Why are kids quitting?


We read a statistic that said 70% of youth athletes do not play sports or participate in activity after the age of 13. Why are we losing so many kids? There has to be something wrong with the way we are coaching or organizing youth sports.
Most organizations will tell you that are not playing to win, but to have fun.

But if you have ever been involved with youth sports you know that many coaches are all about winning. Either the parents or coaches are trying to recreate their athletic careers through their participation in youth sports. This is bad news for a young kid that is just interested in having fun.

We like to win just like the next coach but we believe that early on when kids are just learning the fundamentals it should be about having fun. Our whole goal is to make sure that every kid leaves with a love for physical activity eventhough they decide to not participate in organized sports when they get older. Maybe, we would not have as many obese kids if we taught them that activity is healthy and fun.

It really gets under our skin when we see a 40 year old man yelling at a 7 year old at a youth football practice. Are you serious? This is not the NFL and this kid may never play football the rest of his life. Don't ruin all his hopes of enjoying physical activity because your coach was a screamer. I hope that our book helps coaches go back to teaching and helping kids better themselves.

Jimmy & Oliver

Comments

  1. Davy BJanuary 14, 2010 at 11:58 AM

    Great message! All of us must keep learning about our respective roles in the youth sport experience. When my children were younger and I had the greatest influence, I was also the least informed about how to do it correctly. Inadvertently I applied too much pressure at times and even took some of the fun out of sports for them. We survived it well because we were good at communicating with each other about what worked and what didn't.
    For that reason we recently created Growing Champions for Life, Inc.-- a non-profit organization dedicated to providing parents and coaches with positive strategies for improving the youth sport experience AND parent/child relationships for life. We offer a free Sport-Parent Quiz on our web site that's designed to give parents constructive feedback on their current behaviors and parenting style. Check it out at www.growingchampionsforlife.com
    Thank you for your work!
    David Benzel
    Executive Director
    Growing Champions for Life
    Author of "From Chump to Champ"

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 27, 2010 at 1:27 PM

    You are right David. We must never lose sight that the sport is really about the youth athlete.

    ReplyDelete

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