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I just received a copy of Aspen Institutes State of Play Report for 2017 and total Team Sport Participation Rates in the USA continue to decline, now 37% in 2017 so another 2% drop from 2016 and 13% decrease since 2011

Core Participation in Select Sports

Majority of team sports saw decreases in participation year over year with the exception of a few identified in 6: Design for development below.  Similar trends also are happening in Canada with retention year over year continuing to be a challenge.

Youth Sports Participation by demographic

Below is a summary of children who played a team sport between the ages of 6 and 12 and highlights the glaring discrepancy of the haves (households with over 100K income) vs the have not (>25K in household income) there is a 33.8% difference in participation (34.6% vs. 68.4%).

Why?

Because of the emergence of travel ball, “elitist” programs vs. local sports programs making it harder for the have nots to participate in team sports

Coaching lacking certification

 

Approximately 1/3 of youth sports coaches have certification comparable to what many sports have in Canada,  in particular Hockey’s NCCP program and now Soccer and various others sports are starting to require their coaches to be certified in same criteria (safety, skills/tactics, CATT, coaching and conditioning/injury prevention).   I think Hockey Canada will continue setting the bar for certification as they have done so for decades, but it is good to see other sports in Canada following a similar model to ensure their coaches at all age groups are certified.

Yet another glaring discrepancy in terms of household income were where coaches come from, 65% are those whose household incomes are $75,000+

 

The Canadian statistics coincidentally are literally the same based on a recent study (Financial Commitments of Volunteer Coaches in the Province of New Brunswick) shared with me conducted by Dr. Jonathon Edwards at the University of New Brunswick and Dr. Cory Kulczycki at the University of Regina.

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73% of CDN youth sport coaches surveyed were male (vs. 72% in the USA) and 64% of the coaches had household incomes $80K + (vs. 65% over 75K in the USA).

There has been much talk in recent years how youth sports has become the pay to play model, and those that have can and will play youth sports and those that don’t won’t.  It also holds true for those that youth sports depend on, 2/3 of the volunteer coaches come from high income households and there is still a significant gender discrepancy where approx. ¾ of the youth sports coaches are male.

Project Play further highlights the 8 plays required to change the state of play in the USA and is also prevalent for youth sports in Canada;

1:Ask Kids what they want

It dumbfounds me each time I speak for a sports organization and talk to their executive members if they have done their due diligence to understand their “avatar”, their customer (the kid) and more often than not the answer is no.

Why do you think the Video Game industry has exploded over the last 20 years since Sony Introduced the playstation in 1994 and Microsoft introduced the Xbox in 2001?

Because they ask what kids want, every time they are developing a new game or next gen version they conduct the necessary market research to meet the needs of their customers.

It has now evolved into “a Sport”, egaming is the #1 “sport” that adolescents participate in today, because they have fun playing and also are free from criticism from adults that is impacting youth sports, no coaches, adults or officials.  If they “fail” all kids do is press the reset button and play again.

Social Media platforms like Instagram, Snap Chat and others that have been adopted by Gen Z (those born after 1996) have done the same.

2:Reintroduce Free Play

Remember when you grew up how much time you spent outside in unorganized activities?  Hours playing on the street, in a park, at a lake?

What was the one constant?

No coaches – Parents – Officials

It was kids playing kids (not adults competing with other adults thru kids), making our teams, making and enforcing our own rules, no fancy uniforms and only time we would hear from our parents was when they were calling us home for dinner.

We will never get back to the good old days, but we must figure out a way to bring back more free play,  like the recent example of loosely supervised baseball.

When one of the players was asked what he preferred and he stated “un”organized baseball.

When prompted by the journalist if he should tell his dad the boy said “Yeah” with a huge smile on his face.

3:Encourage Sport Sampling

One of the top 3 questions I get asked at every talk is how do we deal with early sport specialization?

Gone also are the days where kids would try many, many sports in their pre-adolescent years (6-12 years old) then play a few organized sports they liked most in their early adolescent years to then specialize in their late teens after they graduated from high school.

Now the trend is for kids to specialize in a early sport due to sport development private organizations identifying they have “real promise, are elite, are high level prospect” at 6!

There is no data I have come across that supports early talent identification will equate to getting a NCAA scholarship or playing professionally in any team sports, all are long term athletic development sports and requires years

Below is a recent example from a study by Oakland’s USCF Benioffs’s Children’s Hospital of NBA basketball players, those that were multi-sport athletes had much lower injury rates (10X less) than their single sport (basketball only) in AND their playing careers were longer vs. those that only played basketball in high school.

The most recent endorsement for multi-sport participation came from MLB commissioner Rob Manifred in the Project Play 2017 Report and when sitting on a panel at the Fall Summit, along all global Hockey Organizations doing the same in the declaration of principles announced in Sept. 2017.

4:Rivitalize In-Town Leagues

This is probably my biggest frustration with minor hockey, particularly at the rep (competitive level), in the lower mainland of Vancouver there are 43 minor hockey associations, all of which have AAA, AA, A and Recreational level teams providing more than ample opportunity for teams to play similar tiered teams in tournaments, home and away ex games.

In lieu, more and more “paid” rep coaches are making travel tournaments mandatory requiring flights, hotels, rental cars, meals and so forth leading to family out of pocket costs exceeding $3,000 per tournament.

One player I had coached played on a spring hockey team when he was 12 years old and his Dad shared with me he kept track of all the travel receipts for the 5 tournaments they went to and it exceeded over $20,000 over the course of 12 weeks and did not even account for spring fees, uniforms!

When I grew up, majority of my organized games were within 30 minutes of our home field or rink, the rest was minutes (free play in parks, streets, courts where were developed our creativity and love for the game).

We need to scale back the travel and bring the game back to our communities so all kids have the opportunity to participate, not just the haves.

5:Think Small

This season Hockey Canada made cross ice hockey mandatory for the U7 age group (5-6 yr old players), then will make U9 (7-8 yr. old players) mandatory in 2019-20 season.

Why?

Because all the data shows in order to adhere to LTAD, kids should play on surfaces and with equipment that is age appropriate to increase puck touches, shots, passing, receiving, body contact etc.

6 year old kids playing full ice hockey is like an adult playing on a football field per the video below;

My analogy for Full ice hockey for players below 10 years old is the beehive, only the early bloomers will have the puck and the rest of the kids will chase them all over the ice like a bee hive.

Others sports have incorporated small area games, and playing surfaces including Soccer (smaller field and nets), football, softball/baseball (distance pitchers have to pitch), basketball (lower height for nets).

6: Design for Development

Tennis in the USA has seen the biggest participation increase amongst all youth sports, joining only gymnastics, flag football, ice hockey, lacrosse and wrestling as sports that are growing (albeit close to flat growth) whereas  Tackle Football, Baseball and Basketball have seen decreases over the same time period.

USA Tennis was the first to endorse multi-sport participation in the USA and has also been the front running in age appropriate development to include smaller player surfaces, lower nets, different sized racquets and even balls to help players develop confidence in key motor skill development years.

An argument for EQUAL playing time has also really come to light to increase player confidence and youth participation – FINALLY.  I have been arguing for fair ice policies in hockey for years and in the last couple of years now takes up the first two pages of google when 5 years ago one would be hard pressed to find associations, Regional or PSO’s to have fair ice policies.

Now other sports are doing the same, they are promoting safe to fail environments where it is ok for kids to make mistakes to ensure that ALL kids, not just the top players get playing time.

7: Train All Coaches

As the stats showed prior, only 1/3 of youth sport coaches in the USA are trained in all the core competencies of coaching.  This is an area that I know that Canada has worked on, all minor hockey coaches have to complete various levels of certification relative to the age group involved with, and more and more national sports are incorporating mandatory certification.

Soccer is one that is rolling out their coaching certification requirements for all levels in recent years, but in past only coaches above U13 required certification.  This was an area that Jason De Vos, technical director for Soccer Canada, identified must change in order to develop Canada’s players to follow their recently developed LTPD model.

8:Emphasize Prevention

In March of 2017, the US Centre for Safesport was launched with the authority to work with all National Sporting Bodies (NGB’s) to report ANY claims of abuse or harassment (includes bullying, harassment, hazing and physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

This has been a long time coming, and I suspect they will be looking at incorporating online education like Canada’s Respect Group established in 2004 has provided for coaches, parents to provide the necessary education so that we reduce and ultimately eliminate the various forms of harassment that still impact youth sports today.

If we follow the 8 recommendations from Project Play in both the USA and Canada I believe that we will see the much needed shift we need to see in youth sports.

Let’s work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.

 

 

 

 

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Why do Officials “Officiate”?

I recently came across the 2017 National Sports Officiating Study that surveyed over 17,000 officials in various sports in the USA.

Below is a summary of the results that youth sport coaches, parents and even players should be made aware of so that we can reduce the attrition rate we are seeing in youth sports today.

Why did you start to be an official?

The number 1 reason that officials started was “For the Love of the Game” which is the second reason why coaches put their hands up to coach (the first is due to the fact their son or daughter are playing the sport) that I shared Why Coaches Coach in previous blog post.

One of the biggest challenges that youth sports officials face today is the verbal abuse they are taking from others involved (coaches, parents, administrators and players) which is leading to many of them quitting only a few years after they started.  Officials Supervisors from Hockey, Soccer, Baseball, Lacrosse have all shared with me they lose on average 1/3 of their officials annually and up to 50% within their first 3 years.

Below are the results where over 45% of male and female officials have felt unsafe because of behaviour from others.  I have heard all forms of horror stories over the years from officials how they have been verbally abused during games, even after games as they were heading to the dressing room or leaving the facility heading to their vehicles.

 

 

This statistic truly does not surprise as a result, and shows how much work we still have to do to not only make it safe for players but also officials from the various forms of harassment impacting youth sports today.

Of the respondents, 70% were officials at the youth or high school level, less than 7% were professional.

Ask yourself – Why is ok to harass youth sport officials but not ok to harass professional officials? If people do so from the stands they are either ejected by the official or security.  What about the others, sports exec, coaches or players?  Would we condone the same behaviour in the workplace?  In University classrooms? In other public places like restaurants?

WHAT ABOUT SPORTSMANSHIP?

Top level sportsmanship was identified as the worst was at the youth competitive level (36.01%) and the worst culprits identified by officials are the parents, almost 40%, followed by coaches (just shy of 30%).

 

 

Although I have not come across a study that has identified what level is the majority of kids that are quitting youth sports by 13, based on all those I have interacted with over the years I would say it would be skewed by kids from youth competitive vs. recreational level.  Why ? Because even some coaches of U10 teams are taking competition way over the top to win at all costs.

Previously I shared insight, why kids quit lacrosse, from the retention report from Alberta Lacrosse who surveyed over 1000 families why their son or daughter quit and one of the top other reasons why they quit was due to poor sportsmanship.

Start of your officiating “Career”

 

The number 1 reason why officials get started is they are asked by a fellow official to do so and over 50% start out as a youth sport official. I have known a number of officials over the years that developed in youth sports and some are now reffing or umping at junior, major junior or collegiate ranks and applauded them for sticking with it.

 

The number 1 method of training that officials prefer is face to face clinics (over 50% of the respondents) followed closely by video training (online). What I thought was interesting is almost half of those that responded would drive up to 2 hours to do a face to face clinic and a further 20% would be willing to drive up to 4 hours to do so.

Although the same study has not been done for youth sport coaches,  I would say the results would be the same, many prefer the in person workshops/clinic format over online due to fact they get an opportunity to interact and learn not only from the instructor but others in the clinic. They also may be forced to drive several hours to do so, partly as “live” clinics are not available in their area, but partly because they slept at the wheel so to speak and missed the opportunity for ones closer to them.

As we are heading down the final stretch of Hockey Canada Clinics for this season, it is amazing how many calls and emails I personally have received from coaches trying to get into clinics this past week that were full or even ones that have walked up hoping we can squeeze them in.

The reality is there is the resources are limited, number of facilitators, associations that can accommodate with ice slots, rooms and what have you in hockey and suspect the same holds true in other sports.  We also have had our challenges this year due the fact we have brought back the intro to coaching module for coaches of 5-8 year old players, but still coaches are being told they should take the “new” Coach to module (Ages 9+).  Anytime there are changes it usually takes a season to debug and will be clear for all involved next season but although live workshops is the preferred mode for training, more and more youth sports are developing online training to ensure their coaches complete the necessary training.

SHOW ME DA MONEY (Jerry McGuire)

Approximately 2/3 of those that started as officials did NOT do so for the pay (per prior number reason they started was due to the love of the game) and almost the same % feel they are underpaid but understand budget constraints in their respective sports.

Translation – even with all the abuse they officials take, they do it because the love the game, they want to give the kids an opportunity to love it like they do.

ONLY 22% of officials felt they were paid what they are worth

COSTS OF OFFICIATING

 

Like Youth Sport Coaches who incur out of pocket costs, officials also incur costs to do so which includes the opportunity loss taking time off their full time jobs.

Gear and equipment, transport, optional and mandatory development courses, meals, accommodations and even flights can come out of their own pockets with less than aa 1/3 getting reimbursement for same.

Approximately 30% of officials will spend over $1000 a year that is not reimbursed by their sports and over 50% reported their income was less than $5000 a year.

In sum, before you start yelling at an official at a game like Ray Winstone in below video ….

Think of the following before you do so;

1. They are normally an age group above the team they are officiating and in most sports don’t start until they are 12..
2. They start because they love the game, are asked by a fellow official to do so every sport needs new officials every year due to problems with retention
3. They do get paid, but only a small honorarium and like youth sport coaches have to take clinics, professional development and may have to drive 4 hours to do so as well as buy equipment and incur other expenses to do so
4. The costs they incur to do so may be 25% or more of what they receive in terms of fees per year and majority do not not make a living doing so (far from it as over 50% make less than $5K a year)
5. Over 45% of them have felt unsafe due to the behavior of the adults (coaches, parents, admin) or players

AND

Even though they are doing so, 33% on average will quit being officials every year due to the abuse they take.

I suspect if they official was your son or daughter that was getting verbally abused by others the hairs on the back of your neck rise up as it happens.

Relax – It’ Just a GAME.  Youth sports need officials as much as coaches, administrators and we need to respect the fact they are learning just as everyone else is.

We also need to give them thanks, Kudo’s and praise (not constant criticism) for stepping up to be officials, without them, we could not have organized sports.

Let’s work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.