Goal-Tending for the WIN!!!!

Today's blog post was written by Remy Lewis.  Remy is a Psychology Major at Purdue University North Central and is a former Division One Track and Field Athlete at Indiana State University.  He is currently an intern with Play Like a Champion.  He is also a Coach, Scout, and Trainer for Sports Prep NBA.

In sports today, it feels like we have rules and regulations for just about every situation you can think of. Sometimes we do not always agree with these rules, Often, due to a difference of opinion on  interpretation. For example, in most contact sports, a foul occurs as a result of illegal contact with an opponent and/or a form of physical "unsportsmanlike" conduct  A foul always results in some form of a penalty. However, what constitutes a foul can seem to vary according to each officials. In basketball, some violations occur with a small amount of contact, others only with major forms of contact. Determining what is and is not illegal contact is all up to the officiating crew.

A game, and more specifically a call, on Thursday, March 19th 2015, recent sparked a very controversial discussion.  Towards the end a first round game of the NCAA tournament, an official called "goal-tending" during the SMU vs. UCLA basketball game. With little time left on the clock, UCLA attempted a 3 point shot.  The ball never got to the basket since an SMU player touched the ball as it was on its way down towards the rim.  Touching the ball on its downward trajectory is generally called goal-tending.  UCLA was rewarded the 3 points and then won the game by 1 point, advancing to the next round. Yanick Moreira, the SMU player called for goal-tending, stated that he thought it was an air ball and was going to grab the missed shot. The main controversy has come from two issues:

1. A goal tend is not a review-able play according to NCAA rules.
2. Did the call meet every requirement in order for it to be deemed a goal tend?

In the past, most believed the rules to be that if the ball was on its way down towards the rim, and in or near the vertical cylinder, then the ball should not be touched. After the game had ended, NCAA members expanded on the true definition of the rule stating, "Goal tending occurs when a defensive player touches the ball during a field goal try and each of the following conditions are met.

1. The ball is on its downward flight
2.  The ball is above the level of the rim and has the possibility, while in flight, of entering the basket and is not on the cylinder." 

What has made it a controversy now is the statement  "has a chance of entering the basket", which most have been saying that there is no way the shot would have gone in, while others who freeze the picture on the point of contact believe the shot did have a chance to go in.

Essentially, rules may need to change in the future over this call. In my opinion, it needs to become a play that can be reviewed during games, and the wording may also need to be modified in order to clarify any misconceptions over the rule and the call. In my opinion, it was a goal tend. Every picture I have seen looks that way. If you remove the players' hand, the ball will definitely touch the rim, and could either bounce off the rim and out or off the rim and in. At this point it falls under the rule that states "has a chance of entering the basket."

In the end, the beauty of the NCAA Tournament is the superior level of basketball that people across the country get involved in.  The NCAA Tournament is fun--fun for the players, fun for the coaches, and fun for the fans.  Fun is why kids play games, and I'm glad its still fun at such an elite level, even if there are occasionally controversial calls.

Keeping Fun in the Process

Today's blog post was written by Remy Lewis.  Remy is a Psychology Major at Purdue University North Central and is a former Division One Track and Field Athlete at Indiana State University.  He is currently an intern with Play Like a Champion.  He is also a Coach, Scout, and Trainer for Sports Prep NBA.

When most people are nervous, it is because they are focusing on the results: hitting the ball or striking out, making the shot or rimming out, getting the job or not, winning or losing.  When you focus on the results, there is a big chance that you will omit very important steps along the way.  Here at Play Like a Champion Today, I've been reminded of the importance of focusing on having fun along the way. As an athlete, I've worked for years on improving the things I can control (my running form, for example) and not letting the things I can't control (the whether) affect me.  

For example when a shortstop gets a batter out at first, he has has to 

1. See the ball off he bat.
2. Move in the direction of the ball.
3. Get to the ball.  
4. Get his glove to the ball.
5. Catch the ball.
6. Plant his feet.
7. Get the ball out of the glove.
8. Point his body towards first.
9. Throw the ball to the first baseman.

After this point, the result is out of the shortstop's hands.  The first baseman then has to:

1. Get to first base.
2. Place his foot on the bag.
3. Catch the ball.

While these 12 steps need to be completed for an out, I feel like we also should add "have fun" to the overall process. The out only happens if the above 12 steps, between two people, are completed before the batter's foot touches first base.  Based on the average speed of professional baseball players, these 12 steps need to take place in between 2.8 and 3.5 seconds. If players fail to complete one step in this process, then the desired result may not occur.  But if kids aren't having fun throughout the process, then kids also won't enjoy the game. Sometimes, coaches seem to focus more on detail-oriented drills than their players would like. However, this is because coaches know that if you learn the formula for success, then success will naturally follow. My father, Rick Lewis, one of the greatest coaches I know, has always told me that "The process is more important than the answer."  As a kid, I didn't understand this, but I've learned that that because the process gets the answer, the answer is the process.

After you have found the process that will get your desired results, commit to the process.  Practice that process until that process is the way you do what you do. Become the process or "commit to the script." Trust and believe in your hard work, preparation, and commitment.  You control the process you use.  Your process will control your performance and your performance will control your results. Don't allow your performance to be affected by focusing on the results or the negativity.  Above all, make sure that your process includes fun so that you are remembering to PLAY the GAME, and games are supposed to be fun.

The Transition From Player To Coach

Today's blog was written by Sarah Voigt.  Sarah is a senior English major at Notre Dame and a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion founder Professor Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan.  Sarah is also the goalie on the Notre Dame Women's Soccer Team.  

After 18 long, amazingly rewarding years as a soccer player, it finally became time for me to hang up my boots. It was not a decision to divorce myself from the sport that has shaped me as a person and provided me with the opportunity to play in one of the best D-1 programs in the nation, but rather, to change my role in it. When I was a little girl, I had the dream of playing college soccer, and through the my own hard work and the careful guidance of many different coaches, I was able to make that dream a reality. I’m done with my competitive playing career (even though I don’t think I will be able to resist the allure of pick-up games or summer leagues.) However, I cannot see myself not being involved with the sport, so the decision to begin coaching was an obvious one.

This decision is far from unique. I think it’s quite common for athletes, especially athletes who feel that the sport they played shaped who they are today, to want to give back to that community that fostered their growth and allowed their success. That was my motivation, and I am currently about two weeks into coaching my first youth team, U(nder)13 girls. Our season has yet to start, but I feel that I have learned so much already. I felt pretty prepared, having had 6-7 different coaches over the course of my playing career that brought different styles and emphases to the game. But going from playing for a coach to inspiring players to want to play for you was a huge gap. It is taking a lot of evaluation and re-evaluation. I’ve had drills that work for my girls, and I have also designed drills that fall flat and not work at all. I’m learning that patience is key.

The most applicable coaching advice I have received is this: when things get frustrating, just step back and remember with whom you are working. Losing sight of the fact that we are working with kids is something that I have seen coaches do often in my playing experience. For me, it’s a lot more difficult to get upset with athletes for not understanding or being able to execute something the way I want them to when I remember the long game of coaching. The short game, so to speak, is winning the next game, tournament, or even State Cup at the end of the season (which we obviously plan to do). But the long game is to develop good people. To my memory, my best coaches were equally (if not more) invested in my personal development and my skill development. I’m only about two weeks into this coaching thing, and already asking and answering this question each time I do anything with my girls: How is this making them into good people?

Youth Sports: Work vs. Play and the Impact of Club Sports

Today's blog was written by Allison Griffith, a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame.  Allison is an English and Pre-professional studies major and a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion Founder Professor Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan.  Allison is also the manager on the Notre Dame Women's Basketball Team.  

Johnny is an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up playing basketball, soccer, and football for his grade school. Johnny’s sport experience thus far equates to playing with his classmates, who are now some of his best buds. He has always been talented at all three sports and enjoys playing them all, but he has recently grown to be a definite stand out on the soccer field. Together with his teammates, Johnny has even led the Perry Panthers to a few championships.

Seeing that Johnny could be a special player, Johnny’s parents learn of Elite, a club soccer program an hour from their home, which works with the most talented soccer players in the area and exposes them to other competitive clubs across the state at weekend tournaments. Johnny makes the team, and thus begins Johnny’s transition from “school athlete” to “club athlete.” Elite holds two practices a week, in addition to speed and agility training on Fridays and foot skills on Mondays. Weekends are spent at tournaments across the state filled with back-to-back games, usually 4-6 per weekend. The huge time commitment forces Johnny to quit football and basketball, his other two sports.

Johnny’s situation is all too familiar in the world of youth sports, and demonstrates the conflict of work versus play, and how this is both amplified and complicated by the popular trend of quitting school-sponsored sports and joining AAU or Club teams. At increasingly younger ages, kids are being convinced to move from playing for their school teams to playing for elite clubs that consist of rigorous, demanding schedules for both the athlete and his or her family.

What are the implications of this transition? What will happen to Johnny as he leaves his school teams to compete for Elite? It is a common situation that young athletes, particularly at the 4^th or 5^th grade level, are forced to choose between multiple sports due to the demanding schedules of one club team. Johnny was forced to quit playing football and basketball, sports that he also loved. He plays soccer 6 days of the week, sometimes all 7, and his parents spend the majority of their evenings (and practically all of their weekends) shuttling him to practices, conditioning, and games. How does this end?

Well for a few of the young club athletes, and some would even argue many, they will end up becoming solid high school athletes and maybe even be offered college scholarships. Even at the youth level, there are exposure tournaments that college scouts attend. I would argue that an athlete is definitely able to have a great high school career or even receive a scholarship without having played a club sport, but there is definitely something to be said for the higher level of competition and level of play of youth club sports that may increase the chances.

However, realistically, most of these young club athletes will not even go on to have great high-school careers. In fact, many, having had five or more years of playing a club sport, begin to grow sick of it and even end up hating the sport. Many quit playing the sport entirely before they even begin their freshman year.

The point I am trying to make, however, is not that club sports should be eliminated entirely. Done correctly, as I believe my experience was, you could maintain a healthy relationship with a sport on a club team. And it is true that an athlete can be just as apt to quit a sport having only played on school-sponsored teams. Instead, I am interested in answering, what is the point of youth sports at the grade school/middle school level? What is the meaning of sports at this age?

I believe a large part of this answer comes in discussing the difference between work and play.

Kids need to play. Besides psychological/developmental benefits, some of the best childhood memories are formed around play. Play, as Giamatti describes it, is “leisure, that is so important…because it is a form of freedom and is about making free choices” (22).  It is a space that kids can create to assert their agency, not because they are told, but because they want to. In contrast, Giamatti describes work as such: “Work is partner to duty, and brother to obligation. Work is the burden we assume, not the one we choose” (19). For kids who eventually quit his or her sport after years of rigorous club seasons, did the sport become a “burden” he or she “assumed”?

At the youth level, I would argue that many AAU and club teams promote the idea of sports as work. Think how scheduled Johnny’s life has become: he wakes up, goes to school, goes to practice, sleeps. And repeat. Add in games, conditioning, early morning foot skills, and he barely has time for anything else. Physically, Johnny often feels burnt out, and the amount he is playing puts him at a larger risk for injury. His coach seems to be more focused on results then fostering life lessons and camaraderie. He begins to miss his school buddies and winning school championships.

On the flip side, though there are exceptions to every case, I think that school-sponsored teams do a better job at keeping the importance of play in youth sports. There is something special about being able to wear your school jersey. There is something special about playing in your own school gym, changing in your own school locker-room, seeing friends and classmates at your games. With coaching, I have found that in my own experience, my youth coaches tended to integrate our practices with fun drills and positive life lessons. While winning is important, it was more about creating memories with your best friends. School-sponsored teams at the youth level ideally keep the player’s relationship with the sport a healthy one by maintaining that you are a student-athlete, and school priorities come first. Thus, the sport becomes an outlet for physical escape and a privilege, not a duty or an obligation. 

And here is where I would like to thank my parents for encouraging me to play for my school all the way through. The memories I have playing in my school gym and goofing off with my teammates and classmates are unmatched. Although I did play AAU basketball and club soccer here and there, it was kept at a healthy amount that never once made me dislike my sport. I think this is a very large part of why I played 3 Varsity sports all 4 years of high school, whereas I found most of my club friends quitting early in their high-school years.

Why should parents want their children to play sports? Hopefully it is with the intention of allowing them to do something they love, to learn lessons of discipline and hard work, to foster strategies to overcome adversity, to create lifelong memories with friends, and then to ideally win a few games while they’re at it.

Parents of kids- take notice and make sure you are not over-scheduling your children. Make sure their relationship with sports, at the youth level, is a healthy one. One that promotes play, not work. Coaches of kids- winning is fun, but having fun is also fun. Mold your mindset around the idea that these kids are kids, and they are playing. While talent and X’s and O’s are important, it is not and should not be the emphasis at this level.  

I still remember the motto of my school’s soccer team growing up which we cheered before every game and wore on the back of our warm ups:

“Play hard. Have fun. Win.”

In that order.

Causes for Concern

Today's blog was guest-written by Pete Piscitello.  Pete is the Executive Director of the CYO of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in Kansas.  They CYO-JWA is doing a new series on trouble spots in youth sports, and we hope you will find his comments interesting.  

Dear Sport Community,

As parents, we all have decisions to make when it comes to what activities our children are involved in. For the majority of Americans this includes a form of sport. The common belief is that youth sports are great for keeping kids active, encouraging social interaction and developing character. It's an easy sell since children love games and they love to run around, making youth sports an easy hit. There's also a sport for every season. Mom and Dad can keep the kids busy year round and enjoy watching their son or daughter play on the weekends. For decades it seems the cycle repeated itself: sign-up for local league, drop the kids off at practice once or twice each week, game on Saturday, rinse and repeat. The kids would reach high school and if they had the talent, continue to play. It was easy to discern we were doing right by our kids because there was not much harm in sports.

If this sounds like a story from the good old days, you should know the good old days weren't that long ago. That was my own experience in youth sports and I graduated high school in 2003.  The times have changed.

A brief history of youth sports in our country may help to provide some context when considering current issues. For  the first half of the twentieth century, youth sport was a realm dominated by lower class families and immigrants in large American cities. City tournaments were about as high profile as competition got outside of schools. Scholastic sports also gained popularity with elementary, middle and high school sports spreading. The YMCA began to offer organized programs, but suffered during the Great Depression. 

It was not until after World War II that middle and upper class families got more involved and things became competitive outside the schools. Perhaps the best known national competition, the Little League World Series was first held in 1947 (though ESPN was not around to provide national coverage). Other sports soon followed. By the 1960’s families engaged in “pay to play”, which marks the beginning of the modern era of youth sports. This mirrors the path of our own CYO, which began in earnest in 1946 under the guidance of Tom Dorney as the first full-time director of CYO. It's interesting that our local CYO was going against the grain at that time by focusing on sports that based in the schools. Many elementary school leagues closed down when confronted by “pay to play” competition and fears over the safety of sports. Regardless, by the early 1970’s our program took off and it began to resemble what you see today.

For much of the period we’re calling the modern era, youth sports were played pretty much as described above. Families began to see more and more options for their children (particularly for girls) but participation levels continued to rise and kids switched sports by the season. Leagues were usually confined to a single season, games were played within the community, and practices were limited during the week so that kids could focus on schoolwork.

As far back as the 1960’s there was a subset of the population who began to see sports as an avenue to gain admission and receive scholarships to college. That idea became more prominent during the 70’s and 80’s, but seemed to reach a different level in the 1990’s. That bred more competition among parents and children to find the best instruction or the best team to showcase talent for recruiters. Not coincidentally, it’s also during the last decade of the 20th century that the proliferation of what we now call “club” or “travel” sports began to take-off. According to The Atlantic article referenced earlier, “in 1995 the Amateur Athletic Union sponsored about 100 national championships for youth athletes; about a decade later that number had grown to over 250.” The AAU, as it is commonly known, may be the most popular long-standing example of this new frontier, but it wasn’t alone. After the explosion of youth soccer in America during the 1980’s, the club soccer model used for years in Europe and South America became more popular stateside. "Premier” teams became a common goal for ambitious youngsters. With all the elite athletes in a community on one team, those teams now had to travel to find competition. This spurred a dramatic growth in the business of weekend tournaments as a sort of local tourism industry. It seems the 1990’s brought to the forefront what we had known since the 60’s: people will pay a great deal to take part in sports. In our efforts to “get ahead”, adults had created a world where sports were no longer just a kids game. These games were big business and everyone wanted a piece.

All this brings us to our youth sports culture today. In the past decade, community based “recreation” leagues have taken a backseat to expensive club programs. School based sports are a thing of the past in many communities. For example, a standout soccer player between the ages of 15-18 is likely to never play for his or her high school team. A basketball player may play high school ball, but in most places they consider that inferior to their AAU program. That’s where the college coaches recruit anyway. But it does not just start in high school, because these things trickle down. Now the competition is fierce just to get on the high school team or their club counterpart. This has led some parents to start training their kids year-round in a specific sport as young as 3-5 years old. That child can’t tie her shoelaces, but we have already decided for her what activity she’s going to spend 40+ hours each week perfecting for the next decade…

This isn’t to suggest that today’s sports culture is all bad, far from it. For one, there are many more opportunities for participation today than there once was (even if those opportunities have a price tag). There are also some great coaches helping boys and girls grow up and build virtue, just like they always have. Yet the good stuff doesn’t need fixed, it’s the concerns that need addressed. That’s why we’re going to spend the next several weeks here on the website addressing the causes of concern in youth sports today. More importantly, we're also going to consider how we go about changing things for the better. We’ll discuss the growth of specialization, the excessive pressures placed on young athletes, the “professionalizing” of amateur athletics, rising costs and growing injury concerns. We hope to provide some possible solutions while stimulating discussion in our parishes, schools and homes. Throughout this series, be sure to get on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels to share your own experiences and join the discussion.

We all want our kids to have the best childhood possible and we want them to have fun while participating in sports. The vast majority of parents are trying to do the right thing when they make decisions on youth sports. It’s just that making the right decision today is so hard. It should not be that way. Sports should be fun for the kids involved. It should also be fun for the families who get to watch children take part with a big smile on their faces. We hope you’ll join us over the next several weeks as we dive into the concerns, questions and  solutions to assuring a great environment in youth sports!

Deflategate

The controversy surrounding the AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts is now entering the second week--and has achieved cult status with a skit on Saturday Night Live this past weekend.  Much has been made of the air pressure used in the Patriots' footballs, and for good reason.  Reports coming out of the NFL now seem to confirm that the footballs were below regulation pressure, making them easier to handle.  What remains unclear is who was responsible for the deflated balls, or what the punishment will be for the individual and/or the team. 

At this point, I should admit that the I come from a family of Patriots fans, but a teenage desire to differentiate myself from my family drove me away from the Patriots (and served to annoy my family in the process--a double win for any teenager.)  However, I watched the game this week and have been following the ensuing story with an interest in sportsmanship, and only a minor bias against my family's team.  I freely admit, as have many Colts, that the Patriots were the better team on the field last weekend, regardless of the air pressure in the footballs. 

Whether any of the Patriots players or coaches ordered their (and only their) game balls to be deflated so that they would be easier to handle or whether it was done accidentally or by a ball boy trying to help the team, the Patriots benefited from the deflated balls, and there should be some ramifications for this.  The system currently in place calls for, as I understand it, a $25,000 fine and the potential loss of a few draft picks. The fine in place is 0.5% the cost of ONE 30-second Super Bowl commercial. 

The biggest problem with the #Deflategate controversy rests with the inherent fairness of the game of football, and of other games.  Kids across the country (or at least across New England) look up to Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski and the rest of the team.  In my opinion, the Patriots played the Colts with an unfair advantage. They didn't need to, but they did anyway.  Play Like a Champion research shows that children play games because they are fun.  Adults watch games because they are fun.  A big part of the fun for kids and adults of all ages is knowing that the game is fair and governed by mutually agreed upon rules.  When the game stops being fun, children stop playing, and adults eventually stop watching. While the popularity of football won't suffer due to the current controversy (in fact, this controversy has kept the NFL in the news during what is normally a slow week,) for the game to endure, and for games to continue to be enjoyable at every level (youth, high school, college, co-rec, and professional) fair play must reign supreme.

The views in the blog are those of the author, and do not represent the views of the Play Like a Champion Today organization.  And for the record, the author still hasn't decided who to route for in the upcoming Superbowl. 

The Meaning of Sports in Birmingham

Today's blog post was written by Justin Cunningham.  Justin is a senior Finance major at the University of Notre Dame and is a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching, a course taught by Professor Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan of Play Like a Champion Today.  This spring, Justin will be assisting a local high school baseball team.

In the first week of December, football players at the University of Alabama-Birmingham received life altering news. Due to financial difficulty at the University, UAB President Ray Watts and officials in the athletic department decided to shut down the school’s football program. UAB became the first major college program to close its doors in nearly two decade.  (University of the Pacific closed in 1995.) The players did not receive much notice or explanation other than a suggestion that “the numbers didn't look right.” While the news of a Division I football program shutting down is both shocking and upsetting, it also makes me question if we have lost the real meaning of sports.

When I first read the story, I began to think of how unfortunate it was that the UAB football program was not making enough money to continue. I began to wonder how the players of the team felt that they would have to change schools to still play for NFL scouts with the hopes of getting drafted. I thought about how this would affect their chances of reaching the professional level. However, reading the players reactions made me realize that the issue was something completely different. 

Obviously, all of the players were saddened by the news. Junior offensive lineman Cameron Blankenship (#71 pictured below) recounted that “[he] has never seen so many grown men cry in [his] life.” From the freshman to the seniors, the news that they could no longer play for the university they chose to attend and play for did not go over well. Tristan Henderson (#88 pictured below), a senior tight end refused to hold his opinions to himself. Henderson was furious that the decision was made for financial reasons. As a former MP in the Army who did a tour in Iraq, Henderson is one of the older leaders on the team at age 26. He told a story of not knowing how to answer his 3-year-old sons question of what they were doing with the program. He continued by voicing his concerns for the younger players on the team. As a senior, he would not have a future playing at UAB either way. However, he felt for the young players that are only 17 or 18 years old and traveled thousands of miles from home to join the UAB program. Listening to the passion in his objection, you start to realize that is was not about the money for the players. They were still promised their scholarships, but football and UAB meant more to them than free schooling. Blankenship recalled that “the one thing that got to everybody was when he told [them] that he cared more about UAB than [they] did.” It was never about numbers for the players. It was about playing the game and being a part of the team they have come to love.

                                   

This story brings up an important problem in the world of athletics today. The presence of financial benefits and profit in sports has sullied its true meaning. Sports are not about making money. Of course, it is a career in the world today. However, the essence of sports is the joy that athletes take in playing. The essence of sports is about being a part of something bigger and greater than yourself. It’s about coming together as a team and competing, growing, and improving. That is all that these players wanted. As Henderson asserted, “some of these [players] came from 3,000 miles miles away and came right here to be a part of this. To be a part of all of this.” 

It was never about the money for these players. Obviously the scholarships mean a lot to the athletes, but they play football because it’s a game they love. By canceling the UAB football program, players were forced to change schools or surrender something they love. Blankenship explained that “football is [his] life, and it’s been [his] life for a very, very long time.” While he recognized that he owes a lot to UAB for helping him become the man he is, he “couldn’t live with [himself] if [he] didn't play [his] senior year somewhere.” Blankenship, like many of his teammates, must leave his school and home to continue playing the sport he loves. We may have lost what playing a sport truly means to these athletes. 

Parental Support Is Key

Today's blog post was written by Anthony Rabasa.  Anthony is a senior Film, Television, Theater major at the University of Notre Dame, and is a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion founder Professor Clark Power and Program Director Kristin Sheehan.  Anthony is also a defensive lineman on the University's football team. 

It is very easy in today’s sports world to get caught up with winning and reaching goals. I believe that it is important for parents and coaches to know that when a young athlete is competing, the most important thing to them is that they just have fun. Thinking back to my own experience, I remember when I first began playing football. I would look forward to Saturday mornings because I knew it was game day and at the time, playing football was--and continues to be--one of the more fun experiences I have ever had.

When parents get too involved in a young athlete's development on the playing field, I believe it takes a personal toll on the athlete. Parents must let the coaches and athletes work together to improve in certain areas where the athlete needs improvement. My parents never really got involved with my coaches when I was a growing youth athlete, but they were always there to support me in my role. Naturally you want your child to be a superstar and have them always excelling on the playing fields. However, this is not always the case.  Even if the young athlete is not the play-maker or the superstar, he or she is still a valuable contributor to the team simply because they’re on the team. Telling a young athlete that he or she is doing well on the playing field will encourage them to do better.  I have found that this is especially true if the parent continues to tell their children that they are getting better every single day.  Speaking from experience, this really does go a long way.

Photo Credit: Columbus High School Football Team, Miami, FL

 If you were to take a close look into high school football playoffs, which are just wrapping up across the country, you can see a lot of examples of a parental relationships with athletes. My high school, which this year's state runner-up. Many things came to my mind when I began to think about my high school program. I happened to stumble upon an article on my high school home page, and it talked about how parents, and the crowd in general, at the semi-final game were outstanding. My alma mater was down 13 points at halftime, but the crowd remained calm and did not let a second go by without motivating my old team. I believe this is a great example of parents and a community coming together to motivate a team that has come so far and has made the community around them believe that they can win any game. That right there is a key component to winning, and that’s exactly what my team did. 

Florida State Academic Intgrity in Question

Today's blog was written by Jeni Houser.  Jeni is a senior American Studies major at the University of Notre Dame and a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion Today founder Professor Clark Power and Program Director Kristin Sheehan.  Jeni is also a middle blocker on the Notre Dame Volleyball Team. 

Academic dishonesty has been a common theme in sports for the past year now, and it continues to come up in relation to the current football season.  Florida State is not the only college facing accusations this season. My own university, Notre Dame, recently expelled five football players for the entire year because of academic dishonesty. For a few of them, this expulsion marks the end of their college career because they ran out of eligibility.   Now the University of North Carolina is under investigation for years of academic fraud on a massive scale. Florida State has also been in the news recently, and JameisWinston may or may not be the problem this time.

Notre Dame suffered a heartbreaking loss against the defending national champions this fall, but in my opinion, we handled the tough situation with class and dignity and that is why the University is so widely respected. In an article on the current situation at Florida State, however, a professor from Florida State (and an admitted fan) questioned the morals of his university’s academic code.

In his essay, the professor proceeded to tell readers that players and athletics staffers would threaten professors to pass the players so they would be eligible to play in the bowl game and upcoming season. These professors were occasionally scared for their lives when backed into a corner by players who supersede their strength and size. In the Play Like a Coaching manual it would seem that the Florida State Coaching staff is teaching players how to be bad role models, as opposed to teaching them the significance of getting an education and that everything on the field should come with time. Though winning may be the most important aspect to many of why we play and watch sports, nothing is more significant than the dignity that one will walk away with win or lose. I believe that Notre Dame is able to walk away from a win or loss with their heads held high because we are well respected for being the bigger team at the end of the day. 

A Note to Parents

Today's blog was written by Austin Wuthrich. Austin is a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching, a course taught by Play Like a Champion Today Director Professor Clark Power and Kristin Sheehan.  Austin is a senior double major in sociology and computer applications, and is a right-wing on the Notre Dame Hockey team.

Dear Parents,

We know that you love your young athletes. This is a note of advice based on my experience as an athlete.  

Please do not ruin your kid’s relationship with you and with their sport by having unrealistic expectations.  

All parents want the best for their kid.  Parents want their children to achieve their full potential in whatever they are doing in life.  This is natural, and great.  However, there are certain ways to handle these expectations, hopes, and dreams for your kids and one of them is by being supportive and understanding of your child.  

Many parents want their kids to be the super-star, and some make it very clear that their kid is more important than another athlete.  As an athlete, I've found that these parents are difficult because they are always nagging the coaches or other athletes, which can cause a lot of drama that the team does not need.  Another result of this constant nagging is that children can begin to resent their parents if they are always yelling or trying to control the coach behind the scenes.  I've seen it happen too many times--from my days on pee wee hockey teams to elite national teams.

Parents need to have realistic expectations of what their young athlete’s capabilities are.  This idea of a son/daughter becoming the next superstar in their sport is such an exhilarating thought but it can permanently damage the relationship with the child in question.  This is for many reasons, but in my opinion it is mostly because the parent will never be satisfied with their child's performance and forget that they are just kids having fun.  Parents should be having fun watching their kid having fun and should be supportive of what their children are doing.  

Parents, please remember that athletes are often most vulnerable right after a game.  Therefore, the things that parents say to their athlete on the car ride home from a game can be remembered for a long time.  This is why parents must always remember that they are their child's support system and what they say and do can affect a kid’s future (athletic or otherwise) more than anything else.  Please remember that great memories for both parents and their little athletes can be made through their athletics, so make sure all those memories are positive by being supportive and realistic.  Finally, parents, please know that even though your young athletes don't always express their gratitude for this support, we are all very grateful for everything you do to help us along the way.

Austin Wuthrich on the ice.
Photo Credit 247 Sports, CBS.