Young Athlete Says the Key to a Good Coach is…”He doesn’t yell.”
I met a lacrosse player yesterday who was aching to be released from physical therapy and get back on the field. This is his senior year in high school and college coaches have shown an interest in him. I ask him how he likes his coach. “He’s okay,” the kid says, but his frown tells me otherwise. […]
Punishment Running Has No Place In Youth Sports
Why do we punish athletes with running? A friend just shared that her 14 year old JV field hockey player was exhausted and had dissolved into tears because at her Thursday and Friday practices the coach had submitted them to “punishment running,” 7-9 miles of it. That’s distance and sprints over 2 hours. No playing. No skills. Just […]
Coaching Well: Saturday Only Travel Soccer
My friend and fellow coach Kimo Kaloi has formed a new U9 travel Soccer team with Chantilly Youth Association in Chantilly Virginia. They’re called the CYA Purple Blaze and they play on Saturdays. Only Saturdays. He petitioned the club and then submitted a request with the Old Dominion Soccer League (ODSL), promising to supply the field if […]
Coaching Well: Why Do We Coach?
This article was originally published in The Fairfax Times, June 2010. It so saddens me to read the endless stories of remarkably talented athletes like Tiger Woods and Ben Roethlisberger behaving badly– these lives, full of potential, are then misspent by their worst natures. We are left asking: “How did we let these athletes get […]
Teaching Throw ins: Kids Learn by Doing, Not Watching
Kids don’t learn by watching. They learn by doing. It was amazing to me that these 8 and 9 year old boys stood so politely watching their coach demonstrate and listening to their coach describe what they are to do with their throw ins. The coach was kind and pleasant and fun, but he went […]
How to Get Girls to Communicate on the Field
Do the girls you coach clam up on the field? Mine talk all the time…on the sidelines and during warmups. But on the field? It’s like pulling teeth. In a newsletter I read recently, a fifteen-year-old observed that girls were happy to pitch in on impersonal, non-relational topics but were sometimes reluctant to disagree with another girl […]
No Child Left Behind: Let’s Get Physical
A lot of political capital and many educational dollars have been invested in keeping our childrens’ minds up to speed. The solution may be fitter bodies. Two studies at the University of Illinois make the case. Scientists grouped 9 and 10 year old kids by their levels of aerobic fitness. In one study they evaluated the kids’ performance on cognitive attention tasks; […]
Coach and Trainer Need to Work Together
Why do coaches stand by and watch trainers run practice? The travel team coach contracts with a training organization to bring a professional trainer in to run practice. She’s running great drills, putting them through their paces, explaining, correcting. Really connecting with them. The girls are laughing, playing, having a great time. Where’s the coach? […]
Resistance Band Fitness for all ages
Resistance bands are one of the best training tools for the fitness games we play and home exercise programs we teach and recommend. Bands are perfect because they are portable, inexpensive and adaptable. Purchased in 3-4 foot lengths or cut to this length from 75 foot rolls, we use them for both upper body and lower […]
Why “you can be anything you want to be” may be the wrong advice
I took my 14 year old daughter to see Wicked at the Kennedy Center this week. What an incredible show. What an incredible message. Young people everywhere are walking away with the courage to take on the world. Tapping into the ‘something that’s changed within them.’ Why not throw off what holds them down? Defy […]