Tag: Parent Coaches

The Reality of Youth Sports

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

It is about ½ way through this year’s hockey clinic season and like last year, I have been running virtual online clinics every weekend and will until the end of November.

Each clinic, there are another group of 40’sh coaches in the various levels of the Hockey Canada NCCP program that are starting their coaching journies and literally every clinic the same issue comes to light with the high expectations that parents have for their kids.

Ironically, before the clinic season wrapped up I made a road trip to the Kootenays where my in-laws have a mobile home we have visited for many years in the spring/summer for some R&R. We always take a day to walk “the town” and visit local used bookstores and every time we do so I find a book that I then read while there for a few days.

This past trip, I came across one of the best reads I have found to date that will be one of my top 10 book recommendations for coaches, players and athletes written by Gary Mack, former acclaimed Sport Psychologist in the USA that worked with hundreds of high-profile athletes and teams in a plethora of sports called “Mind Gym – An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence”.

There are many great nuggets and quotes in his book that I will reference in future in terms of tips for coaches, parents and athletes.

The book was released in 2001, ironically the same year of one of the worst tragedies the world has ever faced, 911, but also the same year of the launch of the iPod and iTunes, as well as Microsoft’s first Xbox. Since that time iPod morphed into the Touch and then the “World’s first smartphone according to Apple iPhone (which is not the case, it was the Blackberry)” and the world as we know changed where now these smartphones can cost in excess of $2K. My son shared with me the other day that one of his good friends just both the new Xbox 5 for close to the same although the go to street price is supposed to be 499.99 due to bent up demand due to COVID impacting production

What I found fascinating about Gary’s book was the fact that one of the last chapters of the book “The Well-Played Game” he talks about the various issues revolving around youth sports that was pushing kids out of the game in his experience in the USA.

THIS WAS 20 YEARS AGO!!!

I started down this path initially to become a Hockey Canada NCCP instructor over a decade ago as I also saw many of the trends that are still commonplace today not only in the USA, but have become global issues

• Exceedingly high and unrealistic parent expectations for their kids to get a NCAA Div 1 Full Ride Scholarship

The Reality is international tuition for the schools that do offer athletic scholarships can be over $40K USD per year (approx. 55K CDN based on current exchange) and if athletes do get a scholarship, more often than not is a partial in the area of 8K so that still means parents will be out of pocket over 30K year or approx. 150K CDN over the course of 4 years.

As I have shared with every parent over the years, if this is what you are aspiring for, in lieu you should start a RESP when they are young and by the time they are old enough for university you would have saved enough

• Aspiring for their kids to play professionally in the money sports like NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB

The Reality – only .03% of kids will reach this level from minor sports and other than Tennis, Golf that have developed their female professional programs, female professional sports are really difficult to make a living at playing professionally, many have to have full time jobs and play the sports due to the disparity for men’s vs. women’s professional sports (which I wish the other pro sports would take the lead the WNBA has but that is another issue for a future post)

• Fast tracking their development by having them specialize in a sport year-round to chase the 10,000-hour rule that was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers in 2008

This has been argued by yours truly and many others since is wrong, including two amazing well researched books written by David Epstein “The Sports Gene” (2013) and “Range” (2019) among many others in recent years. Below is an interview panel that Malcolm did with David highlighting key takeaways from his book Range, highlighting why being a generalist first, then specializing later is the better path

• The focus that parents, coaches and even athletes have at the recreational level (the majority) looking at the professional level focusing on winning at all costs when even those playing and coaching at that level focus on the process of development, loving the game, where winning is not the focus, it is the by product

The fact that Gary highlighted issues that are still relevant, in many cases, worse than they were 2 decades back sadly for me was painful reminder that we still have so much work ahead of us to bring the game back to the kids BUT fortunately I am seeing a positive shift in interactions with adults involved in youth sports in recent years than when I first started seeing these trends start coming to fruition en masse. Many recognize we need to make organized sports more positive, focus on fun, as well as the importance of unstructured free play but as the cliché goes, it takes a village for us to get there.

As I share with all the coaches that ask how they can deal with parents that have unrealistic expectations, the more education we can provide to all the adults that are involved in youth sports, the sooner we will continue to see the needle move back where kids play the games they love again without the pressures and fear of making mistakes or working the sport that is leading to such early attrition rates.

Although we have made headway, last year just before COVID, Project Play published data that 62% of kids in the USA are quitting organized sports by the age of 11, after only playing organized sports for 3 years.

This is a video that was produced called “Don’t Retire Kid”

We never will get back to the pre-internet era where kids played for hours on end without coaches, parents, officials like our past generation did, but we need to find the happy medium where kids do just that … PLAY without fear of making mistakes and ultimately come back year after year to various organized sports with big smiles on their faces.

Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids.

PS Tagline - Dont be a kids last coach

Wear your parent hat at home, coach hat at the rink/field.

Posted Glen MulcahyPosted in Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

Years back I started a tradition with my family as I was traveling extensively for my day job then and when traveling in lieu of buying various touristy items for my kids I opted to buying the latest movie that we would watch when I returned home.

Although my kids have now become adults, as they are still going to college/university, they still reside at home (much like every other 20 something in the lower mainland of Vancouver due to the high costs of housing) and last night we decided to watch “Antwone Fisher” based on a young man who lost his father when he was 2 months old and was given up for adoption by his mother and had an abusive foster family environment until he entered the Navy.

Due to various emotional issues, particularly anger the led to him getting into numerous fights, he was ordered to see the Navy Psychiatrist brilliantly portrayed by Denzel Washington who helped Antwone overcome the various emotional struggles he experienced from losing both his father, turned over to what was an abusive foster care environment by his birth mother and then he lost his best friend in his late teens.

You’re probably wondering why I am sharing this, but the reason I am doing so is that I can relate to Antwone’s journey on a few fronts which is why I get very emotional when I watch the movie.

#1 – Like Antwone, I lost my father when I was very young, at 8 years old and as a result of his work we had had moved 8 times already to be close to the buildings he managed (so can relate to all the military brats out there), but also how disappointed I was that he was unable to honour his promise to coach my baseball team as he died half way thru the season.

My favorite picture of my Dad that I actually took when we were on the train heading from Montreal to our new home in Vancouver when I was 7 years old

#2 – Like many youth without a father, I ended up hanging out with a group of misfits, my non-sport “friends” in my teen years but also continued to play various sports, in particular contact sports hockey, football and rugby as I too had issues with my temper from not having a Dad to turn to but the team mates in sports and coaches I had help me keep it in check, would say to me all the time to use my temper in a positive fashion by being tough to play against.

One of the main reasons that I am so passionate about sports and kids is all the amazing coaches that I had and team mates who helped steer me down the right path vs. “my friends” that went down the wrong path (many of which did not graduate high school, were imprisoned for various reasons so who knows where I would have ended up)

#3 – Although playing contact sports did keep my temper in check at times, one that I did not try and several said should have was boxing as I did in more than my fair share of bar brawls over the years into my mid  20’s until I lost my “first and last fight” (to that point I had lost a fight in any of the brawls I had been in) and was beaten up so bad that I made the original Rocky pic of Sly look like like he only had a couple of love taps that lead to me recovering from a concussion for several months and ended my collegiate rugby career and chance to represent Canada Nationally as I had been invited to attend the national camp later that year.

All of that is water under the bridge now, as I transitioned to working a day job to coach after I completed my post secondary education at night/weekends  and when I became a parent I made a promise to myself having lost my father so early that I would be there for my kids, be their coach like he couldn’t and support them to the best of my ability.

This Saturday I did a presentation of my core talk “Don’t be a Kid’s Last Coach” for Ontario Lacrosse virtual 4 day conference and shared a couple of tips for the coaches as majority of youth sports are parent coaches;

Tip #1 – When you are a parent coach, ensure you wear your parent hat at home/in the car and when get to the rink/field/court put your coach hat on and vice versa

When I shared that analogy to coincide with a video on the ride home that I have shared for a hockey clinic, one of the coaches came up to me during the break and was in tears and I asked him if he was ok and he said he never thought about it, but his 10 year old son shared with him that he was going to quit hockey as was not having fun that he was wearing his coach hat all the time.

He coached him at home, at the dinner, breakfast tables, in the car to and from the practices and games and shared with me that he will take my advice and only coach at the rink.

The clinic was in November, in March I received an email from the coach later that season sharing how appreciative he was of the advice and the relationship between him and his son was so much stronger and happier,  and his son was looking forward to playing soccer in the off season and told his dad thanks for being his coach and was looking forward to next season in hockey.

Tip #2 – Treat your son or daughter the same as all the other players and ensure they call you Coach when you have your coach hat on and Mom/Dad when you have your parent hat on.

Two things can happen when coaching your kids, you can either make them one of your favorites and give them more playing time, top lines, positions (which is the big reason why competitive hockey now has tried to go the non parent route but at huge cost for honorariums for coaches) OR you can be too hard on them.

The latter is one that I saw in my third year coaching minor hockey,, one of the coaches of the U8 team that shared ice with for practices would constantly scream at his son for making mistakes, although he was an early bloomer and one of the top players in our age group, I could tell every time his Dad did so he lost a little more of the joy he had for the game.  Although I would talk to his Dad numerous times when he beraded his son reminding him he was just a kid, game should be fun, treat him the same as others it went on deaf ears.

I heard the following year that his son had quit hockey and all other sports, his Dad also was not invited to come back to coach again as a result.

I know all too well how hard it can be as a parent coach to ensure you are not biased either way,  I also know how big of a time commitment it can be for all of us that juggle many things including work, perhaps other children, perhaps coaching multiple teams and sports as a result.

Although I know I made my mistakes as well, probably the greatest reward I received was when my son was 19 and was asked to play on a Junior Ball Hockey Team that several of his team mates and he had talked and asked if I would help coach the team as the head coach merely put up his hand as they were having a tough time finding coaches.

To which I humbly said, yes, I would be glad to help out and had a blast coaching my son and many of his friends who he grew up with playing a myriad of sports.

Sadly I don’t get to watch him or my daughter play youth sports any more, but I can look back with a big smile on my face how much I loved watching them and all their friends (part of my extended family) play the sports they loved and continue to be active in their adulthood.

At the end of the day, that is all we can ask for as parents and as coaches, if they play at a high level beyond their high school years that is just cherry on the cake.

PS Tagline - Dont be a kids last coach

 

Kudos to all Coach Parents

Posted Glen MulcahyLeave a commentPosted in Athlete, Coach, Early Sport Specialization, Organization Executive, Parents

And all other amazing volunteers in youth sports

BONUS – Download a Free Copy of this Blog in PDF Format HERE

 

In celebration of National Volunteer Week, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide Kudos to all the AMAZING people that I who have volunteered their time unselfishly so kids can play organized youth sports.

Although the model in the competitive stream has been evolving more to non-parent paid coaches who many feel are “more qualified” I beg to differ, there are many coach parents out there with decades of coaching experience that are AMAZING coaches whom those non-parents could learn from.

A couple of weeks ago I did a talk for North Shore Fastpitch and will be doing two talks for Langley Fastball next Monday and reminded me of my tenure coaching softball with the most dedicated volunteer EVER, Glenn Zwick, whom I highlighted in “Coaching Skills in Sport and Skills in Life”

Glenn was the head coach of my daughter’s softball teams all but one year that she played softball, the one year she played rep and had such a sour experience that she opted to return back to C ball.

Ironically she, like I, learned more about Softball and life under Glenn’s leadership than either of us working with other coaches or sports leaders.

The focus of that article was the importance of mentorship and how many people do so unselfishly.

What I want to highlight this go around are all the other volunteers that permit kids to play youth sports, to begin with.

Although much research coming forward is showing the optimal pathway for kids to develop their sports skills is to augment organized sports with unstructured free play, if people did not step up in various capacities in youth sports, kids would not be able to play they love (and hopefully love for years to come)

Kudos to all those that put their hand up to help coach various youth sports, in my case I coached softball, baseball, hockey, rugby and ball hockey after coaching adult co-ed slo-pitch which is hard to believe has been over 25 years of coaching and I still love it as much now as I did when I started.  The difference now is I am coaching coaches, supporting parents, volunteer board members, officials to attract, retain and grow their memberships and in doing so have the opportunity to reach so many more kids than just coaching one team at a time.

The majority of those that step up to coach share when prompted why they do so is due to the fact that they have skin in the game, their son or daughter are playing.

Probably the saddest example that a parent coach shared with me last year was the reason that he stepped up to coach hockey is his 9-year-old daughter told him after her first year of Atom Hockey that she was going to quit because she was scared of making mistakes and gave examples why.

Why?

Because the coach she had that season did not realize the impact of his words on his players and the importance of making it safe for them to fail.  He would single kids out for making mistakes in games, practices, at times with language not appropriate for any age group.

When the parent shared the story, literally everyone in the room, the majority of which were middle aged parents themselves (both Dads and Moms) eyes weeped up and even when I think about it now mine do as well.

Even though I believe her coach had the best of intentions when he started as all do, because of the current winning at all costs focus in many sports and most of the coaching certification provided to coaches relates to tactics, skill analysis, systems, rules, practice and game management they don’t develop their soft skills, how to coach, which is the basis of all of our modules.  They don’t know the best practices of coaching like growth mindset, the importance of connecting with their players and the emotional intelligence that the greatest coaches of all time developed after decades of coaching.

The greatest coach of all time, John Wooden, took 16 years to hone his craft before he won his first of many national championships as he knew the importance of being a great teacher of the game. He also believed in the importance of providing an environment for his players that was safe to fail.

 

Coaching girls who are playing on boys teams vs. all girls teams, coaches must adapt their coaching styles as there are differences when coaching girls vs. boys.

Coaches also must learn how to connect with their players, how to engage parents on their teams, how to make it safe (to fail and all forms of harassment), how to coach today’s generation Z, characteristics of great leaders, how to communicate effectively and so forth.

What I can say as I have traveled the country and interacted with thousands of coaches and all other volunteers that we rely on for kids to be able to play youth sports, I believe that there many more coach parents out there that are doing an AMAZING job as they truly are in it not just for their kids, but as I share with every coach when they say they are coaching because of their kids, “You have figured out that you adopted 10+ other kids also?”

To which they all say, yes, and they love being with all the kids and seeing not only develop their athletic skills, but as people.

Below is a great video which is a great perfect example why Kudos should be relayed to all of the coaches that Dwayne Wade had in his youth that not only guided him to become the future hall of famer he will be, but an amazing person.

Get your Kleenex out for this one.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of my amazing volunteer coaches who took me under their wing after my father passed away when I was 8 years old.

My father was a really good athlete, he played junior football and baseball to semi-pro until his 20’s and both I and my brother inherited his athletic genes.  In my youth, I played EVERYTHING, a lot of unstructured free play, but also a number of organized sports and had the opportunity to play on provincial winning teams in Hockey, Football and Rugby lead by GREAT Coaches.

Why were they great?

They pushed me to become the best I could be.

They taught me so many life lessons that I wish I had learned from my Dad, values like winning with humility, losing with dignity, respect, sportsmanship, selflessness, team work and important life skills like resiliency, leadership, communication, accountability, punctuality, commitment.

Another challenge that I had growing up is the fact my father had to live close to government buildings that he managed as a stationary engineer so every year from K to High School we moved so I was in a different school, different sports program which made it very difficult to develop friendships but the one constant for me was playing sports and I had so many amazing coaches that truly cared about me and were very passionate about the sports I played.

Those stops included many suburbs in Montreal,  Ottawa, Baffin Island (Northwest Territories), Vancouver, back to Montreal, Toronto then finally back to Vancouver and have resided there since.

There were in a sense, the very model for why I mentor coaches, students and even employees now and do so to give back as those coaches did for me.

It is one of the driving reasons why I wanted my kids to grow up in the same place and go to same schools year after year and also why every time they asked me to coach I did so with no hesitation.

When I entered High School we finally stopped moving year after year, my mother continued to support me and my brother to play 3 organized sports per year and went thru a real tough few years as became bitter having not had a father but when I look back at it, I had MANY fathers.

This is why I focus on mentoring grass roots coaches, the mothers and fathers who put their hands up every year to coach kids For the Love of the Game, to Give back/pay it forward and all the other reasons I shared in “Why do you Coach”

One of the tips that I share in talks is the importance for coach parents to wear their coach hat at the rink, court, field and their kids call them coach and when they leave (to/from) that they put their Mom or Dad hat on and vice versa.

Don’t coach your kids at home, the dinner table or in the car otherwise they may become one of the 70% of kids that are quitting youth sports before high school.

A Dad came to me when I was doing a clinic last year after I shared that anecdote and he said to me with tears in his eyes “my son told me he wanted to quit hockey because was not having fun and I did not even think I was over coaching him”

It’s a fine line for coach parents but without the 10’s of thousands that put their hand up across Canada, undergo all the certification that is being asked of them and now ongoing professional development credits, please ensure that your son or daughter treat them with respect, thank them for everything they do and if you are a parent and not coaching do the same.

Being a coach requires hundreds of hours of time to plan practices, manage games and all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes with managers, board members, officials to ensure that kids have an opportunity to play a game they love.

Thanks Coach for everything that you do.

Even though at times it may seem like a thankless gig, when one of your players comes to thank you at the end of the season or better yet shows up on your doorstep to say hi or as they even get older to go for a bevie, reach out to thank you for everything that you did, it is all worthwhile.

Thanks also to all the other amazing volunteers that keep the cogwheels of youth sports turning, board members, scorekeepers, timekeepers, managers, trainers, risk managers and all others that make it possible for kids to play youth sports.

Coaches, please ensure that you keep the game in perspective and remember the initial reasons that you started coaching, to begin with:

  • Make it Fun
  • Make it Safe
  • Teach Skills
  • Care Passionately

And most importantly …..

Don’t be a Kid’s Last Coach

Please ensure that the legacy that you leave behind is like Glenn’s and all the coaches that I had in my youth and it is a positive one and you are not a kid’s last coach.

Lets all work together to bring the game back to the kids … where it belongs.