jeff] Yeah
And there's and unfortunately, there's a
(37:19):
there's a nastyunderbelly of people
[Jeff] that take advantage of, of parent's[Jason] Right
[Jeff] dreams and are selling,[Jason] Totally
a can of goods.
And it's like, you know,the kids just want to play
they don’t want to be onthe most competitive team
and ride pine,
and fly all over the countryto ride pine is.
I mean, you hear just horror stories.
Totally and itbecomes
And I thinkthe one of the things
that's really unfortunateis become
(37:40):
it be, it's become a status thing.
Right?
Of you know, almost like
my self worth as a parent
is driven by how goodmy child is at youth sports.
And I don't know,like when we got there.
But it's unfortunate
because you start to see that a lot where
it's like, ‘Oh, your child isn't playing travel soccer yet?’
Or, ‘Oh, they're just playing rec.?’
or, you know, whateverit might be. And it
(38:02):
again, everybody has different needshas different wants.
You know,it's like
they want to be in a playif they want to play an instrument
if they want to do stuff
like there's so many optionsfor kids right now,
it's totally fineif they don't play.
And you know,
we have friends whereit's like, oh, you know what?
You know, she's not going to play
soccer this year and she's nine.
And it's like,great, guess what?
(38:22):
She can always come backin two years and play
like she's not.
The kids aren't retiring
when they takea season off, right?
They can alwayscome back.
And I think parentsneed to keep that in mind,
that just because my childwants to take a break
doesn't necessarily mean that
they're not going to come backbecause they may.
[Jeff] Right[Jason] So
But they're all stuck on this perception of this
[Jeff] of this linear progression[Jason] Right
(38:43):
[Jeff] of activities[Jason] Exactly
to get to that college scholarship,
which is kind of silly.
Yeah
All right, so now I’ll ask you another topic,
which is alittle controversial,
but also I think we can havea little fun with it.
And that's trophies,
participation trophies
and just a coupleof backgrounds.
You know, on one hand,
there's a school of thoughtthat says, you know,
they're not good,they're not really rewarding,
winning behavior.
(39:04):
And then there's a wholenother school of thought.
Well, you know, for a lot of kids,
that might be the only trophythat they ever get.
And then there's an element toof potentially,
you know, being part of the team
that, you know, it's more of a team trophythan an individual trophy.
And then just, just to kind of close on the concept
because I think it's lessabout the trophy than what
it actually physically is.
As you know, back in the day,
(39:24):
they used to give the winnerof the Boston Marathon
a laurel wreath, right on his head or her head,
that's all you got.
And there's a whole kindof psychology around,
you know, if the,
extrinsic value of the reward is high,
this is where, like
you know, Super Bowl ring,
it actually diminishes
the intrinsic motivationin terms of
(39:46):
accomplishing a goal,
getting throughthe journey,
accomplishing the challenge.
So, trophies are a kind of tricky part.
And, you know,full disclosure,
I had no trophies as a kidand my cousins had a thousand.
I thought it was the coolestthing since sliced bread.
So, you know, it's not a it's not an easy topic.
Give us kind of your guys thoughts on trophies and awards.
I think there's a timeand place for all of them.
(40:07):
Right?
I think I'd like the youngest ages
when kids are first playinglike, that's awesome.
Like they love it.They get so excited, right?
They say, oh,look how many trophies I have.
Because it at that point,
the point ofthem playing
is to learnthe sport
and participateand get out on the field.
And those are
that is why they're getting rewarded for that.
So I think it all comes down to,
(40:29):
again, I keep on saying this wordlike the expectation and what
why are we giving them a trophy?
Like if the trophy is notfor the championship team?
It's like, right,
because they're six years oldand there is no champion.
They're all doinggreat things out there
and we want them to come back
like that should be the goalof all youth sports coaches,
how are kids coming back.
(40:50):
If a trophy helpsthat great.
I mean, I don't think
we need to be doing thatfor their entire life.
But to your whole thing around,
you know,the value of what it is.
You know, my daughter is playing flag football right now,
and the coach after every gameand every practice,
they have this big chainwith a dog on it.
You know the mascot
Right
It's like the dog of the daywho showed the best effort,
(41:13):
who was listening,who was a good teammate
and who workedthe hardest. Right.
And at the end of the day,
like the kids are competing for that.
That is.
And it's like a$10 necklace, right,
that they wearto the next practice.
And then somebodyelse gets it,
like those types of thingsto drive some of the behavior
that you're looking for.
And it becomes this fun thingthat everybody's vying for.
(41:33):
Those arethings that
I think work
and that are,
you know, really special for,
the kids that are participating.
I thinkjust getting a,
you know, as kids get older,
I think, you know, wants and needs changes.
And so, so I don't know.
So I think, you know, again,
Why are we giving outthe trophy?
What's theneed for it?
And I think that some aspects
(41:53):
and some organizations at certain ages,
I think it's a great idea.
And then at others,
I think there's other thingsyou can do to drive
some of the behaviorthat you're looking to see.
I love that framing
because you are tryingto drive participation
and you are rewardingparticipation,
not winningwhen they're 8 years old.
I think that's a reallythat's really great framing.
So we're gettingtowards the end of the time,
(42:14):
kind of the last kind of contrast
I want to get your take on is,
is kind of professionalcoaches versus parent coaches.
Yeah.
They both have pros and cons.
And the reality isfor most organizations,
the vast majority
of people in the organizationsare parent volunteers,
because that'swhen you're engaged
and you're participatingand you know,
all the money has to go for fieldsand uniforms and refs, etc..
(42:36):
So I wonder if you couldshare some
some thoughts around
the good news and bad news of,of professional coaches
and kind of the good news and bad news of parent coaches
and how, you know
maybe organizationsshould think about that.
I mean, I think the most important thing is that
you have a couple of things.
One, you're equipping coaches
with the tools that they needto be a good coach
(42:58):
Two, that you are givingthe coach a job description
of what is expected of them.
I don't think we do enough ofthat in youth sports
[Jason] it is[Jeff] Great tip
Hey, we need you to coachlike your a warm body.
Here's, here are the ballshere the uniforms
Go ahead!
and it's like,ummm
Okay, like I've never played this sport.
I watched it on TV. Great.
(43:19):
I'm just going to dowhat I see on TV.
Like, we don't want that.
So how are we
equipping and training coacheswhether they're paid or not paid?
Right. Just becausesomebody is a paid coach
doesn't mean they're a good coach, right?
So I think regardless ofwho is coaching,
how your organization,
it is training them, it's evaluating them,
(43:39):
and it's showing them the expectationsand holding them accountability
accountable to those expectations.
And I think those arethe things that,
you know, we need to focus on.
And I totally get it.Youth sports,
you know, to run a youthsports league, it's expensive.
There's a lot of differentthings you need to do, but
we kick off a lot of ourworkshops talking about like,
(44:01):
who was the most impactful coach or mentor
that you've had in your life.
And people remember that immediately.
And they say, it was my coach from 30 years ago
it was my coachfrom 40 years ago.
And then we say ‘why’and they start talking about it.
It's like,
because the lessonsthat they taught us
like the supportthat they gave us,
it’s never because we won this many games
(44:22):
because we had the best uniforms.
So it's really the experiencethat people remember
and oftentimeswe want to make sure
that that becomeswhat we also invest in
as an organization, as a school.
So how are we
where are the ways that
we can invest in our coaches, our experience
to make sure that that's what
(44:42):
kids are remembering down the road.
And it's not just about the wins and the losses.
That's great.
That's a great, a great close.
I think we'll leave it at that.
So how can peopleget involved?
How can peoplefind out more?
Give us a little bit of the,
of the detail how people cancontribute and get involved.
Yeah, we'd love to,have you check us out at
Positive Coach dot org[https://positivecoach.org/]
(45:02):
You know, you can check outour resources.
We have a whole resourcezone on our website.
You can learn about some of the different
workshopsand trainings.
If you're a parent, there's plenty of content resources for you
If you’re involved with a schoolor youth sports organization,
you can check out waysthat we can partner.
And obviously, as a nonprofit organization,
we always love people that donate
(45:23):
to support what we're doing across the country.
So Positive Coach dot org[https://positivecoach.org/]
Great. Well, thank you,Jason, for the time today.
Really, appreciate getting toknow you a little bit better.
And I can't be moresupportive of the cause.
I think it's such an important
part of our culture,youth sports and,
you know, the little trainingand some tools and guidance.
You know, anyone can be much,much better at the task.
(45:44):
You just need training.Like anything else.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks so much for having me, Jeff.
All right.
He's Jason,I'm Jeff,
you're watching‘Turn the Lens’ with Jeff Frick.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listeningon the podcast.
We'll see you next time. Take care.
Awesome.
That was great.
Thank you.
Yeah. No, that was great.
Appreciate the opportunityit was fun
Oh for sure. My pleasure.
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