PACT Trainer Inverviewed About Motivating Scholarship Athlete

Max Trenerry is a trainer for PLC's partner program Parents and Coaches Together (PACT) in the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association. In a recent interview with CBS local station WCCO, Max shared the PLC-PACT philosophy and how it helped him coach, University of Minnesota athlete, Stephanie Brandt.

Trenerry effectively sums up the three C's of the PACT progam: "student athletes need three essential things to be happy in their sports: a choice in which activities in which they participate, a sense of accomplishment [competence], and a sense of being cared about. That means screaming parents on the sidelines or a focus on performance above all else, can lead to burnout."

For the video of the interview click on the link below:

http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=63909@wcco.dayport.com

New Blog Address

The Play Like A Champion Today Blog has moved to its new home at www.playlikeachampion.org/blog/. We began our blogging experiment in 2008 to see if there would be any interest in reading about our program and its partners on the web. We found that there was quite a bit of interest and that we should integrate it into our own website. Return here or add us to your RSS Feed to read about the growth and success of the PLC program and its partners as well as relevant news from around the country.

The Irish Win the Championship!

The Irish baseball team consisting of eleven 10-12 year old South Bend boys made their “professional” debut at the 4th Annual Play Like A Champion Today™ conference as they models for what a Play Like A Champion team-building session looks like. The team worked together, not just physically to build their baseball skills, but they learned how to emotionally support each teammate and morally how to treat opponents and officials. The result was the South Bend Clay Park League Championship. Congratulations to the Irish and their coaches, Dan Sheehan, Dave Deahl and Nick Mahoor. The team’s motto was “We Play Like Champions.”

Sport is just the bait...

The following quote from the former director of the CYO West Side Center in Chicago taken from Roger Treat's Bishop Sheil and the CYO (1951) says so much about what we do at Play Like A Champion Today.

"One thing, however, has to be made clear on these programs. I think a lot of good efforts are wasted because nobody knows this quite like Bishop Sheil knows is - that sport is not the whole answer, sport is just the bait. You can't throw a football down in a crowd of young hoodlums, walk away, and expect them to be good citizens. They've got to have directions and instruction, and you must use sport to get their interest and their respect. Then it isn't so hard to make them see that it's smart to be a right guy."

- E. A. Giovangelo, Director CYO West Side Center, 1950

Bishop Bernard J. Sheil founded the original Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) in 1930 to keep young people from joining gangs and becoming criminals. Bishope Sheil felt that by creating the CYO, he could give young men and women new idols/heroes to take the place of gang bosses like Al Capone, "Bugs" Moran, and "Machine-Gun Jack" McGurn.

One More Week Until the PLC Leadership Conference!

The Play Like A Champion Today™ Leadership Conference is just one week away! The PLC Team is working round the clock to prepare for this signature event. With nearly 100 participants attending this year, we are proud to have representatives from youth and high school sports programs from all over the United States and Canada.

This year 14 Catholic CYO/parochial leagues are represented including PLC Partners Kansas City Parochial League, Fort Worth Christian Football League, Seattle CYO, CYO of Nassau-Suffolk, the Northwest Indiana CYO, Dallas Parochial League, the Los Angeles CYO and the Niagara Catholic District School Board as well as new representatives from the Corpus Christi Parochial Sports League, Indianapolis CYO, Orange County Parochial Athletic League, Pensacola Catholic Youth Sports League, Valley Catholic Sports Program, and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. High School administrators, athletic directors and coaches will be travelling from Atlanta, Auburn (ME), Brownsville, Chicago, Denver, Erie (PA), Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Mishawaka (IN), Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, and Zanesville (OH). In addition representatives from Catholic parochial schools will be attending the Youth Sports as Ministry program from 12 different cities.

Visit www.playlikeachampion.org/events/conference.html for more details about the conference and a full listing of seminars and speakers.

Fair Trade Sports

Scott, James, a Notre Dame alum, has developed an exciting new organization called Fair Trade Sports. Fair Trade Sports, Inc is the first sports equipment company in the US to launch a full line of eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls, ensuring fair wages and healthy working conditions for the adult workers who make the products. They offer an online retail store and wholesale store and sweatshop-free apparel. The company is committed to donate all profits after taxes to children’s charities, both domestic and international.

Check them out: http://fairtradesports.com/

Playing Sports to Pay for College

On Saturday, April 25, 2009 ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft reached a new record of 36.7 million viewers. The coverage showed a number of elite athletes, their families and friends receive phone calls from coaches and agents welcoming them to their new teams (and their multi-million dollar deals). It was a dream come true for these men.

Setting goals and having dreams are essential to building confidence in young athletes. Parents and coaches should certainly encourage young athletes to pursue their dreams no matter how difficult it may seem. The story of Rudy Ruettiger, featured in the motion picture “Rudy,” is an excellent example of a young athlete who never lost track of his dream no matter what other people said. However, in the film Rudy acknowledged the hard work it would take to achieve his dream and persevered through endless amounts of adversity.

Unfortunately, parents often may have their own unrealistic hopes and dreams for their young athletes. The thought of a college scholarship to pay for college is enticing and can cause parents to expect their children to be able to pay for college through their athletic abilities. So what are the odds? According to some research posted by the NCAA, playing sports after high school is not easy. The NFL Draft represented about 0.08% of the high school athletes that go on to play professional football. Only 5.7% of the high school football players will go on to play NCAA football, which is significantly higher than any other sport. Of the men’s high school basketball players, only 3.0% will play in the NCAA and only 0.03% will play in the NBA. Women’s basketball had the lowest percentage at 0.02% in the WNBA. Even those that do go on to play NCAA are not guaranteed a full-ride. The average NCAA athletic scholarship is $10,409 ($8,707 excluding football and basketball) according to a recent New York Times article. According to the article, in 2003-2004 NCAA institutions gave athletic scholarships to about 2% of the 6.4 million high school students playing sports. The reality is that the revenue-producing sports like football and basketball receive more scholarship than other NCAA sports (average of 85 football scholarships vs. 10 soccer scholarships for teams of 25-30 players). So even if an athlete is able to earn an athletic scholarship, it is not always likely to pay for their entire tuition.

The value of playing sports, particularly at a young age, extends well beyond any monetary reward. Children consistently say that they play sports to have fun not earn a reward. One of the most important impressions parents and coaches can make on young athletes, is to encourage intrinsic motivation. Rudy persevered because he was motivated “from within” rather than by external reward. In the same way, parents should help their children develop the confidence to reach personal goals rather than comparing themselves to others or providing some external reward (money, popularity, fame, etc.). Intrinsic motivation is what PLC calls “Champion-centered” motivation.

PLC Video on You Tube

We have posted the introduction chapter of our workshop video on YouTube. Check it out:

A Season to Celebrate! Holy Family Football Goes to Disney

The coaches at Holy Family have really taught these kids how to Play Like Champions!!




"The coaching philosophy behind "Play Like A Champion Today" has helped to define the purpose behind Holy Family's coaches' reason for coaching-it is about the kids. Because of this, each player on the team plays all positions and there are no individual stars. Each player is a star. Positive reinforcement and attention to Christian values were displayed at all games and practiced by players, coaches and parents alike."
- Joe Thompson, Coach of the Holy Family 4th Grade Flag Football Team


Joe, his fellow coaches, and his boys compete in the Orlando Catholic Youth League. The CYL of Orlando became partners with PLC in 2008. The CYL promotes the values of teamwork, sportsmanship, fair play, and equal playing time for the youth of Central Florida Catholic Schools. Find out more about their sports program at http://www.catholicyouthleague.org/.

What do kids say about winning?

Summary of article by Sherry Labyer, The Duncan Banner, Okla., February 22, 2009

According to a survey Baylor University’s Health, Human Performance and Recreation Department conducted among kids at the lowest levels of youth sports, “fun” is the primary reason most young athletes play sports. This survey, distributed to 6000 youth sports participants revealed that while 62% of respondents said that they mainly played sports “to have fun,” only 2% identified “to succeed or win” as the most important reason they play sports. Competition proved the least common motivator among this age group, ranking at the bottom of the seven responses given in the survey, behind “To be with their friends" (11 percent), "To make new friends" (10 percent), "To become physically fit" (7 percent), "To improve their skills" and "To learn new skills.”

The Baylor survey results may shed some light on other studies conducted by the Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sports in Society and the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University. These studies show that among kids who began playing sports by age 8, 42% have stopped playing by age 16. Teenagers offer a variety of reasons for leaving athletics, but these studies indicate that 50% of respondents say they stopped playing sports because “It’s not fun anymore.”

Sherry Labyer’s article identifies the “fun” correlation between the two studies and exhorts parents and coaches to ensure that children gain positive attributes from youth sports. She reminds parents that emphasizing winning at a young age is counterproductive and can lead to feelings of failure an adequacy that can spill over into other areas of life. She encourages parents instead to focus on supporting young athletes, their teammates, and coaches, developing skills, and promoting sportsmanship. Similarly, Labyer argues that coaches should not focus on winning games, but rather on ensuring that kids gain positive attributes from sports, and that they have fun and want to continue playing. Kids can see the sports aren’t all about winning, Labyer claims, adults should too.