Record number of views last week. Note to self. . . more imaginary press conferences. Thanks for reading.
I ended “Youth Sports Mania 3” with this question: what would happen if the adults didn’t organize children’s leagues, didn’t unfurl their lawn chairs on the sidelines of their games, didn’t watch their every move twice a week, and didn’t affirm their every effort? This run-on question begs a more succinct and important one that too few ask and even fewer openly discuss: what are the purposes of youth sports?
If I were Youth Sports Czar, I’d ask every youth coach to share their philosophy of youth sports with their athlete’s families. And ideally, the families would have thought through their own philosophies and before each season, coaches, families, and athletes would discuss their respective philosophies and assess whether the “fit” provides a sufficient foundation for growth.
Often coaches, families, and children are pursuing different objectives. When this happens, athletes’ motivation wanes, coaches get frustrated with the lack of effort, and little is accomplished.
For adolescents especially, parents and coaches should listen to what they want to get out of their participation in sports. Before each season, coaches should work with their athletes to establish a few achievable team goals. Within a framework of agreed upon team goals, each teammate should commit to a few achievable individual goals. Ideally, a team would only meet its collective goals if a majority of the team meets their individual goals.
Also, if the team goals are truly the result of listening to the athletes, the athletes should be less dependent upon a charismatic coach for motivation because they’ll push one another to improve.
Most coaches are knowledgeable technicians; as a result, they focus on teaching proper technique. Fewer are expert listeners and highly skilled at individual and group communication. That’s probably why they shy away from the exact kind of goal setting processes or shared decision-making that I’m advocating.
Pressing Pause 
Your most recent post brings up some random thoughts. First, I do agree that there needs to be a focus to an athletic endeavor, but it is the degree of foucs that I wrestle with. Have you ever been to a high school dance recently? I don’t entirely recommend such a culture shock, but some kids do sports simply because they want to “dance”. They seek an activity to be with their friends and just “hang”. In our type “A” goal oriented society, it is often hard for kids to find an activity that fits these parameters. I struggle with this. In addition, in school my most (and most rare) insightful and intelligent students are quite often the students who are the least goal oriented. D